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Robert M. La Follette
School of Public Affairs
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706

Telephone:  608.262.3581
Fax: 608.265.3233


Last updated:
October 19, 2007

© 2006 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

La Follette School News

 

Student association plans to connect students

The La Follette School Student Association has many activities on tap with an eye toward getting new students involved in the school's social life and connected to resources at the school, university and community.

The school expects about 55 students to arrive by the time classes start on Tuesday, September 4.

"Several incoming students joined us on some of our summer outings," says Jennie Mauer, LSSA's social committee chair. "We've had fun getting to know each other before classes start."

With the school's formal orientation starting Monday, August 27, LSSA's officers decided to incorporate a few more social events before and after, Fontaine says. "This program is a community, and we wanted help build that community among new students and others in the program right from the start."

This year the school is giving the assessment exam before the rest of orientation gets underway. LSSA and professor Karen Holden are hosting a potluck at Holden's home the night before. "Last year's exam was stressful for our class, and we want to provide an opportunity for the new class to learn about the exam and relax before they take it," says Fontaine.

Second-year students will participate in discussions during orientation, which is August 28-29. LSSA held a pub crawl, plans a textbook exchange and is organizing community volunteer projects and a picnic.

“LSSA is giving lots of options for people to get to know each other, with opportunities for people to volunteer and eat together,” Mauer says. “We want to meet the needs of our diverse student body. Everyone should find a way to connect with each other, by bringing their families to the picnic, attending the potluck or getting a deal on a textbook.”

— posted August 21, 2007

La Follette students' capstone report informs request for proposals

A report by La Follette School students informed a request for proposals for the state of Wisconsin to purchase renewable energy. The Wisconsin Department of Administration released the request in June.

The students produced the report, Complying with Act 141: Renewable Electricity Consumption at State Facilities, for the Public Affairs Workshop, Domestic Issues taught by associate professor Donald Moynihan.

Under the 2005 Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Act, six Wisconsin agencies must purchase 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by December 2007 and 20 percent by 2011.

“The La Follette School report helped inform and confirm what we were doing,” says Rob Cramer, the former State Building Commission secretary and Division of State Facilities administrator who worked with the La Follette students on the report.
Now assistant chancellor for administrative services at University of Wisconsin-Platteville, he is a 1992 alum of the La Follette School.

Bureau of Procurement officials at the Wisconsin Department of Administration have evaluated the graded the proposals and are now entering the negotiation phase, which should be completed in December.

The six state agencies purchasing the renewable energy include the Department of Administration, Department of Corrections, Department of Health and Family Services, Department of Public Instruction, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin. The request includes providing renewable electricity for the agencies’ offices, the campuses and facilities across the state.

— posted August 16, 2007

Chinn discounts threat on China's currency

Public affairs professor Menzie Chinn does not see much reason to worry about a threat laid out in a piece published in the state-run China Daily.

The article by researcher He Fan hints that China could choose to sell off much of its $407 billion in U.S. Treasuries if the United States pushes China too much to increase the value of the yuan against the U.S. dollar, the Washington Post reports August 9.

“If China were to execute the so-called nuclear option, by dumping U.S. currency and lowering the value of the dollar, it would hurt its own pocketbook because it is such a large investor. ‘There would be turmoil in the financial markets,’ said Menzie D. Chinn, professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin. ‘It's not really a credible threat,’” the Post reports.

— posted August 7, 2007

Students run buns off in 5K

The La Follette School picked up new recruits for the incoming class this summer, a trio of the Milwaukee Brewers racing sausages.

Cinco, Frankie Furter and Guido became interested in public affairs after meeting four second-year students from La Follette at a run/walk fund-raiser for Milwaukee Brewer Charities.

Adam Lee, Jennie Mauer, Elizabeth Zeman and Liz Drilias ran the 5-kilometer race on July 21. The event raised $55,000 for Brewer Charities, which will distribute the funds in Milwaukee and Wisconsin to support youth recreation and education.

“Those four sure aren't wienies,” Cinco, a chorizo, says. “Why, they'd give us a run for our condiments any day.”

The three sausages declined to comment on whether they would attend any of the picnics or potlucks being held in conjunction with the La Follette School's orientation for new students.

— posted August 7, 2007

La Follette student's project briefs legislators on university budget

A policy brief by a 2007 alum of the La Follette School is providing background and analysis to Wisconsin legislators as they debate the University of Wisconsin System budget.

Kate Clark developed the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education brief based on work she did in the Public Budgeting course taught by Associate Professor Donald Moynihan.

The brief urges Wisconsin legislators to be aware that state funding, adjusted for inflation, for the University of Wisconsin System has declined since 2000. The state’s university system increasingly draws a larger percentage of its funding from non-state sources.

“Legislators should be concerned that a smaller percentage of state funding goes to the university system because most other revenue sources have limits on how the funds can be spent,” says Clark, who just started a job as a health-policy analyst with the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C. “That means tuition likely will be increased to make up the decline in state support for instruction.”

“As the University of Wisconsin is a state system that strives to allow any eligible Wisconsin resident to receive a high-quality education, regardless of his or her socioeconomic status, tuition hikes should worry legislators as they could reduce access to higher education for qualified Wisconsin students,” Clark adds.

Legislators should consider the relative contribution of different revenue sources, not just the UW System’s total budget, and measure system’s fiscal health in terms of actual dollars and funding adjusted for inflation, Clark suggests in the brief, “Declines in Spending on Public Higher Education in Wisconsin: An Analysis of the University of Wisconsin System Budget.”

“Not doing so presents an inaccurate picture of the UW System’s fiscal standing and could lead to misinformed policy decisions,” Clark says.

Clark started her job with the Government Accountability Office in early August. She used the brief as part of her application, describing the document and the process of writing it. “It was a useful example of my experience with different writing styles and my ability to write for many different audiences,” she notes.

Clark was a project assistant with WISCAPE during her second year at La Follette, where she earned a master's degree in public affairs. WISCAPE distributed the brief to policymakers and other higher education stakeholders. “As the budget conference committee negotiates the Wisconsin’s budget and the appropriate funding levels for the UW, I hope they will think about the points the brief makes,” Clark says.

“Kate did an extraordinary job of applying the skills and knowledge she acquired as a La Follette student to her work as a project assistant with us,” says Noel Radomski, WISCAPE managing director and researcher. “The end result was a well-researched, well-written analysis of the UW System budget that is informing policymakers.”

Clark adapted the brief from a larger trend analysis of the UW System budget that she completed for her final project in the Public Budgeting class.

“In the budgeting course I learned to look at more than a budget’s total level of spending,” Clark says. “An analyst must examine trends in revenues and expenditures over time and adjust all figures for inflation using an appropriate metric to determine the true purchasing power of budgeted monies. These strategies helped me recognize the declining state support that I highlight in my brief.”

— posted August 7, 2007

Prof's Cajun band wins award for album

La Follette School professor Karen Holden and her band, Cajun Strangers, has been recognized for producing the best CD in 2006 by a non-Louisiana Cajun band.

The Cajun French Music Association will give the Cajun Strangers the Prix Dehors de Nous (the Prize Outside of Ourselves) for the band’s 2006 album, “Valse a Deux Temps.” The Le Cajun Music awards were given August 17 in La Fayette, Louisiana, before the Le Cajun Music Festival, August 18-19.

Holden plays the Cajun t-fer (also known as a triangle). The band peformed at a 2005 benefit the La Follette School Student Association organized after Hurricane Katrina.

The Cajun Strangers also appear in the August-September issue of Dirty Linen magazine. The article, “Beyond the Bayous: Cajun and Zydeco Music from Around the Globe and Pole to Pole” by Dan Willging, describes Cajun bands outside Louisiana.

— posted August 7, 2007; updated September 26, 2007

Student interns attend reception in Washington, D.C.

Three La Follette School students doing internships in Washington, D.C., this summer were among the 45 or so guests at a reception in June with members of the school’s advisory board.

The La Follette students were Patti Reis, Grant Sim and Melissa Swearingen. Two are working on master of public affairs degrees: Sim is interning with Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold’s office, while Melissa Swearingen is with the Government Accountability Office. International public affairs student Patti Reis is working with the Organization of American States and the Summit of the Americas Secretariat.

Donations to the La Follette School by members of the advisory board the school shares with the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison made the reception possible. Advisory board members Ed Cohen and La Follette School alum Michael Youngman, class of 1982, attended the reception, as did former board member Ed Behrens.

University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni and Department of Political Science Washington interns also attended the event, which took place in a room overlooking the Capitol.

— posted July 18, 2007

Fightin' Bobs meet Maynard the Duck

Fourteen La Follette School students -- including two incoming students -- and friends attend a June Mallards baseball game. La Follette students shown here with mascot Maynard G. Mallard include Adam Lee, Jennie Mauer, Joe Fontaine, Emily Engel, Nick Bubb and Elizabeth Zeman. The La Follette School Student Association organized the outing, in part to connect incoming students with those starting their second year at La Follette.

— posted July 17, 2007

Legislators can learn more on health care in Wisconsin

Wisconsin's performance on health-care access, affordability and equity will be discussed with policymakers in July.

The Wisconsin State Health Scorecard Forum will feature presentations on the Commonwealth Fund’s State Scorecard on Health System Performance and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Population Health Institute’s Health of Wisconsin Report Card.

The forum will connect Wisconsin legislators and policymakers with current research on health policy. The Evidence-Based Health Policy Project is organizing the session.

Dr. Joel Cantor from the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University and Douglas McCarthy of the Commonwealth Fund will present on the results of the Commonwealth Scorecard. They will discuss Wisconsin’s performance on 32 indicators of access, quality, avoidable hospital use and costs, equity and healthy lives. A comparison across states, areas for improvement and policy implications will be covered.

Population Health Institute director Dr. Patrick Remington will discuss the Health of Wisconsin Report Card 2007 released in July.

In June, the Evidence-Based Health Policy Project brought policymakers together with experts on infant mortality. Murray Katcher, clinical professor of pediatrics at the UW Medical School and chief medical officer for community health promotion at the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, and Sheri Johnson, administrator and state health officer with the division of public health at DHFS, spoke in June on Wisconsin's infant mortality rates.

In May, David Durenberg, former U.S. senator and current chair of the National Institute of Health Policy, spoke about healthcare reform.

The Evidence-Based Health Policy Project advances Wisconsin's health by providing policymakers in the public and private sectors with timely, non-partisan, high-quality information for evidence-based decision-making. The project is a partnership of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Population Health Institute and the Wisconsin Legislative Council to bridge medicine and health policy, research and practice, and to link academic research in a meaningful way in service to government and the Wisconsin Legislature.

Information:

— posted July 15, 2007

 

La Follette School partners receive international innovation award

The Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) and the European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) received joint recognition for teaching, research and outreach activities in support of innovative systems of environmental governance at the annual workshop of the Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Performance. Jonathan Zeitlin, WAGE and EUCE director, accepted the International Innovation Award on June 19 in Madison.

— posted July 13, 2007

New La Follette prof wins emerging scholar award

The American Political Science Association recognizes new La Follette School faculty member Susan Yackee with its Emerging Scholar Award, which is given to a scholar who has received a Ph.D. within the last seven years and whose career demonstrates unusual promise.

She will receive the award from ASPA's Political Organizations and Parties section at ASPA's annual meeting in August. Yackee holds a 2003 Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholar in health policy research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor prior to teaching at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

In other faculty news

Andrew Reschovsky has been invited to make a presentation at the Annual Meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures being held this year in Boston, August 5-9. He will make the main presentation at an August 8 session entitled "Got Reform? Property Taxpayers Seek Solutions." Legislators from several states will present reactions and comments. In June, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal quoted him in stories about Wisconsin taxes as a percentage of personal income. For 2007-08, Reschovsky will be a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Menzie Chinn will participate in August the National Bureau of Economic Research’s conference on China's Role in World Trade in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In addition to starting his term as associate director of the La Follette School, Chinn was an invited speaker for a conference on Open Macroeconomics and Development in Aix-en-Provence, France, in July.

Karen Holden, whose term as associate director has ended, will be a panelist at the U.S. Government Accountability Office's 2007 Retirement Security Advisory Panel in Washington, D.C., on July 18. The panel will help the GAO shape its work related to retirement.

At the invitation of the rotating German Presidency of the European Union, Jonathan Zeitlin presented a paper on "Strengthening the Social Dimension of the Lisbon Strategy" to a meeting of the European Union Social Protection Committee (a body of high-level national and EU officials responsible for European social policy coordination) in Erfurt, Germany, on May 23. Zeitlin went on to present a paper on "A Decade of Innovation in EU Governance: The European Employment Strategy, the Open Method of Coordination, and the Lisbon Strategy" to an expert seminar on "European Social and Employment Policy Coordination" in Lisbon on May 25, organized by the Portuguese Presidency that took office July 1. This paper was circulated as an annex to the presidency paper to a meeting of the Employment, Social Affairs, Health, and Consumer Protection Council of Ministers in Guimaraes, Portugal, on July 5-7. Zeitlin will present the paper to a presidency conference on "Ten Years of the European Employment Strategy" in Lisbon on October 8-9.

Zeitlin also gave a keynote address on "Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the European Union" to the 19th annual conference of the Society for the Study of Socio-Economics in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 28-30. He presented a paper on "The Open Method of Coordination and the Governance of the Lisbon Strategy" at the 10th biennial conference of the European Union Studies Association in Montreal in May.

— posted July 13, 2007; updated July 15, 2007

 

Workshop to examine environmental governance and regulation in Europe

A workshop co-sponsored by the La Follette School of Public Affairs will bring together experts from the European Commission, national administrations, business, NGOs and academia to analyze current developments in EU environmental policy, and explore with the audience their implications for the United States and other parts of the world.

The all-day June 19 session is at the Monona Terrace convention center in Madison. The Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy and the European Union Center of Excellence of the University of Wisconsin-Madison organized the workshop as part of the June 17-20 conference of the Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Performance, a network with about 1,000 business, government, non-government and academic members in 30 states and 20 countries.

As part of the larger MSWG conference, several La Follette School students will present their exploration of the feasibility of using cap-and-trade, a specific type of market-based instrument, to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in China. The report, Market-Based Instruments with Chinese Characteristics: The Feasibility of Cap-and-Trade Implementation to Reduce SO2 Emissions in China and the Role of the U.S. EPA, was their final capstone project for a course in international public affairs.

The June 19 workshop, Innovative Environmental Governance and regulation in the European Union: Any Lessions for U.S.?, will conclude with a roundtable response panel of U.S. environmental policy makers and practitioners. The workshop is open to the public with registration available just for the June 19 workshop; information: wage@intl-institute.wisc.edu. In addition to the La Follette School, the Governance Research Circle is a co-sponsor, with support from the Division of International Studies, the International Institute and Global Studies

Student registration for entire MSWG conference, June 17-20

Workshop to explore European environmental solutions, March 12, 2007, La Follette School News

Workshop to Focus on Policy Innovation for Environmental and Economic Gain, March 12, 2007, Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy news release

 

Student association plans for upcoming year

Increasing student involvement is high on the agenda of the La Follette School Student Association’s new president, Joe Fontaine.

"One of our primary goals is to get all students involved in working through LSSA,” Fontaine says. “Board members will take leadership roles, but we want to establish a norm where LSSA supports everyone's ideas and efforts to enhance the program.”

LSSA serves students by hosting social events, connecting students to community service opportunities, acting as a faculty liaison, and providing current students with a connection to La Follette alumni.

Incoming social chair Jennie Mauer is already rallying folks to attend a Madison Mallards baseball game on June 8. “Friday’s game has a ‘Star Wars’ theme, and they’ll be showing the first movie after the game,” she says. For news of future events, students should keep an eye on the LSSA message board, a feature the association introduced in fall 2006.

During the academic year, LSSA meets regularly to discuss and act on faculty issues, alumni relations, the graduation celebration, courses and fund-raising. Activities in 2006-07 included pizza sales to raise money for the graduation celebration and participation in the polar plunge in support of Special Olympics Wisconsin. The association also organized the February 2007 alumni reception in Madison.

“I look forward to working with faculty and staff at La Follette to improve connections between current students and alumni, both here in Madison and elsewhere--including Washington, D.C.,” says new alumni chair Alexis MacDonald. “These connections can be invaluable, as recent graduates enter the job market and as La Follette seeks to promote its reputation throughout the state, the nation, and the world.”

“LSSA makes a huge contribution to the life of the La Follette School,” says Associate Director Karen Holden. “LSSA is responsible for the alumni reception which is important not only for students' own networking but also to La Follette's nurturing of support from alums for La Follette programs.”

LSSA will emphasize getting incoming students involved in policy and social events, Fontaine says. "We want to make a greater effort, in everything we do, to incorporate incoming, first-year students into the program and into LSSA."

For example, LSSA is taking a larger role in orientation August 27-29. “We are sharing with La Follette’s staff our ideas for how to improve on our experiences last year,” Fontaine says. “We are planning more substantial social events during the course of that week, taking responsibility for providing more information student to student, and having a greater personal presence at orientation.”

Other goals include expanding fund-raising and writing a constitution for the student organization, Fontaine says.

Holden says she appreciates the advice on orientation and LSSA’s help with student recruitment and ideas for program improvement. “The willingness of these students to commit to leading this organization in the same year they will be looking for jobs and doing their workshop reports is to be lauded and very much appreciated,” she adds.

posted May 31, 2007

La Follette School gains experts in public management, science and technology policy, and health economics

Three faculty members are joining the La Follette School of public Affairs for the fall: Susan Yackee, Greg Nemet and Tom DeLeire.

“I am delighted that we attracted these three very talented young scholars to the La Follette School this year,” says Director Barbara (Bobbi) Wolfe.

Three faculty members are leaving the La Follette School: Joe Soss and Graham Wilson, who held joint appointments with the Department of Political Science, and Clark Miller, who was on leave from La Follette at Arizona State University and decided to stay there.

“We are very sorry to lose our three colleagues,” Wolfe says. “They will be sorely missed.”

The incoming faculty members bring wide experience to La Follette.

“Yackee will reinforce our growing expertise in the new style of public management; Nemet will bring expertise in environmental policy; and DeLeire will bring expertise in health policy, another area of growing interest and importance,” Wolfe says. “Our curriculum will be greatly enriched by these additions and we very much look forward to their contributions to the intellectual life at La Follette.”

Susan Webb Yackee

Yackee will be assistant professor of public affairs and political science. Her research and teaching interests include bureaucratic politics, social policy and the policymaking process. She has a particular interest in the politics of regulatory policymaking. Her current research projects focus on the role that organized interests play in influencing the U.S. bureaucracy's implementation of policy.

Her work has been published in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Management Review and Policy Studies Journal. Yackee’s 2005 article, “Understanding Public Support for the U.S. Bureaucracy: A Macro Politics View” received the best article of the year award from Public Management Review.

From 2003-05, Yackee was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Yackee has served as a Smith Richardson Domestic Policy Fellow, H.B. Earhart Foundation Fellow, and a Harry S. Truman Scholar. Before beginning her academic training, she worked as a legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate. Yackee received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Gregory Nemet

Nemet will be an assistant professor of public affairs and environmental studies, with a joint appointment at the La Follette School and the Nelson Institute. He will also be a member of the Energy Sources and Policy Cluster.

His research and teaching is focused on improving understanding of the social, technical, political, and economic dynamics of the global energy system. He researches the ways in which science and technology policy affect the rate and direction of technological change. His dissertation, “Policy and Innovation in Low-carbon Energy Technologies," examined the process of innovation in the energy sector. The papers resulting from this work look at the ways in which public policy can be designed to provide incentives for private sector investments in climate-related innovation. He is engaged in projects on U.S. and international climate policy, and he recently completed his doctorate in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.

Thomas DeLeire

Economist DeLeire comes from Michigan State University where he was an associate professor. He will hold a joint appointment with the La Follette School of Public Affairs and Population Health Sciences. He spent the 2006-07 and 2005-06 school years at the Congressional Budget Office where he contributed to a study using Social Security data to highlight the volatility of middle-class incomes. The New York Times featured the study in an April 25 article.

DeLeire’s research focuses on labor and health economics. His recent work looks at family structure, choice of occupation, health insurance spending, and the well-being of poor households. In other work, he has examined the impact of overtime regulations on hours of work, the effect of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the employment of disabled citizens, the extent to which disabled workers face wage discrimination by employers and the role that tax-favored savings accounts play in increasing national savings.

posted May 31, 2007; updated June 1, 2007

Board endorses report that includes cost-benefit analysis by students

The State Bar Board of Governors has voted to adopt the State Bar of Wisconsin's Access to Justice Committee's final report, which includes a cost-benefit analysis by La Follette School students.

The analysis, requested by the State Bar of Wisconsin, finds that a $1 million investment in providing victims of domestic abuse greater access to legal assistance would yield more than $9 million in net benefits.

One of few examinations of the costs and benefits of access to justice, the full La Follette study is included as an appendix in the State Bar report, Bridging the Justice Gap: Wisconsin's Unmet Legal Needs, which was released March 9, 2007.

"The La Follette team's cost-benefit work has been repeatedly cited by me, by the committee chair, judges and by others around the country who have read the report," says Jeff Brown, pro bono coordinator for the State Bar of Wisconsin.

The La Follette report, Increasing Access to Restraining Orders for Low-Income Victims of Domestic Violence: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Domestic Abuse Grant Program, recommends expanding the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services Domestic Abuse Grant Program. It suggests more funding for basic, legal and training services to increase the number of victims assisted and provide them services, plus improve training for judges, attorneys and advocates.

"It is one of the most innovative and rigorous approaches to analyzing the difficult issues involved with expanding access to justice," Brown says. "Lawyers like to argue but we often do so without the data that powerful social science methodology can bring to the debate."

Authors Liz Elwart, Christina Enders, Nina Emerson Carlson, Dani Fumia and Kevin Murphy worked on the study as part of a cost-benefit analysis class Professor David Weimer taught in fall 2006. They all just graduated with master's degrees in public affairs.

"All of us who worked on the access to services project are really pleased that the State Bar was able to make such extensive use of our work," says Carlson, who as a policy adviser in the Wisconsin governor's office is a liaison with several state agencies. "It's really rewarding for us to see our classwork translated into policies and recommendations."

In addition to the State Bar's board, the report was given to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Wisconsin congressional delegation, attendees at the State Bar's first Wisconsin Equal Justice Conference, key members of the Wisconsin Legislature and Legislative Fiscal Bureau staff.

"A number of other states are now going to be exploring this kind of cost-benefit avenue in the access to justice area and there is considerable interest here in Wisconsin with doing more as well," Brown says.

Students' report for State Bar suggests more legal aid for domestic abuse victims, La Follette School News, March 21, 2007

— posted May 31, 2007; updated July 15, 2007

Incoming associate director wins award, publishes book

Undergraduate students in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison honored La Follette School Professor of Public Affairs Menzie Chinn with the Economics Teaching Award for 2006-07.

Chinn, who takes over as La Follette School associate director this summer, published the book The Economic Integration of Greater China: Real and Financial Linkages and the Prospects for Currency Union with co-authors Yin-Wong Cheung and Eiji Fujii. Chinn discusses the volume in an Econbrowser blog post.

Business Week, The Economist and Reuters quoted Chinn in May issues. Business Week drew on his expertise on the value of the U.S. dollar and improvements to the U.S. trade balance.

“Whatever the answer, it looks as if the U.S. is well on the way to depreciating its way out of its trade deficit without disaster. U.S. inflation hasn't heated up, and the Federal Reserve hasn't had to raise rates to defend the currency. ‘It sells better to say we're up for some catastrophic explosion’ in currency markets, says Menzie Chinn, a University of Wisconsin economist. A harmless fizzle may be more likely.”

The Economist mentioned a recent study by Chinn, Yin-Wong Cheung, and Eiji Fujii that concludes that using conventional statistical methods makes it hard to prove that China’s yuan is much undervalued.

“Such uncertainty may partly explain why America's Treasury Department has so far ducked labelling China as a currency manipulator in its twice yearly report to Congress,” the magazine observes. The La Follette Policy Report for fall 206 includes an article about this study.

The article Reuters published discussed how a slowdown in U.S. productivity growth poses a long-term challenge to the U.S. dollar and adds to the difficulty of financing a gaping trade deficit.

“‘There's a cyclical switchover and I think there's some evidence of a longer-term secular switchover in growth too, which would essentially mean we're in for a period of sustained dollar weakness,’ said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at University of Wisconsin who specializes in exchange rates.”

In May, Chinn was a visiting scholar in the European Central Bank’s International Policy Analysis Directorate. In June he gave a talk at the International Monetary Fund on the empirical evidence for the saving glut hypothesis and presented a related paper the National Bureau of Economic Research-East Asia Seminar in Economics in Singapore.

He was an invited speaker for a conference on Open Macroeconomics and Development in Aix-en-Provence, France, in July, and in August he will participate in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s conference on China's Role in World Trade in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

posted May 31, 2007; updated July 13, 2007

 

Students consult with expert on China, environment

Students who just finished their work on a report on sulfur dioxide emissions in China had the chance to meet over breakfast with an expert on the issue, thanks to donations from La Follette School alumni and friends.

Contributions to the La Follette School via the University of Wisconsin Foundation meant that six students could invite Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Wilson Center, to breakfast at Marigold Kitchen near the Wisconsin Capitol and pick up the tab for the meal.

The report, Market-Based Instruments with Chinese Characteristics: The Feasibility of Cap-and-Trade Implementation to Reduce SO2 Emissions in China and the Role of the U.S. EPA, explores the possible use of cap-and-trade, a specific type of market-based instrument, to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in China. It assesses the political and regulatory feasibility, administrative feasibility, and the economic feasibility of China implementing a cap-and-trade policy.

The breakfast meeting was good practice for the presentation of the report at a session of the Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Performance conference June 17-20 at Monona Terrace convention center in Madison, says co-author Allison Quatrini.

“We talked the most about the ability of environmental non-governmental organizations to work in China and the political commitment to environmental protection by the government,” says Brandon Lamson, one of the authors.

Quatrini and co-author Leah Larson-Rabin used Turner’s “suggestions to clarify language related to to the political and regulatory feasibility of implementing cap-and-trade mechanisms in China,” Quatrini says.

“As we informally went over our paper with her, she confirmed quite a lot of what we mention in the report,” Lamson adds. “She gave us valuable feedback on our findings.”

posted May 31, 2007; updated June 1, 2007

Faculty share expertise around Wisconsin, the world

In addition to teaching, La Follette School faculty share their research and technical knowledge with scholarly and professional groups around the state, country and world.

Professor Andrew Reschovsky gave the keynote address to the Civitas Forum in Madison on May 22. His presentation was titled “How We Pay for Our Schools.” www.civitaswi.org In addition, his “Comments on William A. Niskanen’s On Wisconsin: Some Friendly Constitutional Advice” has been published in the Marquette Law Review (volume 90, number 3; Spring 2007). This issue comprises papers from the October 2006 Marquette Law School symposium that explored the question “Is the Wisconsin Constitution Obsolete?”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted Reschovsky in an April story about the gap of $4 billion to $6 billion between what is owed to Wisconsin in taxes and what is collected is each year, noting these “tax gaps are ‘difficult to estimate.’

“‘In talking about the tax gap at the federal level, the IRS reinforces what Secretary Ervin implicitly said: Most taxpayers pay the tax they owe,’ Reschovsky said. ‘The underpayment is concentrated among taxpayers, including businesses, whose income comes from specific, easy-to-evade or hide sources. Collecting everything that is owed is an impossible goal, but if it chooses to do so, the Legislature could take steps that would make it harder for individuals and businesses to evade taxes.’”

Incoming assistant professor Gregory Nemet will speak at the International Energy Agency in Paris in June. He will present results from his work on the effectiveness of public policies to improve renewable energy as part of the IEA’s “International Workshop on Technology Learning and Deployment.” The outcomes of this workshop will be published in a report to the Japanese G8 presidency next year titled “Energy Technology Perspectives—2008.”

Carolyn Heinrich is speaking in Hong Kong and Beijing. She will give a public lecture on “Advancing Public Sector Performance Analysis” at the City University of Hong Kong and at Renmin University in Beijing, where she also will give a workshop on “Strategic Performance Management.”

“Recent reforms intended to promote more accountable and responsive government have increased public attention to performance analysis and accelerated the production and use of information on agency performance and public program outcomes,” Heinrich says. Drawing from cases and empirical studies, her presentation will consider questions about what should count as evidence, how it should be communicated, who should judge the quality and reliability of evidence and performance information, and how to achieve a balance between processes that produce rigorous information for decision-making and those that foster democratic governance and accountability.

Professor Melanie Manion also is in China, participating in a conference on corruption in China held at City University of Hong Kong in June. She is conducting research on local legislatures in Zouping county, Shandong province. “Chinese scholars are expressing interest in translating my book Corruption by Design into Chinese,” she reports.

Director Barbara Wolfe is spending three months as a “Guest of the Rector” at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study. This is one of the set of selective institutions such as the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University that gives scholars the opportunity to spend time away from their normal work in order to think and write. While there she is giving talks at Leiden University and the University of London.

Professor emeritus Robert Haveman also is spending three months at the Netherlands center in Wassenaar. “NIAS is a lovely facility, with lots of support for research; about 40 scholars from the social sciences and humanities are in residence,” he says. “I am working on my research on diversity in higher education, and the social mobility process in the United States.” He presented three talks at NIAS and other universities on his research.

Haveman and Wolfe published a paper in Journal of Population Economics with Karen Pence and Jonathan Schwabish called “Do Youth Nonmarital Childbearing Choices Reflect Income and Relationship Expectations?”

Professor David L. Weimer and co-author Aidan Vining have a chapter, “Policy Analysis in Representative Democracy,” in the new book Promoting the General Welfare: New Perspectives on Government Performance.

posted May 31, 2007

Public administration Fulbright available -- in Algeria

The Fulbright Scholar Program is offering a lecturing award in public administration during the 2008-09 academic year in Algeria. Awards range from five months to an academic year. Grants are awarded to faculty of all academic ranks, including adjunct and emeritus, and to practicing professionals. Lecturing will be in French or Arabic in Algeria.

posted May 31, 2007

La Follette School of Public Affairs celebrates graduation of 51 students

Practical approaches to policy change are the wherewithal for graduates of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, former U.S. ambassador to Norway Tom Loftus told the 51 graduating students and their families in the graduation celebration in the Assembly Chamber of the Wisconsin State Capitol on May 19.

The world needs people who can craft public policy to solve problems, Loftus said. “By choosing La Follette you have already decided that government, politics, public service – these are important to you.”

La Follette’s 19 graduates in international public affairs and the 32 in domestic public affairs are all citizens of the world, Loftus said, and this group generally goes “forth without the baggage of the Cold War in your thinking – that is over, yesterday, a different generation.”

Loftus noted that he graduated from the La Follette School's predecessor, the Center for the Study of Public Policy and Administration, just before he was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly. The Legislature renamed the center in honor of Robert M. La Follette in 1983 to honor the Republican governor and U.S. senator who ran for president as a Progressive.

“La Follette and the Progressives left a legacy, above all, of a belief that democracy was best; government could be made to work for the common good; and, that educated citizens, especially those from the University of Wisconsin had a duty to help make things work and make things better," Loftus said.

Graduates of the school named for “Fightin' Bob" La Follette have chosen to use public policy, government and public service to improve their societies, Loftus added.

In addition to Loftus, other speakers were professor Carolyn Heinrich, master of public affairs degee recipient Kate Clark and master of international public affairs degree recipient Louisa Kennedy.

Associate Director Karen Holden presented awards to students. Thanks to donations to the La Follette School, four students received recognition.

Yeri Lopez (MIPA) and Matthew Steinberg (MPA) were honored with the Director’s Achievement Award for their grade-point averages and scholarly work.

Lopez and Heinrich co-authored a paper that investigated the educational outcomes of an education program in Honduras, plus several other papers with economics professor Karl Scholz for the Competitive Wisconsin project.

Steinberg worked with La Follette School professor Robert Haveman on a project commissioned by the Chancellor’s Office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to look at access to higher education by students from low-income families. Part of that research will appear in the spring-summer 2007 La Follette Policy Report.

A third student, Dani Fumia, received a Director’s Achievement Award for her leadership as faculty liaison to the La Follette School Student Association, in addition to her outstanding academic record. Holden said she and Student Services Director Mary Treleven relied on her advice and time as they improved student services to the graduating class, the first-year class and as they recruited the fall 2008 class.

All three of these award winners are going on to pursue doctorates. Lopez is staying at UW-Madison and going into Latin American history and focusing on 20th-century Bolivia, where he served in Peace Corps. He received a second Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education to continue his Quichua studies, in addition to an Advanced Opportunity Fellowship.

Steinberg will be doing a Ph.D. in public policy at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. He will be a pre-doctoral educational fellow as a member of the University of Chicago Committee on Education.

Fumia will be heading west for Seattle to pursue a doctorate in public policy and management at the Evans School at University of Washington in Seattle.

Holden also presented the Penniman Prize, which recognizes the most outstanding paper by a graduating student. The 2007 award went to MPA student Kristen Yarber Grill for a paper she wrote for the Advanced Public Management course taught by associate professor Donald Moynihan. She shadowed a public policy administrator in his workplace during the semester to improve her understanding of the workplace context by applying the course’s principles.

“She emphasizes the importance of communication strategies, focusing on the organizational culture, and recognizing when a coercive approach would be better replaced by building cooperation with other actors,” Moynihan wrote in his nomination.

Of the 51 students, seven entered La Follette via the accelerated program through which an undergraduate begins working on the degree requirements as a senior and completes all requirements with an additional year of study beyond the bachelor’s degree.

Four more were in the public affairs-law dual-degree program. One completed the double degree in public affairs and urban planning. Another also received a master’s degree in social work.

Loftus encouraged the La Follette graduates to do their best to see the world as it is. “ In American politics we usually have two sides to an issue – even a great question of policy – and one of the points of view usually fits snugly and smugly into a view of the world stuck in your head,” he said. “Try to see things as they are rather than the two sides what things are supposed to be.”

posted May 30, 2007

Student report outlines possibilities for Norwegian think tank

Plans for sustainable development in Norway’s arctic region are getting a boost with the release of a study by the La Follette School of Public Affairs. La Follette alum Thomas Loftus, a former U.S. ambassador to Norway and a member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents, is delivering the report to Norwegian officials.

Graduate students at the La Follette School have identified five ways a proposed research center in Tromsø could focus on the Barents Euro-Arctic Region’s (BEAR) ecosystem:

• Forming a Policy Clearinghouse – a neutral meeting place where competing interests such as fisheries, oil drillers and environmentalists could try to find common ground on sustainability issues.
• Starting an Indigenous Peoples Integrated Policy Center where concerns of the native Sami people could be balanced against oil, mining and fishing industries.
• Beginning a Center for Integrated Maritime Transport and Technology to target acute oil spills, provide mapping and research shipping activities.
• Supporting eco-labeling for BEAR fisheries to increase Norway’s share of eco-conscious markets.
• Founding an International Ecotourism Partnership to coordinate tourism between Russia and Norway.

The study, Tromsø Center: Direction in a Complex Arctic System, is the result of a semester’s research by a team of international public policy graduate students.

The report does not formally endorse any of the five proposals, leaving that for the supporters of the Tromsø center to pursue. But the students noted the proposals could be done individually or grouped.

“The United States shares many of the challenges and problems that Norway and other countries encounter with environmental management and resource extraction," says Britta Johnson, one of the report's authors. “Issues related to indigenous people, sustainable development and ecotourism are common to many countries around the world."

Johnson and her co-authors prepared the report as part of a capstone project for their degree in public administration from the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Other projects were done for the city of Milwaukee and Wisconsin state government and other clients.

Research by UW-Madison students points to Arctic strategies for Norway, May 31, 2007, University of Wisconsin-Madison news office

The report: Tromsø Center: Direction in a Complex Arctic System

— posted May 30, 2007; updated May 31, 2007

La Follette student wins Fulbright to study language, governance in China

La Follette School student Allison Quatrini is off to China for 14 months, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship.

The international public affairs scholar also won the Critical Language Enhancement Award, a new part of the Fulbright program to increase the number of Americans learning needed languages. It is affiliated with the National Security Language Initiative.

“My language program is in Harbin in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China,” says Quatrini, who is from Downers Grove, Illinois. “I’ll be taking two introductory courses, one in newspaper reading and another in classical Chinese.”

“The program lets me select the topic of my one-on-one tutorial, so I’ll be learning about the contemporary applications of Confucian philosophy,” she adds.

After spending almost four months in Harbin, Quatrini will head for Beijing, where she will commence research at Peking University’s Chinese Local Government and Local Administration Research Center.

The Fulbright program administered by the Institute of International Education sends more than 1,000 students and professionals abroad every year. For the 2006-07 school year, 15 University of Wisconsin-Madison students received Fulbrights.

Quatrini, who leaves in late August, says she appreciates the help of La Follette School faculty members Melanie Manion and Karen Holden for writing letters of recommendation. Manion also helped Quatrini to establish her affiliation with Peking University.

Quatrini earlier won a Foreign Language and Area Studies Graduate Fellowships from the U.S. Department of Education. She used it to complete an intensive language studies program at Wisconsin’s Beloit College, where she studied intermediate Mandarin Chinese. She eventually wants to pursue a Ph.D. in political science and Asian studies.

She will examine the link between the election and selection of local government officials (called cadres) and the practice of Confucianism in a Leninist context. She hopes to focus on the open recommendation and selection method of choosing township officials.

“I hope my research will answer three questions,” Quatrini says. “One, where do we see manifestations of Confucian theory and practice in cadre selection procedures? Two, how do the Chinese define legitimate democracy? And three, how successful is open recommendation and selection in maintaining a Leninist framework while advancing China’s political agenda?”

posted May 24, 2007; updated May 31, 2007

 

La Follette student coaches alma mater to win state debate championship

Nick Bubb loves nothing more than debating the finer points of public policy — unless it is helping others win the debate.

The La Follette School of Public Affairs student will spend two weeks of his summer coaching debate at the Marquette University Debate Institute in July. There he will prepare students for the new policy debate topic, which focuses on health policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. In December, as an assistant coach, he helped a student from his alma mater, Sheboygan North High School, win a state championship.

Bubb’s protege won the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, which features students engaging in one-on-one contests about moral and legal issues. The winning Sheboygan North student argued in favor of deadly force being a just response to domestic abuse.

“Lincoln-Douglas debate is one of several formats at the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament,” Bubb says. “Each format involves different kinds of arguments.”

“In policy debate, students work with two or four-person teams to articulate reasons for changing governmental policy on a given issue," he says. “This year's topic focused on increasing the number of people who participate in national service."

University admissions policies were the focus of public forum debate, which is more like what might be seen on cable access shows.

Bubb just completed his first year in the La Follette School's domestic public affairs program in which he is studying policy analysis and education policy.

Education policy was the first topic he debated in high school.

Bubb sees a real connection between working with debate students and learning public policy. “In teaching students how to make better arguments, I not only learn how to improve own arguments, I learn about vastly different areas of public policy. This comes in handy when I’m in class. It’s great to be briefed about so many different issues."

posted May 24, 2007

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