During the 2009-10 academic year international students generated more than $18.8 billion in net income into the US economy. California alone had nearly 100,000 international students with an economic impact of nearly $3.0 billion. In this paper, we outline a strategy for the San Francisco/Bay Area to double the number of international students enrolled in local colleges and universities in ten years or less, generating a total direct economic impact of an additional $1 billion a year into the regional economy. The US retains a huge market advantage for attracting foreign students. Within the US, the San Francisco/Bay Area is particularly attractive and could prevail as an extraordinary global talent magnet, if only policymakers and higher education leaders better understood this and formulated strategies to tap the global demand for higher education. Ultimately, all globalism is local. We propose that the San Francisco/Bay Area, a region with a group of stellar universities and colleges, should re-imagine itself as a Global Higher Education Hub to meet national and regional economic needs, as well as the thirst of a growing world population for high-quality tertiary education. Other parts of the world have already developed their version of the higher education hub idea. The major difference in our proposed Californian version is that foreign competitors seek to attract foreign universities to help build enrollment and program capacity at home, and are funded almost solely by significant government subsidies. Our model builds capacity, but is focused on attracting the world’s talent and generating additional income to existing public and private colleges and universities. Doubling international enrollment from 30,000 to 60,000 students in ten years or less will require expanding regional enrollment capacity as part of a strategy to ensure access to native students, and as part of a scheme to attract a new generation of faculty and researchers to the Bay Area and California. International students would need to pay higher then the full cost of their education, helping to subsidize domestic students and college and university programs. The result would be a San Francisco/Bay Area Global Higher Education Hub – a self-reinforcing knowledge ecosystem that is internationally attractive, socially beneficial, and economically viable. We offer a path for analyzing the feasibility of this Global Higher Education Hub, including the steps necessary to engage the private sector and local government to help create enrollment capacity and academic programs, a discussion of a financial model, possible marketing strategies, and for developing shared facilities and services. This initiative will require most Bay Area colleges and universities, including UC Berkeley and Stanford University, to collaborate. By providing a leadership role, Berkeley and Stanford would help brand the hub idea internationally, provide leadership in shaping direct and indirect economic returns of the SF/Bay area higher education hub, while also gaining from the increased international attractiveness of the region and the use of shared facilities. It is about the money. But it is also about establishing closer ties with the regional universities and colleges, business interests and local governments, enhancing the quality and reputation of our universities and colleges, building enrollment capacity for native students, integrating international perspectives into the activities and learning of students and faculty, and broadening the opportunity for international collaborations. It is about solidifying the Bay Area as a global talent magnet, one that is even more culturally diverse, even more innovative, and that continues to attract talent from throughout the world. We conclude the paper by suggesting that a regionally based knowledge hub would also be a viable strategy for a select group of other urban areas of the US. 

This paper evaluates the health impacts of a signature initiative of the War on Poverty: the introduction of the modern Food Stamp Program (FSP). Using variation in the month FSP began operating in each U.S. county, we find that pregnancies exposed to FSP three months prior to birth yielded deliveries with increased birth weight, with the largest gains at the lowest birth weights. We also find small but statistically insignificant improvements in neonatal mortality. We conclude that the sizable increase in income from FSP improved birth outcomes for both whites and African Americans, with larger impacts for African American mothers.

The goal of federal food and nutrition programs in the United States is to improve the nutritional well-being and health of low income families. A large body of literature evaluates the extent to which the Supplemental Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) has accomplished this goal, but most studies have been based on research designs that compare program participants to non-participants. If selection into these programs is non-random then such comparisons will lead to biased estimates of the program's true effects. In this study we use the rollout of the WIC program across counties to estimate the impact of the program on infant health. We find that the implementation of WIC led to an increase in average birth weight and a decrease in the fraction of births that are classified as low birth weight. We find no evidence that these estimates are driven by changes in fertility or selection into live births. Our preferred estimates suggest thatWIC initiation raised average birth weight by 2 g, or by 7 g among infants born to mothers with low education levels. These translate into estimated birth weight increases among participating mothers of approximately 18 to 29 g. Estimated treatments on the treated impacts among infants born to participating mothers with low education are of similar magnitude.

The 1996 welfare reform led to sweeping changes to the central cash safety net program for families with children. Along with other changes, the reform imposed lifetime time limits for receipt of cash welfare, effectively ending its entitlement nature for these families. Despite dire predictions, previous research has shown that program caseloads declined and employment increased, with no detectible increase in poverty or worsening of child well-being. We reevaluate these results in light of the severe 2007–09 recession. In particular, we examine how welfare reform has altered the cyclicality of the response of caseloads and family well-being. We find that use of food stamps and noncash safety net program participation have become significantly more responsive to the economic cycle after welfare reform, rising more when unemployment increases. By contrast, we find no evidence that cash welfare for families with children is more responsive, and some evidence that it might be less so. We find some evidence that poverty increases more with increases in the unemployment rate after reform, and none that it increases less. We find no significant effects of reform on the cyclical responsiveness of food consumption, food insecurity, health insurance, household crowding, or health.

This paper examines the distributional and behavioral effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). We chart the growth of the program over time, and argue that several expansions show that real responses to taxes are important. We use tax data to show the distribution of benefi ts by income and family size, and examine the impacts of hypothetical reforms to the credit. Finally, we calculate the effi ciency effects of marginal changes to EITC parameters

It is an established fact that off-cycle elections attract lower voter turnout than on-cycle elections. I argue that the decrease in turnout that accompanies off-cycle election timing creates a strategic opportunity for organized interest groups. Members of interest groups with a large stake in an election outcome turn out at high rates regardless of election timing, and their efforts to mobilize and persuade voters have a greater impact when turnout is low. Consequently, policy made by officials elected in off-cycle elections should be more favorable to the dominant interest group in a polity than policy made by officials elected in on-cycle elections. I test this theory using data on school district elections in the United States, in which teacher unions are the dominant interest group. I find that districts with off-cycle elections pay experienced teachers over 3% more than districts that hold on-cycle elections.