Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) — Dozens of students and recent graduates from across the globe gathered for the eighth annual Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp (HISPBC) from August 11 to 16, 2024.
Participants had the unique opportunity to hear from a wide cross section of the Hoover Institution fellowship speaking about topics including monetary and fiscal policy, environmental sustainability, and healthcare, as well as US foreign policy on China, the Middle East, and Africa.
“The Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp is an incredible opportunity for the Hoover Institution to shape the next generation of policy leaders,” HISPBC codirector and senior fellow Joshua D. Rauh said. “Together with our fellows and teaching assistants, we strive to foster a dynamic environment where ideas flourish, guiding students through instruction and rigorous discussions on the top public policy issues of today.
“As Milton Friedman believed, we encourage students to evaluate policies on the basis of results, not on the basis of policymakers’ intentions.”
Participants also got the chance to interact with fellows over meals and social events throughout the week, sharing insights and exchanging ideas about the subject matter discussed.
The Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp is made possible by the generosity of the Kurt Hauser Family.
All accepted applicants must complete a “policy proposal assignment”—a 1,500‒2,000-word essay that argues for a specific solution to a policy problem, due the month after the boot camp ends.
Leading entries are honored with the Director’s Award, which comes with a $500 cash prize and an invitation to an upcoming Hoover Institution Board of Overseers meeting.
Subjects tackled by some past winners can be found here.
Read more about the program here. Applications to attend the 2025 Boot Camp open in November 2024.
Josh Rauh—What is the Role of Government in the Economy?
In this opening talk on August 11, HISPBC codirector and senior fellow Joshua D. Rauh spoke to attendees about the proper way to think about the role of government spending in shaping the economy. Through live instant polling of the boot camp participants, he contrasted their perception of the size of the US government in relation to the economy to its actual size in the most recent fiscal year. Government spending in the United States as a share of its GDP is higher than countries with comparable living standards such as Switzerland.
Resources
- Gregory Kearney and Joshua Rauh, “How Big is Government in the United States?” Liberty Lens Substack, August 10, 2023.
- Gregory Kearney and Joshua Rauh, “Taking the Political Spin Out of Inequality (Part 1),” Liberty Lens Substack, May 31, 2023.
John Cochrane—Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow John H. Cochrane spoke about the US Federal Reserve’s slow response to rising inflation in 2022, a policy decision that, combined with enormous fiscal spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, continues to affect ordinary US households.
He argued that when markets believe fiscal deficits will continue endlessly, this causes inflation, in part due to declining faith in the ability for repayment and the expectation that the sustained borrowing will someday increase the money supply.
Resources
- John H. Cochrane, “Fiscal Narratives for US Inflation,” January 4, 2024.
- John H. Cochrane, “Inflation, Monetary and Fiscal Policy, and Japan,” May 28, 2024.
- John H. Cochrane, “Expectations and the Neutrality of Interest Rates,” Review of Economic Dynamics 53 (July 25, 2024).
Ross Levine—Intricacies of Bank Regulation
Booth Derbas Family/Edward Lazear Senior Fellow Ross Levine walked participants through a brief overview of the tools available to regulate large banks. He spoke about the circumstances that led to the collapse of the Silicon Valley, Signature, and Silvergate banks during the crisis in 2023.
Resources
- Amit Seru, “Yes, You Should Be Worried About a Potential Bank Crisis. Here’s Why,” New York Times, May 4, 2023.
Bill Whalen Interviews John B. Taylor on Monetary Policy Strategy
George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics John B. Taylor spoke to Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen over lunch about the development of the rules-based monetary policy strategy he devised, the “Taylor Rule.” Taylor spoke about his public service at the US Treasury Department and as a staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He also argued that countries around the world should collaborate on harmonizing key interest rates to 2 percent.
Resources
- Bill Whalen, “Let’s Start Selecting Presidents By Using A Shultz Standard, By George,” Forbes, October 15, 2016.
- Bill Whalen, “Happy 100th Birthday, George Shultz!” Forbes, December 13, 2020.
Stephen Haber—Innovation and American Prosperity
If you want to know why the United States had a GDP per capita of $65,000 last year, but a place like Liberia had only $662 GDP per capita, a lot of the explanation (other than recent war, colonization, etc.) is innovation, said Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow Stephen Haber. But successful innovation has a lengthy list of prerequisites. There must be intellectual property rights, creditor rights, independent courts, free elections, and so on. And the innovators themselves need to spot a demand for something that doesn’t yet exist, then combine a myriad of inputs—capital, engineering, marketing, etc.—to make a new commercial product.
Resources
- Stephen Haber, “Innovation, Not Manna from Heaven,” Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism: The Human Prosperity Project, Hoover Institution, September 15, 2020.
- Stephen Haber, “Patents and the Wealth of Nations,” George Mason Law Review 23, no. 4 (2016): 811–35.
Jendayi Frazer on Africa’s Economic Development Challenges
Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow Jendayi Frazer spoke to boot camp participants about the reasons for Africa’s relative underdevelopment. Beyond imposing arbitrary borders on African states on the continent, colonialism turned most of them into exporters of raw materials only, with no ability to process anything into value-added goods. Struggles persist with basic literacy, infrastructure, and service delivery. Frazer said that a remedy would be a removal of all intracontinental trade barriers with a free trade agreement. But what good is a continental free trade zone when only 56 percent of Africans have regular access to electricity?
Resources
- Jendayi Frazer, “Engaging Africa on its Own Terms,” The Catalyst, no. 30 (Spring 2024).
- David McNair, “Tomorrow’s Global Financial Architecture: A Reform Plan for People and Planet,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 4, 2024.
- Jendayi Frazer and Peter Blair Henry, “Filling Africa’s Data Gap: How the World Bank Can Bolster the Continent’s Economic Growth,” Foreign Affairs, May 29, 2023.
Caroline Hoxby on Retooling Education for Better Outcomes
Senior fellow Caroline Hoxby offered participants her insights into three challenges in the education policy space. First, she argued that teacher compensation should be tied to outcomes of students, with teachers receiving a fraction of the future added economic performance of their pupils as merit pay. Hoxby also provided research that predicts which university students are most at risk of defaulting on their loans (hint: it’s not who the media often says it is—poor students at highly selective, prestigious universities). Finally, she took aim at the post-pandemic policy of some universities moving to a test-optional or no-test admissions policy. She said this disadvantages poorer applicants who do not have the time or resources to develop all the other things schools consider instead of test scores (internships, letters of reference, volunteer work etc.).
Resources
- Caroline M. Hoxby, “The Changing Selectivity of American Colleges,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 23, no. 4 (Fall 2009).
Eric Hanushek on the Challenge of Pandemic-era Learning Loss
Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow in Education Eric Hanushek spoke to attendees about his effort to quantify the impact of COVID-19 pandemic-era school shutdowns on pupils’ learning and future income earning. Without rapid remedial action, his research suggests students in primary or secondary school during the pandemic will earn 5-6 percent less during their lifetimes than if the pandemic had never occurred. And the learning losses are larger in disadvantaged households. The national learning loss translates to $28 trillion, about 1.4 times America’s annual total economic output over these students’ lifetimes.
Resources
- Eric Hanushek and Bradley Strauss, “A Global Perspective on US Learning Losses,” Hoover Institution, February 14, 2024.
John Cogan on US Entitlements and the Coming Fiscal Crisis
In his presentation, Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow John Cogan shed light on America’s massive public debt, an amount he called “unprecedented in all of our history.” The United States is on track to run a $1.9 trillion deficit in 2024, a larger deficit adjusted for inflation than any period outside of a recession, pandemic, or major war. Just to keep up with interest payments on the debt and growth in entitlements, with no other expansion of defense or other program spending, Cogan estimates total federal spending will rise from about 22.5 percent of GDP today to 28 percent in 2050. In 2034, the average tax filer will devote $12,800 in today’s dollars to servicing the federal debt.
Resources
- Congressional Budget Office, “Deficits and Debt,” chapter 1 of The Long-Term Budget Outlook: 2024 to 2054, March 2024.
- John F. Cogan, “Introduction” and “A Challenge Unlike Any Other in U.S. History,” chapter 1 and chapter 19 in The High Cost of Good Intentions: A History of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs (Stanford University Press, 2019).
Scott Atlas on Health Policy Post-Covid
Robert Wesson Senior Fellow Scott Atlas spoke about his tenure advising the Trump White House on its response to COVID-19, as well as the pitfalls of single-payer healthcare systems. He pointed out that both Canada and the United Kingdom have significant wait times for specialized procedures and complex diagnostics. Instead, he offered other avenues for reform, such as ending the ability of insurers’ drug copays to exceed the actual cost of the drug being dispensed.
Resources
- Scott W. Atlas, Steve H. Hanke, Philip G. Kerpen, and Casey B. Mulligan, “COVID Lessons Learned: A Retrospective After Four Years,” Committee to Unleash Prosperity, March 2024.
- Scott W. Atlas, “Sanders’ Medicare-for-All Would Destroy America’s Health Care,” RealClearPolitics, July 11, 2023.
- Scott W. Atlas, “Sins Against Children,” New Criterion, January 4, 2023.
John Yoo on the Supreme Court
Visiting Fellow John Yoo asked participants to work with him to define several issues concerning presidential elections, presidential power, and how to define “an insurrection” with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. By questioning students, he worked to prove that defining these terms for legal matters is exceedingly difficult, and the process is compounded by the polarized nature of politics today.
Resources
- Trump v. Anderson, 601 U.S. (2024).
- Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. (2024).
- Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. (2024).
Arun Majumdar on Energy Policy
Senior Fellow Arun Majumdar, who also serves as dean of Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, spoke over dinner about the national security implications of energy policy.
He said the balance of energy availability in Canada, the United States, and Mexico is “something to be really cherished” compared with many other regions around the world, which do not have such a robust and available supply of hydrocarbons within a free-trade zone. He contrasted this to the situation in the European Union, where member states have significantly reduced but could not eliminate imports of Russian oil and gas. He then spoke about the most effective efforts needed to curb global carbon dioxide emissions, including a global shift from auto commuting to using public transit and energy efficiency in homes. But in the mid- to long term, other solutions, such as carbon capture, may be necessary.
Condoleezza Rice on America’s Great Power Rivals
Condoleezza Rice, Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution, spoke to attendees about three global trends she argued are contributing to a sense of chaos in world affairs. First, she described the return of great power conflict to the globe, arguing that that there is a greater risk of direct confrontations between US, Russian, and Chinese troops without the de-escalatory mechanisms that characterized the Soviet-US relationship during the Cold War. Second, the international post-Second World War order is weakening. As it rises, China is challenging the institutions that underpin that world order, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization and is building its own rival organizations to undermine them. And the third is the extent to which the development of artificial intelligence resembles the nuclear arms race.
Rice said that the United States will go through a deliberative, open process to figure out its place in the world and how it will utilize AI. But authoritarian regimes will do everything in the dark. “We will debate the right level of regulation, we will have hearings, investigative reporting, things that go wrong will be exposed,” she said. “Authoritarians will just hide everything.”
Resources
- Condoleezza Rice, “Russia and the Weight of History,” chapter 2 in Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (New York: Twelve, 2017).
- Condoleezza Rice, “Ukraine: ‘A Made-Up Country’?” chapter 4 in Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (New York: Twelve, 2017).
- Condoleezza Rice, “Whither China?” chapter 49 in No Higher Honor (New York: Crown, 2011).
- Robert M. Gates and Condoleezza Rice, “Time Is Not on Ukraine’s Side,” Washington Post, January 7, 2023.
Stephen Kotkin and Gen. Jim Mattis on Allies and Enemies
Davies Family Distinguished Fellow Gen. Jim Mattis came to the boot camp with a stark message for students: the United States is entering a dark and challenging period abroad for which it is not well prepared. But there is hope. “How do we deal with this situation? Allies, allies, allies,” he said. “Nations with allies thrive, without them they wither. I don’t know how to defend this country without allies.” Joining him was Kleinheinz Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin, who spoke of his belief that America’s rivals oppose it because the mere existence of our democratic system embarrasses and weakens their grip on their own populations. He added that there is a fine line between America asserting itself to deter rivals such as China, Russia, and Iran versus provoking war itself. Diplomacy may be key to deterrence without provocation.
Resources
- Constitution Annotated, US Congress, Clause 11 through Clause 16, June 2024.
- Max Bergmann, “A More European NATO,” Foreign Affairs, March 21, 2024.
- Jeffrey W. Hornung, “America’s Best Friend in Asia,” Foreign Affairs, April 10, 2024.
Russell Berman on Central Europe—The New Special Relationship
Senior Fellow Russell Berman argued that the United States can forge a “new special relationship” with select states in Eastern Europe, a designation that has historically belonged to the United Kingdom, which no longer sits within the European Union because of Brexit. Opposition to Russian aggression means many of these nations are open to much deeper collaboration with the United States.
Resources
- Matt Boyse, George Scutaru, Antonia Colibasanu, and Mykhailo Samus, “The Battle for the Black Sea Is Not Over,” Hudson Institute, April 2024.
- John W. Blocher, “Unexpected Competition: A US Strategy to Keep its Central and Eastern European Allies as Allies,” Atlantic Council, November 2020.
- Milan Kundera, “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” New York Review 31, no. 7 (April 26, 1984).
Peter Berkowitz on Israel’s Fight Against Hamas
Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz spoke to attendees about Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023, attacks. He described Israel as engaging in a war “only Hamas wants.” Berkowitz said that Iran encouraged the attack as part of its strategy to deploy proxies to “exhaust and destroy” Israel. He walked through the potential for extensive losses on either side if Hezbollah and Israel’s military were to engage in an all-out shooting war and told attendees that “all options are terrible” regarding the post-conflict outlook for Gaza, regardless of who ultimately assumes responsibility for reconstruction.
Resources
- Peter Berkowitz, “How Netanyahu Can Convince Israelis, Reassure US, and Satisfy Saudis,” RealClearPolitics, May 12, 2024.
- Azar Gat, “The Aims of the War in Gaza—And the Strategy for Achieving Them,” Institute for National Security Studies, February 26, 2024.
- Micah Goodman, “Eight Steps to Shrink the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” The Atlantic, April 1, 2019.
Abbas Milani on Iran’s Regime and Terrorism
Research fellow Abbas Milani offered students a lesson on the history of the Iranian Revolution and the members of Iran’s current governing regime. He spoke of their practice of engaging in attacks on dissidents abroad and then abducting foreign citizens as hostages within Iran for use as bargaining chips to get the attackers released. “I know no other regime in the world today that is as entangled in and proud of its terror activities,” he said. “The language they use to legitimize terror is similar to what the Marxists used to justify their own violent acts.” He also spoke of the affinity some of Iran’s leaders have for Sayyid Qutb, a leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s who is considered by many to have inspired several modern Islamist terror movements.
Dominic Parker on Environmental Advocacy in Academic Research
Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow Dominic (Nick) Parker spoke of his research into the subjective language of environmental advocacy that is percolating into modern academic literature. After running the abstracts of 180,000 journal articles into a system detecting nonobjective language, he found the average use of subjective language in environmental economics and environmental science papers increased by 10 percent or more between 1990 and 2023.
Resources
- Terry L. Anderson and Kurt R. Luebe, “Warning: Semantic Traps Ahead,” Hoover Digest, Summer 2017: 77‒82.
- Robert T. Lackey, “Science, Scientists, and Policy Advocacy,” Conservation Biology 21, no. 1 (2007):12‒17.
H.R. McMaster on Building Strategic Competence
Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster spoke to participants about the risks facing the United States as four of its major adversaries—China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea—draw closer together in what he called “an axis of aggressors” who wish to tear down the existing global order. In countering this threat, McMaster suggested students cast aside the image of the US military’s technological prowess, which was demonstrated best in the 1990s as the US steamrolled Iraq’s army and smart-bombed the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia into submission. He urged students to dismiss the idea that “war could just become a big targeting exercise.” The evolution of conflicts from the 1990s to the War on Terror period showed smart bombs could not solve everything. Counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and current conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war have required a combined arms effort across military branches.
Resources
- Margaret MacMillan, “The Rhyme of History: Lessons of the Great War,” The Brookings Essay, December 14, 2013.
- H.R. McMaster, “The Retrenchment Syndrome: A Response to ‘Come Home, America?’” Foreign Affairs, June 1, 2020.
- PolicyEd, “Deterrence by Denial: The Taiwanese Example,” October 12, 2021, YouTube video.
- MSNBC, “Pottinger: China’s Strategy to ‘Quietly’ Support Russia ‘Not Working,’” March 25, 2022, YouTube video.
- Hal Brands, “Can the US Take on China, Iran, and Russia All at Once?” Bloomberg Opinions via American Enterprise Institute, October 16, 2022.
Brandice Canes-Wrone on Trends in US Campaign Finance
Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow Brandice Canes-Wrone, director of Hoover’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions, spoke to participants about the “surging” amounts of money being spent on US legislative and presidential elections recently. She estimates $4 billion was spent in the 2020 US presidential election cycle, and total spending on the 2024 US congressional cycle will reach $9 billion. However, she said spending a lot of money doesn’t always correlate with electoral success. “You can’t buy your way into office—but there is evidence that a good campaign can help,” she said. Canes-Wrone then presented data that suggests members of Congress frequently side with the interests of their donors over the interests of constituents in their district.
Resources
- Michael Barber, Brandice Canes-Wrone, and Sharece Thrower, “Ideologically Sophisticated Donors: Which Candidates Do Individual Contributors Finance?” American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 2 (2017): 271‒88.
- Gary C. Jacobson, “How Do Campaigns Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science 18 (2015): 31‒47.
Elizabeth Economy on China’s Global Ambition and the US Response
Hargrove Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy lectured participants about all the different ways the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to rework the global rules-based order and replace it with a system that better suits its own interests. Through trade, aggressively pushing against the territorial claims of their neighbors, and new investment vehicles such as the Belt and Road Initiative or the Digital Silk Road, China is trying to tear down US hegemony.
To counter China’s ambitions, Economy says the United States needs a comprehensive global outreach plan of its own.
Resources
- Antony J. Blinken, “The Administration’s Approach to the People’s Republic of China” (speech), May 26, 2022, George Washington University, Washington, DC.
- Jude Blanchette, “Xi Jinping’s Faltering Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, March 16, 2022.
- Elizabeth Economy, “Xi Jinping’s New World Order,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2022.
Victor Davis Hanson on the Erosion of US Citizenship
Martina and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson spoke about the various state and federal measures that have in his opinion eroded the value of US citizenship in recent years. Noncitizens are now regularly invited to participate in things only citizens could do in previous years. He cited the fact noncitizens vote in school district elections in some municipalities, or even be appointed to state offices. “The uniqueness of citizenship is evaporating,” Hanson said, adding that instead, American communities are returning to tribalism, where one associates only with others who share the same ethnic or linguistic background.
Resources
- Victor Davis Hanson, “The Birth, Benefits & Burden of Western Citizenship,” New Criterion, January 2022.
- Victor Davis Hanson, “Is America Periclean?” New Criterion, October 2011.
- Victor Davis Hanson, “Pre- & Post-Citizens,” New Criterion, January 2020.
Larry Diamond on Anti-Semitism at Stanford
Over dinner on the final night of the program, William L. Clayton Senior Fellow Larry Diamond spoke about a six-month study conducted to assess the nature and extent of anti-Semitism on Stanford’s campus and what can be done to counter it. He cautioned that anti-Semitism is a significant international challenge on campuses around the globe. He said the study found the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel has grown considerably on university campuses. He also spoke about the Fizz social media app being used to propagate anti-Semitic propaganda and urged students to remove it from their devices.
