Urban and Regional Studies
Gary Engelhardt conducts research on the economics of aging, household saving, employer-provided pensions, Social Security, taxation, and housing markets. He is currently studying the impact of pensions, Social Security, and Medicare on the retirement saving and income security of older Americans. In addition to this work, he is evaluating the impact of housing and saving policies targeted to low-income households and the impact of population aging on housing markets.
Jeff Kubik’s interests are in public finance and labor economics. His work examines how tax and disability policies affect the labor market. His recent work involves the economic effects of tax reform, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, unemployment insurance and related policy areas.
Jan Ondrich (along with Mary Lovely and graduate student Xuepeng Liu) have been studying foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, which they describe in two recent papers. This research tests whether foreign firms investing in China choose to invest in the provinces with the lowest wages, all else equal. Past research has found that firms in fact choose the provinces with higher wages, all else equal. This makes little economic sense. The reason for these incorrect findings in past research is that relevant production variables positively related to wages are unobserved in the data; for example, access to roads, infrastructure, and electric power. The econometric technique that they use to estimate explicitly takes into account that these relevant variables have not been accounted for. They are the first research team to get the correct result by taking into account the presence of the unobserved relevant variables. Thus, they get the result that makes sense. A second paper, also presents a statistical simulation that looks at the likely redistribution of foreign direct investment in China if the Chinese government had subsidized wages in the mostly rural provinces with poor access to roads, infrastructure, and electric power. Surprisingly, ony a relatively small subsidy would be needed to have a large relative effect on the redistribution of foreign direct investment.
David Popp is an economist with research interests in environmental policy and the economics of technological change. Much of his research focuses on the links between environmental policy and innovation. He is particularly interested in how environmental and energy policies shape the development of new technologies that may be relevant for combating climate change. Since coming to CPR, his research includes projects studying the role of international technology transfer in the adoption of environmental technologies and on the sources of R&D funding for environmental technologies. He is also part of an NSF-funded research team studying how climate and R&D policy should account for uncertain returns to R&D investments.
Stuart Rosenthal His research is in the area of Urban Economics, State and Local Public Economics, Real Estate Finance and Housing. This includes work on a wide range of housing and mortgage issues, the determinants of urban renewal and decay, the role of agglomeration economies, where companies locate, and entrepreneurship.
For more information about CPR programs and research projects, contact Peggy Austin. You may also obtain general information about CPR by calling +1 315-443-3114, or by sending an email to ctrpol@syr.edu.