RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Douglas J. Elliott, November 13, 2009, The Brookings Institution
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which protects the pensions of 44 million workers, announced a $22 billion deficit for fiscal year ending September 2009. Douglas Elliott analyzes the three main reasons for the PBGC’s financial troubles, and cautions that there are serious structural problems within PBGC that cannot be blamed on the financial crisis. Read More
PAST EVENT
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Washington, DC
On November 10, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Kongdan Oh and Ralph Hassig, adjunct associate professor of psychology at the University of Maryland University College, discussed their new book The Hidden People of North Korea: Everyday Life in the Hermit Kingdom (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). For decades, the people of North Korea have lived in extreme isolation under a closed and repressive regime, where individual rights are restricted and the regime exercises complete control over the political class and legal systems. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
R. Kent Weaver, September 30, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Voters elect governments to solve social problems and governments design and implement an array of programs to ensure the public good. However, little theoretical attention has been devoted to the final step of the implementation chain: explanations of why the targets of public policies do or do not “comply” with those policies. Kent Weaver focuses on why program “targets” frequently fail to act in the way that program designers intended and wanted, even when it appears to be in their self-interest to do so. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Ömer Taşpınar, September 29, 2009, SAIS Review
In the years since the September 11th attacks, Western policymakers, analysts and academics have debated the best approaches to confronting and ending terrorism. Brookings Fellow Omer Taspinar argues that the global fight against extremist violence must move beyond the "war on terror" to a broader strategy of fighting radicalism with human development - an approach that would address the political, economic and social conditions that foment violent radicalism. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
William A. Galston, September 01, 2009, The Brookings Institution
We are likely to enter a period of new normality marked by lower household debt, higher personal savings, and less consumption as a share of GDP, writes William Galston. Despite these positive trends, we still need a new era of public restraint, not just private thrift. Once economic growth has become self-sustaining and the private sector’s need for capital returns to more normal levels, Congress and the administration will have to turn their attention to the difficult fiscal questions they have long evaded. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Ron Haskins, July 31, 2009, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
Ron Haskins discusses personal responsibility and the three areas of personal decision-making in which the nation’s youth and young adults most need to learn and practice personal responsibility: education, sexual behavior and marriage, and work. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Darrell M. West, July 27, 2009, Politico
Proponents have high hopes for health care reform, but legislation is unlikely to alter personal behavior. What is needed today, writes Darrell West, is serious thinking about how to get Americans to lead healthier lifestyles. If we want health care reform to reduce costs and improve good health, we need a public education campaign emphasizing exercise, balanced diets and healthier living. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Ross A. Hammond, June 15, 2009, Preventing Chronic Disease
Obesity has grown rapidly into a major public health challenge in the United States and worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that as many as one-third of Americans are obese. Ross Hammond explains how techniques from the field of complexity science can inform both scientific study of obesity and effective policies to combat it. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Douglas J. Elliott, June 04, 2009, The Brookings Institution
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s deficit tripled over the last six months and could top out at more than $100 billion. According to Douglas Elliott, this accelerated loss is the result of a combination of factors, including the PBGC’s inability—thanks to Congress—to charge premium rates that would cover its risk, and the investment and funding choices made by the companies that sponsor the pension plans insured by the PBGC. Is another massive bailout in store? Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Douglas J. Elliott, May 29, 2009, The Brookings Institution
General Motors has filed for bankruptcy, and one of many questions is what will happen to its pension promises, which are underfunded by $20 billion. Douglas Elliott says GM is very likely to continue to shoulder the full obligations after restructuring, rather than passing them to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and taxpayers—for now. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Douglas J. Elliott, May 20, 2009, Center On Federal Financial Institutions
As Chrysler and GM face bankruptcy proceedings and restructuring, the Senate held a hearing on whether the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has the capacity to insure the pensions of nearly 44 million Americans who work or have worked at those firms. Douglas Elliott explores the particulars of the PBGC, the precarious situation that the automotive industry finds itself in, and offers 14 possible solutions to the problems that plague the government’s pension program. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Julia B. Isaacs, Paul Johnson, Adam Kent, Jennifer Macomber and Tracy Vericker, May 05, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Despite extensive research documenting the benefits of investing in young children, infants and toddlers are underrepresented in the federal budget, researchers from the Brookings and the Urban Institute found. The nation’s 12.5 million children under age 3 are 4.2 percent of the population, but they received just 2.1 percent—$44.1 billion—of federal domestic spending in 2007. Domestic outlays, which exclude defense, homeland security, and international affairs, totaled $2.1 trillion. Read More
BOOK
David de Ferranti, Anthony J. Ody and with Justin Jacinto and Graeme Ramshaw, March 01, 2009
This perceptive book emphasizes the need for an overall analytical framework that can be applied to different countries to help analyze the current situation, identify potential areas for improvement, and assess their relative feasibility and the steps needed to promote them. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Rebecca M. Blank, January 30, 2009, The New York Times
Michelle Obama stepped into the policy spotlight as first lady on Thursday at President Barack Obama’s signing of the equal-pay bill. How might Mrs. Obama bring her voice to issues of work-life balance? Rebecca Blank comments on what issues Mrs. Obama should elevate. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Gregg Easterbrook, June 16, 2008, NPR's Talk of the Nation
Americans are bombarded by negative images of life nationally and around the world. But are things really as bad as they seem? Gregg Easterbrook argues that, "even if a recession has begun, occasional cycles of slow or no growth are the price we pay for the much longer cycles of boom" — and that we really are better off than what we're being told to believe. Read More