Maxwell School News and Commentary

Len Burman, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics, suggests eliminating a provision of current law in which assets that increase in value can go essentially untaxed across generations as a way to reduce inequality.

According to Professor of Economics Mary Lovely, "this is not a negotiating tactic. Trump is a true believer...He wrongly believes tariffs will help the U.S. auto industry."

"This is a real institutional threat to the separation of powers to use emergency powers to enable the president to bypass Congress to build a wall on his own initiative that our elected representatives have chosen not to fund," says William C. Banks, professor of public administration and international affairs. 

Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion, argues that in both rural and urban communities, two key factors—economic distress and supply of opioids—predict the rate of opioid deaths. "I really do want to push back against this cliché that addiction does not discriminate," Monnat says. "The physiological processes that underlie addiction themselves may not discriminate, but the factors that put people in communities at higher risk are are not spatially random."

"The economy has changed a lot since 1888 and in particular, when we think about who bears the burden of tariffs, we have to recognize the development of very complex supply chains for American companies," says Professor of Economics Mary Lovely. 

According to Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science, disillusionment can be a subtle risk of conspiracy theory media. "People may draw the conclusion that conventional politics is meaningless. If they genuinely believe that what happens in the world is a result of the hidden hand of some mysterious elite, then presumably ordinary political activity is meaningless as are the decisions of lawmakers and officeholders," he says. 

The report by Maxwell alumnus Chris Pulliam ’17 B.A. (Econ/Psc)/’18 M.P.A. examines various proposed and current tax credit policies in the United States, including the earned income tax credit, child tax credit, and workers tax credit.

"Most experts agree that there is no crisis at the southern border," William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, says about Trump's claim that a wall is needed because of a crisis at the border.