Colleen Heflin and Michah Rothbart, professor and assistant professor, respectively, of public administration and international affairs, have received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to research the relationship between student participation in the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and school readiness. The results of the study will help the USDA understand both the effectiveness and efficiency of the SNAP program.

According to Stuart Rosenthal, professor and chair of economics, market-rate housing filters down at a rate of almost 2 percent per year—fast enough to make a big difference. Housing filters fastest in the middle of the country, but it filters down on the expensive coasts, too, he found. 

Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion, explains how Trump overperformed in places with high rates of drug use, suicide, and family distress. According to Monnat, Trump's message of economic nationalism and promises to bring back manufacturing jobs resonated with people in these areas who felt left behind by globalization and the decline of traditional industries.

"The workforce is not going to be as dynamic as other parts of the country," says Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs. "It's going to be a pull on our economy going forward," because children growing up in poverty traditionally have lower educational attainment and wages.

"The unemployment rate has been low for some months now (relative to the recent past), but there has not been noticeable pressure on wages," says Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, professor of economics.

"If President Trump really wants to cut taxes on capital gains, he should go to Congress with a plan to do so directly, and not through a poorly designed back-door regulatory scheme," writes Leonard Burman, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs.

A study co-authored by Stuart Rosenthal, "The vertical city: Rent gradients, spatial structure, and agglomeration economies," was published in the Journal of Urban Economics and is featured in the CityLab article, "Cities and the Vertical Economy."

“This excellent team offers an exciting opportunity to make real progress in reducing achievement gaps for disadvantaged students by identifying ways to increase access to high-quality education,” says Amy Ellen Schwartz, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Chair of Public Affairs. She is part of the team that received a five year, $10 million DOE grant.