Over the past few months, Hoover Institution fellows have generated impactful research and insightful commentary on challenges and opportunities facing state and local governments in America. Senior Fellow Michael J. Boskin is set to release an upcoming book on the nature of American federalism, complete with commentary from several prominent state governors. Hoover Fellow Valentin Bolotnyy explores the cost-effective use of scaling auctions in state transportation infrastructure tendering. Building on the theme of federalism, Paul E. Peterson looks at the power states wield on matters of federal policy, by simple virtue of the fact that they employ many of the public employees needed to carry out or enforce any federal law.
FEATURED ANALYSIS
American Federalism Today: Perspectives on Political and Economic Governance
Renowned experts from a range of disciplines, including economics, political science, history, and law, join practitioners in policymaking to lay out the key priorities in evaluating and reinvigorating America’s federal system of governance. In American Federalism Today, the volume’s editor, Senior Fellow Michael J. Boskin, and its contributors examine the Founders’ intent for the federalist system and its ramifications for current issues, including infrastructure, education and healthcare financing, and public opinion on trust in government.
The book also features a foreword by Hoover Institution director Condoleezza Rice, and commentary from three former governors—Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Jeb Bush of Florida, and Jerry Brown of California— who describe navigating the federalist system as they led their states through many challenges. American Federalism Today is available through Hoover Institution Press and other retailers.
You can order a copy here.
Hoover Hosts Indigenous Student Seminar with Participants from Around the World
Indigenous students and young professionals hoping to foster robust economic activity in their local communities gathered for the Indigenous Student Seminar at the Hoover Institution from August 5 to 9, 2024.
The fifth annual gathering brought together students and recent graduates from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia to reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated by Indigenous peoples for millennia, propel regulatory changes to help Indigenous groups chart their own economic paths, and discuss the seemingly endless array of colonial barriers to development.
Students participated in seminars and discussion groups and heard from a wide range of scholars and community leaders about challenges and opportunities available to self-governing Indigenous peoples in multiple jurisdictions.
The seminar is part of the Renewing Indigenous Economies Project at the Hoover Institution, directed by Hoover senior fellows Terry Anderson and Dominic Parker, and administered and moderated by Gonzaga University professor of entrepreneurship Daniel Stewart.
Read more here.
The Value of “Scaled Auctions” in State Transportation Tendering
Examining the ways US state governments award bids for proposals on infrastructure work, Hoover Fellow Valentin Bolotnyy and Stanford economist Shoshana Vasserman, writing in Microeconomic Insights, find that “scaling auctions,” where bidders break down a job into the price of each unit of labor and material involved, are the best option for sharing cost and risk between government and private enterprise.
They compared scaling auctions performed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to other public infrastructure bidding methods and found that none of the other options, including “lump sum” bids, where bidders agree to assume all cost overruns upfront, result in better outcomes for taxpayers.
“As a result, we conclude that the benefit from policies to lower uncertainty may not hold up in practice,” Vasserman and Bolotnyy write. “The scaling auctions currently used have much to recommend them.” Scaling auctions are already used by departments of transportation in 41 US states.
Read more about their findings here.
HIGHLIGHTS
The Modern Federalist: How States Influence National Immigration Policy
Senior Fellow Paul Peterson examines how states influence national immigration policy. He cites Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s move away from pro-migrant policies toward supporting the Biden migrant quota and stiffer legislation in the future, pointing out how this shift dovetails with the deteriorating situation on the ground, with states and cities struggling to keep up with the demands of thousands of migrants arriving each week. By late 2023, blue states and cities were demanding help from the federal government to contend with migrants being bused from border states. This prompted a change in tune from the White House, which appears to be carrying forward to this day.
Peterson writes that simply by the virtue of the fact that states often directly employ the law enforcement officers needed to carry out federal policy, states have gigantic sway over how and which federal laws get enforced. “Boots on the ground count for as much as constitutional stipulations,” he writes.
Read more here.
California Added Only 5,400 Private-Sector Jobs in Past 18 Months
Senior Fellow Lee Ohanian writes about California’s dismal private-sector job growth, where only 5,400 private-sector jobs were added between January 2022 and June 2024. Dragged down by corporate headquarters’ relocations and continued tech firm job cuts, California’s jobs picture has its only bright spot in the public sector, which added more than 150,000 positions during the same period.
He cites California’s poor record on taxation and cost of doing business as reasons for the lackluster performance. As a result, California has the third-highest unemployment rate in the entire nation. Also, nearly 75,000 residents left the state between 2022 and 2023, compounding the tax revenue challenge for California.
Read more here.
California’s Influence on a Possible First Term of Kamala Harris’s Presidency . . . and Beyond
Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen writes that should Kamala Harris win the presidency in November, the Democratic Party could choose to hold its national convention in California in 2028, just as the state hosts the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. It’s a longshot, he admits, but things could line up that way. And California’s influence on a Harris administration might not stop there. Whalen suggests Harris could select some prominent California Democrats—Gavin Newsom, Eleni Kounalakis, or Laphonza Butler to name a few—to serve in her cabinet.
Read more here.
Fellow Spotlight: Lee Ohanian
Lee Ohanian is a senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and a professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is associate director of the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he codirects a research initiative called Macroeconomics Across Time and Space. He is also a fellow in the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory.
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