Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword
October 24, 2023
Chairman Smith, Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and distinguished members of theSubcommittee on Work and Welfare, thank you for the opportunity to testify on povertymeasurement. My name is Kevin Corinth, and I am a Senior Fellow and the Deputy Director ofthe Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute. Thistestimony reflects my…
October 24, 2023
Chairman Smith, Subcommittee Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am Bruce Meyer, McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. My 40-year-long research agenda has focused on the accuracy of government data; I have served on multiple…
October 24, 2023
Discussions of the ill effects of public housing, urban renewal, and urban freeways usually focus on big cities: the Chicago-lakefront hellhole called the Robert Taylor Homes, now-demolished; Robert Moses’s Cross-Bronx Expressway, which tore through the heart of that borough; the brutalist Boston Government Center, which replaced the vibrant Scollay Square. But a moving new exhibit…
October 23, 2023
A few years ago, David Brooks wrote a column in which he took a friend without a high school degree to a sandwich shop. “Suddenly,” he recounted, “I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named ‘Padrino’ and ‘Pomodoro’ and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked…
October 23, 2023
Abstract We analyse whether US federal aid to state and local governments impacted economic activity through either direct or cross-state spillover effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Deploying an instrumental-variables framework rooted in the funding advantage of states that are over-represented in Congress, we find that federal assistance had significantly less impact on state and local…
October 23, 2023
A carbon tax is considered by most economists to be the most efficient and effective way to reduce carbon emissions. However, a long-standing political challenge to a carbon tax is the perception that it would disproportionately burden low- and middle-income households relative to high-income households. Many analysts and lawmakers have proposed using carbon tax revenues…
October 20, 2023
For a long time, advocates and policymakers in the higher education space were fixated on improving “access” to higher education. As a society, we recognized that higher education was a powerful tool for promoting social mobility, and helping people born into lower-income households advance financially and pursue fulfilling careers. We also realized that higher education…
October 20, 2023
In the Fortune article below Shawn Tully discusses the resurgence of the Midwest’s housing market with Ed Pinto, the Director of AEI’s Housing Center. According to American Enterprise Institute data, eight of the nine cities achieving the highest appreciation in housing prices for the 12 months ended Aug. 31 hail from the Midwest. In the pandemic-driven housing…
October 18, 2023
In a recent article for The Atlantic, former AEI president Arthur Brooks makes the case that to prevent burnout at work we need to create “meaningful boundaries” between work and the rest of our lives. As usual, Brooks has excellent advice about how to navigate life’s trenches and stay motivated and happy. Yet there is one piece missing: encouraging reflection on what drives us, what makes us tick,…
October 17, 2023
COSM scholars and AEI affiliates include some of the nation’s foremost experts on poverty measurement. On October 17, COSM gathered several of these scholars to provide a primer on opportunity in the United States. Angela Rachidi began by exploring the meaning of poverty, outlining the most fundamental decisions in measuring it and describing how different…