Past Grants

Chris Beck will lead an effort to explore how the United States could best recover from long-duration power outages that could result from a severe cyberattack, an electromagnetic pulse event, or other causes. He will lead a team of experts to identify the upgrades needed to enable a restart of the national electric grid after such events. The project’s findings will be presented in an operational handbook as well as related articles and briefings.

Monica de Bolle and Jeromin Zettelmeyer will research and write a book exploring the rise of economic nationalism and the challenge it poses to policy frameworks grounded in free markets and globalization. They will undertake twelve to fifteen case studies of countries that adopted strategies based on economic nationalism during the past ninety years. They will describe the components of these economic strategies, examine economic data and analyses of the resulting economic performance, and interview scholars, officials, and experts familiar with the cases.

Daniel Kreisman and Shaun Dougherty will direct the research program of a policy lab focused on career and technical education (CTE) programs. They will use data from Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, and a number of school districts in Georgia to explore questions related to the effectiveness of school-based CTE programs and the elements of successful CTE programs. The project’s findings will appear in a series of papers, reports, and shorter policy briefs.

William Glasgall will lead an effort to encourage state governments to adopt responsible fiscal practices. He will build partnerships with scholars at twelve universities across the country to review the budgets of all fifty states annually. They will examine how states use revenue forecasting; the use of one-time fiscal solutions, such as asset sales, to balance budgets; public employee pension funding; the maintenance of rainy day funds; and the extent to which budgetary information is easily accessible to the public. The project’s findings will appear in an annual survey of state fiscal practices and a series of single-issue reports.

Richard Katz will research and write a book exploring whether policy reforms to foster entrepreneurship and new business formation can help revitalize Japan’s economy. He will conduct field work in Japan, Germany, and the United States and analyze primary and secondary source materials from Japan and the United States.

Alice Lyman Miller will edit and publish the China Leadership Monitor. The publication will track China’s leadership politics in seven areas: foreign policy, military affairs, economic affairs, political reform, Communist party affairs, center-provincial relations, and relations among the United States, China, and Taiwan.

Beth Simmons will assess the efficacy of law enforcement and prevention as policy tools to combat human trafficking. She will analyze a data set on human trafficking completed by the U.S. government, the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations. She will use the data set to test whether legal and policy reforms affected the activities of human trafficking networks.

James Poterba and Edward Glaeser will direct a research agenda designed to improve the ability of U.S. policymakers to identify infrastructure investments that can increase economic growth. They will commission work that seeks to measure the social returns of infrastructure investment, assess the effectiveness of infrastructure spending as a tool to increase economic growth, and examine the cost drivers of infrastructure projects. The project’s findings will appear in a series of papers and reports.