Research
CPR's Aging Studies Program encompasses a range of activities including externally-funded research projects in the economics, demography, and sociology of aging. Funds provided by the national Institute on Aging have supported research on retirement migration, the relationship between body size and functioning at older ages, methods for projecting the health and well-being of the older population in the future, and long-term care arrangements. The Program has also developed an array of Internet-based resources for use in gerontological education. Research support has been provided by the National Science foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, TIAA-CREF, the Social Security Administration, and other sources.
Broadly speaking, econometrics aims to give empirical content to economic relations for testing economic theories, forecasting, decision making, and for ex post decision/policy analysis (Geweke, Howoritz, and Pesaran 2007). Much of the econometrics methodology research in CPR focuses on methods using panel data, which refers to the pooling of observations on a cross-section of households, countries, firms, etc. over several time periods.
This includes research on children of immigrants, bilingualism, and educational inequalities; the impact that school and peer characteristics have on both immediate and long-run academic performance, including test scores and college graduation; and the effect of large changes in school racial composition on neighborhood racial composition and housing prices. The Education Finance and Accountability Program (EFAP) explores the design of equitable school finance formulas and property tax relief programs, the impact of whole school reforms on student performance, determinants of educational costs and school district efficiency, identification of low-performing schools, potential cost savings from school district consolidation, and the impacts of school integration on educational costs. Recent sponsors include the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation, the Research Foundation of the State of New York (SUNY), and the Smith Richardson Foundation.
Externally funded research projects play a major role at the Center.
CPR continues its traditional focus on public finance, studying the structure of national tax systems, inter-governmental grants, municipal bond rating and credit analysis, measures of city fiscal conditions, property tax reform, federal tax policy, and budget reform. Funding in this area derives from the National Science Foundation, the WE Upjohn Institute, state government agencies, and other sources.
Topics of research include policies involving government disability benefits programs, particularly benefits to low-income children with health problems; low-income families, particularly the choices made by adolescents, and public policies designed to assist this population; and the impact of HIV/AIDS on middle-aged people's work, health, family, and social lives. Funding for this research comes from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Aging, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America.
The Upstate Health Research Network (UHRN) was formed in Fall 2009 to conduct research on fair and accurate health insurance reimbursement rates. Its first project is headquartered at CPR. UHRN is funded by FairHealth, a new nonprofit agency tasked by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo with selling a database that health insurers buy to determine what to reimburse patients who go out-of-network to get their medical care.
Topics of research have included state economic development, ways to nurture and reward entrepreneurial innovation, the determinants of industry location, and city growth, as well as the impact of mortgage borrowing constraints on homeownership opportunities. A recent project looks at the impact of property rights management on the occupational risks within United States crab fisheries. Support for these studies has come from the Kauffman Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Urban Institute, and other sources.