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Sunday, July 5, 2009
 
 
PROJECTS
 
About The National Research Initiative
 
The American Enterprise Institute launched the National Research Initiative (NRI) in 2002 to support, publish, and disseminate research by university-based academics and other intellectuals engaged in the exploration of pressing public policy issues.
 
 
 

Today's financial crisis is deeply connected with the fallout in the housing market caused largely by subprime and Alt-A mortgages. While new proposals come out daily on how to fix the housing market and stave off foreclosures, two books commissioned by NRI are taking a more long-term approach to housing. The projects are looking at government distortions in the housing market. Government housing policy at all levels is flawed because it artificially limits housing supply through zoning and other series of subsidies and building programs. The projects include:

Apply for an NRI Fellowship

NRI post-doctoral fellowships are nine to twelve month programs for recent graduates and doctoral students engaged in dissertation research interested in U.S. domestic public policy research. Click here for more information and to apply.

 

 

 

  Housing     U.S. Economy     Social Security     Energy and Environment     Immigration
 
 
Projects
 

The National Research Initiative mobilizes America's academics to fight the battle of ideas. NRI's philosophy gives rise to a wide-ranging, aggressive portfolio of projects, ranging from agriculture to transportation. Our staff works hard to identify talented academics then equip them with the resources necessary to produce compelling and original public policy work. Some examples of NRI's work include:

  • Steven J. Davis (AEI and University of Chicago) is organizing a monograph series on social and economic well-being and inequality with Erik Hurst (University of Chicago), Mark Aguiar (University of Rochester), Orazio Attanasio (University College London), Eric Battistin (University of Chicago), Mario Padula (University of Salerno), David E. Weinstein (Columbia University) and Christian Broda (University of Chicago). The first monograph of the series, Prices, Poverty, and Inequality by Broda and Weinstein, was released in November, 2008. The series aims to broaden the discussion on economic well-being beyond income inequality and poverty indices to present a more detailed picture of social economic well-being.
  • In a book entitled Including Marginal Damages: The Next Step in Market-Driven Air Pollution Regulation, Robert Mendelsohn (Yale University) and Nicholas Muller (Middlebury College) argue that establishing cap-and-trade policies on the damage caused by pollutants such as SO2 and particulate matter is the next step in efficient pollution control.
  • Rick Geddes (Cornell University) is working on a monograph on private sector involvement in surface transportation issues. His work will show how market pricing and private-public partnerships can ameliorate many of our surface transportation shortcomings.

    Click here for a complete list of NRI's projects
 
 
Mead, Lawrence M. 80   
Lawrence M. Mead is a visiting scholar with NRI and widely acknowledged as one of the intellectual godfathers of welfare reform. As employment prospects for low-income individuals worsen in the midst of recession, Mead is studying how to reduce prisoner recidivism and rebuild low-income families through work. Using a "help but hassle" approach, welfare reform transformed the habits of millions of single mothers by creating an expectation for work which established employment as a condition to aid. Ultimately, welfare rolls decreased by over 60%. Mead believes the same principles used on a program for low-income men, who often find themselves enmeshed in child support or probation systems, can yield a similar transformation. While at AEI, Mead will:

• Convene leading experts on welfare reform and men's employment programs for conferences at AEI. On November 14, 2008 Mead held a conference, titled Why Did Welfare Caseloads Collapse? The Mystery of Diversion, which discussed the principles behind welfare reform and what motivated women to bypass welfare altogether to seek work. He will hold another event in May which will focus primarily on how to reform men's work programs.

• Conduct field research on men's work programs around the country. He has met with administrators from parole offices, child support agencies, corrections facilities, and reentry programs in Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, and Texas.
 
 
This monograph demonstrates empirically how the free-market system of drug pricing is vital to the development of new breakthrough drugs.  
 
 
A radical rethinking of housing policy is needed to allow housing markets to operate freely--and to make housing affordable and plentiful for the middle class and the poor.  
 
 
Adjusting poverty measures to account for the benefits of product improvements reveals that Americans in every income group are better off than they were twenty-five years ago.  
 
 
 
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Academics and AEI is a new e-newsletter designed to keep you informed about new, scholarly work by AEI fellows. It features relevant short publications, highlights upcoming and recent events, and provides more information about the National Research Initiative and the opportunities it offers to academics. To subscribe to the e-newsletter Academics and AEI, please visit My AEI.org to add this to your mailing preferences.