Search Results
Discussion Paper
Waiting for Recovery: New York Schools and the Aftermath of the Great Recession
A key institution that was significantly affected by the Great Recession is the school system, which plays a crucial role in building human capital and shaping the country’s economic future. To prevent major cuts to education, the federal government allocated $100 billion to schools as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), commonly known as the stimulus package. However, the stimulus has wound down while many sectors of the economy are still struggling, leaving state and local governments with budget squeezes. In this post, we present some key findings on how ...
Journal Article
Agricultural Consolidation: Causes and the Path Forward: Agricultural Symposium 2017
The agricultural economy, both in the U.S. and internationally, continues to adjust to the sharp drop in commodity prices and profit margins from those of just a few years ago. The reduction in prices and profits has led farm producers, agribusinesses, and agricultural lenders to consider fundamental changes to their business models to maintain competitiveness, improve efficiency, and position their businesses for long-term growth. These decisions, however, require a pragmatic recognition of a new commodity price landscape, resulting in strategic realignments and consolidation across the ...
Discussion Paper
The Class of 2015 Might Have a Little Better Luck Finding a Good Job
With the college graduation season well under way, a new crop of freshly minted graduates is entering the job market and many bright young minds are hoping to land a good first job. It?'s no wonder if they are approaching the job hunt with some trepidation. For a number of years now, recent college graduates have been struggling to find good jobs. However, the labor market for college graduates is improving. After declining for nearly two years, openings for jobs requiring a college degree have picked up since last summer. Not only has this increase in the demand for educated workers ...
Discussion Paper
Did School Districts Offset State Education Funding Cuts?
It’s well known that the Great Recession led to a massive reduction in state government revenues, in spite of the federal government’s attempt to ease budget tightening through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aid to states. School districts rely heavily on aid from higher levels of government for their funding, and, even with the federal stimulus, total aid to school districts declined sharply in the post-recession years. But the local school budget process gives local residents and school districts a powerful tool to influence school spending. In this post, we summarize our recent ...
Discussion Paper
Who is More Likely to Default on Student Loans?
This post seeks to understand how educational characteristics (school type and selectivity, graduation status, major) and family background relate to the incidence of student loan default. Student indebtedness has grown substantially, increasing by 170 percent between 2006 and 2016. In addition, the fraction of students who default on those loans has grown considerably. Of students who left college in 2010 and 2011, 28 percent defaulted on their student loans within five years, compared with 19 percent of those who left school in 2005 and 2006. Since defaulting on student loans can have ...
Discussion Paper
Human Capital and Education in Puerto Rico
Educational attainment is an important element of human capital; however a series of recent papers highlights the crucial role of the quality of education?which determines the skills actually learned, rather than the number of years spent in a classroom?as a main driver of growth. In fact, Hanushek and Woessmann argue that the importance of more appropriately measuring skills is seen in the very tight relationship between quality of skills, or knowledge capital, and growth. Moreover, the researchers state, ?The knowledge capital?growth relationship suggests little mystery for East Asia, Latin ...
Journal Article
The “Normal” Normal: Supply and Demand Drivers over the Next 10 Years : Agricultural Symposium 2019
A growing population, evolving food and fuel consumption, and trade with China and other parts of the world will all influence U.S. agriculture over the next decade.
Discussion Paper
How Did Education Financing in New Jersey’s Abbott Districts Fare during the Great Recession?
In the state of New Jersey, any child between the ages of five and eighteen has the constitutional right to a thorough and efficient education. The state also has one of the country’s most rigid policies regarding a balanced budget. When state and local revenues took a big hit in the most recent recession, officials had to make tough decisions about education spending. In this post, we analyze education financing and spending in two groups of high-poverty districts during the Great Recession and the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) federal stimulus period—the Abbott ...
Journal Article
Agriculture in a Global Economy: 2018 Agricultural Symposium
Similar to other segments of the economy, the agricultural sector is increasingly global. In some regions, the production of food and agricultural products has advanced well beyond what is required for consumption within that region. In other areas, agricultural production is more limited. The persistent gap between regions of excess and regions of scarcity has led to an increasing reliance on agricultural trade as global populations and incomes rise, but recent months have also pointed to increased uncertainty about the future of trade and implications for agriculture. Similarly, the ...
Discussion Paper
The Changing Higher Education Landscape
The past decade and a half has seen dramatic changes in the higher education landscape, characterized by significant growth in enrollment. This growth has been concentrated mostly in for-profit schools, where enrollment skyrocketed in the first decade of the period, nearly quadrupling between 2000 and 2011. The post-2011 period has been marked by an abatement of this growth. These patterns have strong implications not only for the higher education market but also for the labor force and the economy more broadly. Therefore, it is essential to understand the evolution of the different sectors ...