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December 13, 2021 RIN 1210-AC03 Docket EBSA-2021-0013 CFR 29 CFR 2550 Document Citation 86 FR 57272 Document Number 2021-22263 By electronic submission: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/14/2021-22263/prudence-and-loyalty-in-selecting-plan-investments-and-exercising-shareholder-rights The Employee Benefits Security Administration of the [...]

Executive Summary Much has changed in media and communications technologies over the past fifty years. Today we face the dual problems of an increasing gap in access to these technologies [...]

Key Points * Due to the steady decline of print news in America, many Americans now live in news deserts, where there is no newspaper covering local issues. The absence [...]

Many commentators have pointed out that the Dodd-Frank Act ignored the fundamental causes of the financial crisis it was supposed to address. While imposing new, costly and growth inhibiting regulations on the entire financial system, the act failed to reform the US government's housing policies--policies that fostered the creation of 27 million subprime and Alt-A loans and the inflation of a massive housing bubble between 1997 and 2007. When the bubble began to deflate, these weak and high-risk loans started to default in unprecedented numbers, driving down housing values and weakening financial institutions in the United States and around the world. Implicit in most of the proposals for reforming the housing finance system is the idea that institutional investors will not buy mortgage backed securities (MBS) backed by US mortgages unless they are issued by a government sponsored enterprise (GSE), a US government agency, or are otherwise guaranteed by the US government. We believe, however, that there is a robust alternative to government support of the housing finance system--a system which in the past has led to large scale taxpayer bailouts and losses. Our alternative approach is to ensure that only prime quality mortgages, which comprise the vast majority of US mortgages, are allowed into the securitization system. The very low delinquency and default rates on prime mortgages will be attractive investments for institutional investors and enable the housing finance system to function effectively with no government support. This will eliminate the potential for additional taxpayer losses in the future, and allow the eventual elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In order to implement our approach, in this white paper we outline four basic principles on which US housing policy should be based in the future. If these principles had been in place for the last twenty years, we would not have had a financial crisis in 2008. But that is water over the dam. The current interest in replacing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provides another opportunity to adopt reforms that will prevent a recurrence of another financial crisis in the future., The four central principles of our plan are the following: I. The housing finance market--like other US industries and housing finance systems in most other developed countries--can and should principally [...]

Key Points * Greater output of final products does not improve supply-chain resilience. Manufacturing more with the same supply chains could even create more vulnerabilities. New policies must address full supply chains, not just the final stage. * Companies selling in the US should be responsible for knowing their suppliers, through the full extent of the chain. For products deemed critical, Chinese participation at any point in the supply chain should be restricted. * The single weakest link in many supply chains is constitutive materials, since these enable the next stages of production and are often sourced overseas. The US must quickly determine where projected materials demand exceeds reliable supply., There's been a great deal of talk about supply chains, yet the US government has done little. (1) There are in fact good reasons for inaction: Shifting supply chains is [...]

Chairman Smith, Subcommittee Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am Bruce Meyer, McCormick Foundation Professor at the [...]

This paper presents a critique of a recent analysis by my friends and colleagues Kyle Pomerleau and Shuting Pomerleau in the pages of Tax Notes Federal examining policy alternatives for [...]

Chairman Wyden, Ranking Member Crapo, and distinguished members of Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Bruce D. Meyer, and I am the McCormick Foundation Professor [...]

The American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law in March of this year, created the most ambitious antipoverty policy since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The law authorized a one-year expansion [...]

The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) system has a broad scope and provides important resources to economically vulnerable children who live apart from one of their parents. Yet, it is subject to critique for intervening too much, too little, or in the wrong ways. In this paper, we then consider some long-term issues of concern, identifying areas of emerging agreement (at least between the two authors), and exploring some of the fundamental questions that remain to be addressed. We argue that CSE reduces child poverty, helps to promote parental responsibility especially for parents living apart from their children, and for many families is a convenience. Contrary to early proponents of the program, we argue that CSE should not be used for cost recovery; collected child support should always directly benefit children, not offset government costs. Finally, we outline areas of agreement and disagreement related to mandated cooperation with CSE. In this way, we aim to clarify both areas where bipartisan policy reforms may be more feasible, and areas that remain particularly challenging., Introduction The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) system is important in providing resources to children who live apart from one of their parents. This is especially true in poor households. In [...]

This comment paper addresses policy issues inherent in the proposed rule from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 'Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.' (1) At [...]

Following Manzan (2021), this paper examines how professional forecasters revise their uncertainty (variance) forecasts. We show that popular first moment 'efficiency' tests are not applicable to study variance forecasts and instead employ monotonicity tests developed by Patton and Timmermann (2012). We find strong support for the Bayesian learning prediction of decreasing patterns in the variance of fixed-event density forecasts and their revisions as the forecast horizon declines. We explore the role of financial conditions indices in variance forecasts and document their predictive content for the revision process of US professional forecasters, although the evidence is weaker for euro area forecasters. Keywords: Variance forecasts, survey expectations, Bayesian learning JEL Codes: C53, E17, E37., I. Introduction The study of expectations and the process underlying their formation remains a topic of considerable interest and importance. The recently published Handbook of Economic Expectations (2022) speaks to [...]

Contents INTRODUCTION 1 PLACE-BASED POLICIES THROUGH A RURAL LENS 2 Anthony F. Pipa TEXAS 2036 AND THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE'S FUTURE WORKFORCE INITIATIVES 6 A. J. Rodriguez PLACE-BASED POLICY AND ECONOMIC [...]

'A robust and resilient industrial base provides the enduring foundation for military advantage. While America continues to generate the world's most capable weapons systems, it must have the capacity to [...]

A prominent theme in debates about US national privacy legislation is whether federal law should preempt state law. A federal statute could create one standard for markets that are obviously national in scope. Another approach is to allow states to be 'laboratories of democracy' that adopt different laws so they can discover the best ones. We propose a federal statute requiring states to recognize contractual choice-of-law provisions, so companies and consumers can choose what state privacy law to adopt. Privacy would continue to be regulated at the state level. However, the federal government would provide for jurisdictional competition among states, such that companies operating nationally could comply with the privacy laws of any one state. Our proposed approach would foster a double competition aimed at discerning and delivering on consumers' true privacy interests: market competition to deliver privacy policies that consumers prefer and competition among states to develop the best privacy laws. Unlike a single federal privacy law, this approach would provide 50 competing privacy regimes for national firms. The choice-of-law approach can trigger competition and innovation in privacy practices while preserving a role for meaningful state privacy regulation., The question of preemption of state law by the federal government has bedeviled debates about privacy regulation in the United States. A prominent theme is to propose a national privacy [...]

The long road to enactment of the regular annual appropriations bills for 2024 has finally come to a close. Congress approved the second of two large federal funding packages on [...]

Contents INTRODUCTION 1 BEYOND THE TURING TEST: HARNESSING AI TO CREATE WIDELY 2 SHARED PROSPERITY Erik Brynjolfsson WE CAN'T PREDICT THE FUTURE OF WORK 4 Adam Thierer AUTOMATION, AI, AND [...]

The December 5, 2023, House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing on antisemitism in higher education embarrassed American political science (of which I am a part). Two of the [...]

The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which the US House of Representatives passed on January 31, 2024, and the Senate is now considering, would make important changes to the child tax credit (CTC) if enacted. The legislation would increase CTC payments for families with lower earnings, apply a one-year "lookback" provision to the refundable credit's earnings test, and begin increasing the maximum benefit with inflation. We first summarize how this legislation would affect benefits for families based on their marital status, number of children, and earnings. Then we discuss how it would affect work and marriage incentives. We conclude by arguing that more research is needed to inform how behavioral responses to these changed incentives would ultimately shape the legislation's effects on employment, marriage, and family well-being., The child tax credit (CTC) was enacted in 1997 to provide tax relief for families with dependent children. (1) Originally a nonrefundable credit that offset federal income tax liability, the [...]

Local lawmakers are currently piloting their desired next nationwide expansion of the welfare state. Dozens of guaranteed income pilots are running across the country at the local and state level, sometimes funded by COVID-19 relief funds, to encourage federal policymakers to implement cash grants without work requirements, restrictions, or conditions. These guaranteed income pilots are a precursor to these policymakers' ultimate goal: establishing a universal basic income, an extraordinarily expensive proposal that can lead to less work, particularly among low-income recipients. When considering these initiatives, policymakers should ensure that the primary long-term outcomes are more work attachment and hours worked, less safety-net dependence, and better overall outcomes for children, including improving children's likelihood of being raised in a married household., Dozens of new welfare experiments, called guaranteed income pilots, have launched in cities throughout the United States over the past few years. Their goal is to prove that important outcomes [...]