The Economic Case for Smart Investing in America’s Youth
The United States spends a relatively small sum on children, both on a per capita basis and as a share of all spending. In 2019, the federal government spent an estimated $5,595 per child on programs benefiting children under 18, compared to $29,189 per elderly American on entitlement programs alone—a gap that remains wide even ...
Aspen Economic Strategy Group Releases 2023 Annual Policy Volume: Building a More Resilient US Economy
Washington, DC, November 8, 2023 – The Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) today released its sixth annual policy volume, Building a More Resilient US Economy. The book’s publication comes as the US faces historically high levels of debt that threaten the resiliency of the nation’s economy, including the ability to invest in key priorities and ...
Aspen Economic Strategy Group Welcomes Five New Members
WASHINGTON, DC, JANUARY 22, 2024 – The Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) today announced five new members have joined the sixty-five-member, bipartisan group of distinguished leaders and thinkers who share the goal of promoting evidence-based solutions to significant challenges confronting the American economy. Established in 2017 and co-chaired by former U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury ...
Rising Childlessness is Driving the Decline in Birth Rates in the United States
The United States has experienced a dramatic decline in birth rates, starting in 2007 and continuing through recent years. This post updates and expands on findings in Kearney, Levine, Pardue (2020), The Puzzle of Falling Birth Rates in the United States, which concludes that the decline in birth rates has been fueled more by a ...
Protectionism is Failing and Wrongheaded: An Evaluation of the Post-2017 Shift toward Trade Wars and Industrial Policy
This paper evaluates the shift towards increasingly protectionist and nationalist policies carried out by the past two presidential administrations. In this paper, Michael Strain argues that the turn to such economic policies has not only been ineffective by its own standards, failing to raise employment and reduce America’s reliance on China, but also is more ...
Introduction: Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism
Global tensions and domestic discontent are driving a new era of economic policymaking. Leaders in both parties are turning away from free-market principles and endorsing an increase in protectionist trade policies and more active government-directed industrial policy. Further, these disruptions come when the country’s economic and political landscapes face systemic difficulties including limited state capacity ...
Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism
The Aspen Economic Strategy Group’s seventh annual policy volume focuses on the theme, Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism. The volume’s publication comes at a time when US policymakers are turning away from free-market principles in favor of protectionist policies and more active government-directed industrial policy. These shifts, combined with growing economic and political difficulties including the ...
Melissa S. Kearney
MELISSA S. KEARNEY is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. She is also director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group; a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of MDRC and ...