Faculty, alumni to present at conference

A number of La Follette School faculty and alumni will share their work at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management’s research conference November 5-7 in Washington, D.C. The conference theme is "Evidenced Based Policy Making in the Post-Bush/Clinton Era." La Follette School professors Pamela Herd and Andrew Reschovsky are serving on the program committee. La Follette director Carolyn Heinrich will participate in a meeting of APPAM's Committee of Institutional Representatives, of which she is chair. The committee looks after the interests of institutional members of APPAM; the La Follette School is an institutional member.

La Follette-related research to be presented at the conference includes:

1972 alum Eugene Steuerle: “Aging and Health? The Challenges of Entitlement Growth.” He also is a discussant for the panel “Expanding Asset Policies to Include Low- and Moderate Income Families.”

2007 alum Deven Carlson and professors Barbara (Bobbi) Wolfe and Robert Haveman: “The Social Benefits and Costs of the Section 8 Housing Subsidy Program.” An earlier version was featured in the fall 2008 La Follette Policy Report.

2007 alum Deven Carlson and professor John Witte: “Charter School Governance and Student Outcomes.”

2005 alum Alison Bergum and professor Thomas DeLeire: “Evaluating Wisconsin's BadgerCare Plus Reform.”

Professors Barbara (Bobbi) Wolfe and John Witte: “Is University Education Becoming More Elite? And If So, Is It a Change in Applications, Enrollment or Graduation?” A related article appeared in the spring 2009 Policy Report.

Professor John Witte: “A Longitudinal Educational Growth Study of the Milwaukee Parental Choice (Voucher) Program.” He also is a discussant for a panel on “School Choice and Student Outcomes.”

Professor Timothy Smeeding: “Public Opinions on the American Dream.” He also is a discussant for a panel on “Child Well-Being and Social Investments in the U.S and Other Countries” and a participant in a symposium on “Creating a New Poverty Measure: What Can We Learn From European Poverty Measures.”

Professor Andrew Reschovsky: “Are Property Taxes Forcing the Elderly Out of Their Homes?” and “The Budget Crisis in the States: Short Term Fixes and Long Term Dilemmas”

Professor Gregory Nemet: “Public Subsidies for Energy Technologies: Is Learning by Doing Appropriable?”

Professor Donald Moynihan: “How Decision Frames Shape Performance Information Use: Evidence from an Experiment.”

Professor Pamela Herd: “Trends in Poverty among Older Americans, 1968-2007? The Growing Importance of Marital Status.”

Professor Carolyn Heinrich: “Temporary Help Work? Compensating Differentials and Multiple Jobs”; “Reducing Child Support Debt and Its Consequences: Can Forgiveness Benefit All?”; and “New Estimates of Public Employment and Training Program Net Impact? A Nonexperimental Evaluation of the Workforce Investment Act Program.” A version of “New Estimates” is available as La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-013. She also is chair of a panel on “Evidence on Work/Family/Life Fit Policies in Academic and Research Organizations: The Promising and the Distressing, Advances and Disparities.”

Professor Thomas DeLeire: “Do Individuals with Chronic Health Conditions Have Less Insurance than Other Individuals? Evidence from the MEPS” and  “How Much Do Expansions of Public Health Insurance Improve Financial Wellbeing?”

Professor Maria Cancian: “Challenges of a Work-First Welfare Strategy in a Recessionary Era: Evidence from Wisconsin”; “Marriage, Maternity Leave and Child Support”; and “The Evolution of Family Complexity: Implications for Child Wellbeing and Family Policy.”

Alumni affiliations, names of co-authors, session dates and times, and other details are available on APPAM’s conference web site.

— posted October 27, 2009; updated October 28, 2009