Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Advancing Community Engaged Scholarship And Community Engagement At The University Of Massachusetts Boston: A Report Of The Working Group For An Urban Research-Based Action Initiative, Mark Warren, John Saltmarsh, Patricia Krueger-Henney, Lorna Rivera, Miren Uriarte, Donna Friedman, Richard Fleming, Diana Yadira-Salas, Luciano Ramos

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The University of Massachusetts Boston has a rich history of mission-driven commitments that engage the campus with local, state, regional, national, and global communities. In the context of a public urban research university, a mission of community engagement is most clearly expressed through community-engaged scholarship. The University is positioned to build upon its strengths in community engagement and strengthen its community-engaged scholarship to become an international model for community engagement.

Financial Security Scorecard: A State-By-State Analysis Of Economic Pressures Facing Future Retirees, Christian Weller, Nari Rhee, Carolyn Arcand

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

As Americans increasingly worry about their retirement prospects, states play an important and growing role in retirement security policy. States already manage long-term care programs for the elderly through Medicaid. Concerned about the impact of future elder poverty on state and local budgets and their local economies, a number of states are exploring the creation of low-cost and low-risk retirement savings plans for private sector workers who lack access to pensions or 401(k)s on the job. Some states have developed programs to help older workers find work.

This report presents the Financial Security Scorecard, designed to inform state-level stakeholders and …

The Universal Savings Credit, Christian Weller, Sam Ungar

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 took a tremendous toll on household wealth and shattered the sense of financial security for millions of American families. American households lost more than $20 trillion in wealth (in 2012 dollars) in the Great Recession, and households still had $10 trillion less in wealth at the end of 2012 than they had before the crisis. This massive wealth decline contributed to a widespread loss of economic security, particularly among lower-income and moderate-income families, single women, and communities of color.

This economic insecurity can have long-ranging adverse effects on U.S. economic growth as American …

The Role Of Comparative Analysis In Borderlands Studies, Christine Brenner

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The paper explores the question, “What global core competencies can public administration glean from the field of borderlands studies?” Borderlands studies have traditionally focused on the geographic area on or near the frontier demarcation between nation states. Borderlands also function as buffering or mediating zones where often markedly different countries develop complex networked administrative systems to permit the passage of peoples and products across territorial boundaries. In this way borderlands often shape the administrative and policy decisions made in the centers of national power. This paper employs content analysis to review ten years of the Journal of Borderlands Studies (2011 …

Struggling Recovery And Economic Policy Uncertainty: Testimony Before The Joint Revenue Hearing, House And Senate Ways And Means Committees, Massachusetts State House, Boston, Ma, Christian Weller

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The U.S. economy is in the fourth year of a recovery that started in June 2009. The fact that the economy is in recovery, even modestly, is something of a miracle given how stacked the deck is against it.

This is absolutely unique in American economic history: There has never been a recovery without the housing market expanding substantially as well; There has never been a recovery with state and local governments shrinking for three years in a row; There has never been a recovery with households owing, on average, well more than 100 percent of their after-tax income in …

Community-Engaged Decision Support For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment In Boston, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

This project develops decision tools and analytical methods to help non‐profit community development corporations (CDCs) acquire and redevelop foreclosed housing for neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. Interviews and direct observations at partner CDCs have helped us identify current practices, data and requirements for our decision models. Problem‐structuring methods through CDC focus groups have generated core operational and organizational objectives. Spreadsheet‐ and optimization based decision models generate policy and operational alternatives that address multiple resident and community outcomes. Our research will support efficient responses to the recent foreclosure crisis, especially in distressed neighborhoods, and suggest policy implications at local and national levels.

Decision Models For Housing And Community Development, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Decision science provides tools and methods to support strategy design and operations in housing and community development by generating guidance regarding the number, type, location and development process of housing units in order to balance objectives such as social benefits and costs, tenure mix and equity. These decision models address the needs of multiple stakeholders, reflect the public and private nature of housing, and incorporate best-available evidence regarding markets, policies and impacts of housing and community development. This chapter reviews applications over the past 30 years and describe current applications in decision support for housing and community development, including: affordable …

Community-Based Operations Research: Introduction, Theory And Applications, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Community-based operations research is the name of a new sub-discipline within operations research and the management sciences. CBOR synthesizes previous practice and research traditions within OR/MS to address problems within the public sector that are often of a localized nature, that address the concerns of citizens affiliated through characteristics of race, ethnicity and class and other ties and that are solved using diverse qualitative and quantitative methods. Solutions to these problems are developed and implemented by formal and informal organizations, and embody a critical perspective towards traditional notions of decisionmakers, stakeholders and analytic methods. The most proximate antecedents of CBOR …

Decision Models For Foreclosed Housing Acquisition And Redevelopment: A University Of Massachusetts Multi-Campus Collaborative Project - Processes And Findings To Date, Michael P. Johnson Jr., Jeffrey Keisler, Senay Solak, David Turcotte, Rachel B. Drew, Armagan Bayram, Emily Vidrine

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The recent housing foreclosure crisis has had devastating impacts on individuals, communities, organizations and government. In response, several community development corporations (CDCs) have sought new ways to assist neighborhoods suffering from the myriad effects of high foreclosures, including neighborhood instability, increased vandalism and crime, lower property values, and economic disinvestment. This research project focuses on activities of community-based organizations that acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties to support neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. However, the costs of pursuing this strategy far exceed the resources available to typical CDCs. Thus, our project seeks to solve the following decision problem: What subset of a …

Housing And Community Development, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Researchers in housing and community development design and evaluate policies regarding access to attractive, affordable and sustainable housing and improving the social, physical and economic infrastructure of communities, especially those in the urban core. Practitioners in this field confront political considerations, administrative guidelines and limited funding.

Decision science can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of market-rate housing development and provide support for policy responses to issues such as affordable housing, race and class segregation, ineffective and/or inequitable economic development, and sustainable development. This research spans many disciplines, including systems modeling, urban economics, multi-criteria decision modeling, stochastic models and decision support …

Recession Grips The Bay State, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Economic activity in Massachusetts is on the decline. According to the current economic index, real gross state domestic product grew at only a 0.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter, and the leading index is predicting that the state’s economy will decline at a 1.5 percent annual rate over the six months november 2008 through april 2009. Massachusetts is in a recession.

The Year In Review: 2007 Marks Start Of Slowdown, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The state’s economy slowed moderately in 2007, the beginning of a slowdown that may last several years. The deceleration was precipitated by a downturn in the housing market that, in Massachusetts, began in late 2005, and gained downward momentum in 2006. Last summer, fi nancial havoc from sub-prime mortgage defaults and falling prices throughout most of the nation tipped the nation’s economy to the brink of recession. This year, soaring energy prices threaten to weigh down the economy further, neutralizing the fi scal stimulus package that is coming on line now.

National Woes Test Bay State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Economic growth is slowing, and is projected to continue to decelerate into the second half of 2008, and then to rebound moderately. The slowdown is directly related to the impact of the declining housing market, the sub-prime mortgage shakeout in the finance sector, and the high cost of heating oil and gasoline. Credit tightening is threatening to curtail business activity and the solvency of investors and households involved in sub-prime lending or borrowing. High energy prices are reducing non-energy consumer spending. The impact of the declining housing market has already affected the state’s economy. Massachusetts is experiencing declines in housing …

2007'S Housing Market: Not Yet Recovering From Recent Ills, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The Massachusetts economy is currently on a trajectory that is similar to that of the national economy, at least as measured in the aggregate. During the second quarter of the calendar year, the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.4 percent. During the same period, the Massachusetts economy grew at 3.6 percent annual rate of growth, down from a strong 4.1 percent rate in the first quarter. The state’s economy is being pulled in two directions. On the upside, strong demand for the state’s technology, science, knowledge, and health-based goods and services is creating good job and income …

Fueled By Technology Market Demand, Massachusetts Economic Growth Increases, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The pace of economic growth in Massachusetts has picked up significantly, beginning in the fourth quarter of last year, reflecting improved worldwide markets for information technology equipment in the last half of 2005. This resurgence in technology markets helped reverse a deceleration in state economic growth that the state experienced between mid-2004 and the third quarter of 2005. The Massachusetts economy has performed better over the last six months than at any time since the current expansion began in the second quarter of 2003. The recent pace of expansion matched the long-term average growth in real gross state product of …

Look For Little Growth In The First Half Of 2006, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The state’s economy remains stuck in slow gear, and may no longer even be moving forward. In the face of slow employment growth, a population and brain drain, a sharp spike in energy costs, volatile consumer confidence, housing prices that are clearly cooling, increasing federal budget deficits, trade deficits and rising interest rates, perhaps it’s good news that the economy has been able to grow at all.

2006 Year In Review: Slow And Steady Does It For 2006, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The state’s economy continued to expand in 2006, continuing a path of slow, steady growth that began in 2003. By most measures, such as employment, output, labor force, and population growth, it was the best year so far of the recovery, but not by much; and the pace of expansion has been much slower than that of the two prior ones of the 1990s and 1980s. Weighing on the economic accomplishments of the year was a decline in the housing market and a rise in unemployment of the state’s residents, setting the stage for a likely slowing of growth in …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The Massachusetts economy is recovering, but at a relatively slow pace that is consistent with the state’s experience coming out of the last recession. Job creation continues to lag, and the Commonwealth faces continuing economic challenges, including strengthening the technology sector and addressing worker migration.

A Groundhog Day Economy In The Bay State, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The Bay State’s economic expansion peaked in December 2000, when the MassBenchmarks Current Economic Index, which is a proxy for gross state product, reached 150.2. But even before reaching that peak, warning signs were on the horizon. The MassBenchmarks Leading Economic Index, which forecasts changes in gross state product six months hence, turned negative in November 2000 and, except for one month, stayed negative for a year. The Current Index did not rise again until April 2003 and since then has risen at a stubbornly slow pace. While there have been eight successive quarters of growth in the Current Index, …

Massachusetts Recovery Stronger Than First Thought, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Massachusetts is still in the early stages of the recovery that began in the spring of 2003, but it may still be a couple of years more before it feels as if the recession is finally over. That “feel good” time will come only when unemployment is low enough for the state to achieve what economists call “full employment.” Currently, recent employment estimates from the payroll survey suggest that demand for the products and services supplied by Massachusetts producers is finally outstripping the ability of employers to meet that demand with existing employees. The result is that payroll employment is …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

While the Federal Reserve Board can be “patient” in raising interest rates—“patient” is their descriptive term for their outlook on interest-rate policy—workers have had to be patient in waiting for jobs to return. The past year has exhibited a dichotomy between the product and the labor markets. While GDP, manufacturing output, corporate profits, and stock prices have soared, labor markets have languished. By some measures, this dichotomy has been even more pronounced in Massachusetts. The Bloomberg stock index for Massachusetts, for example, outperformed the national NASDAQ, Dow Jones, and S&P 500 indexes, even while employment continued to decline. The relative …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Business is looking up in Massachusetts: Buoyed by the state’s high-technology industry, sales, profits, and exports are all showing growth. Housing starts and consumer spending also grew strongly in the second quarter. Employment rates and the jobs market are another story: Growth of employment in Massachusetts has lagged that of the nation, and only began to pick up early in 2004, whereas the nation’s job turnaround began last summer. Nonetheless, consumer confidence remains strong, as the wages and salaries of those who are employed are rising. If this recovery mimics the last cycle of this kind, job growth will accelerate …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Over the course of the summer, the Massachusetts economy appears to have begun to turn the corner. In the first quarter of this year, gross state product, as measured by the current index for Massachusetts, experienced its ninth consecutive quarter of decline. In the second quarter, it was flat, and in the third quarter, managed to eke out a small gain, growing at an annualized rate of 0.4 percent. The shift in direction is being led by a recovery in demand for, and production of, technology products that began at the end of 2002, and has continued to gather momentum …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The state economy appears poised for future growth, but serious issues remain. The “unwinding” of the economic excesses of the 1990s is delaying a genuine economic turnaround, but many other issues are weighing heavily on the economy. These include the risk of terrorism, weak global economic performance, a weak dollar (this issues cuts two ways), and the threat of deflation. When a recovery arrives, job growth will probably lag, and be modest when it appears. We should not expect to return to the heady days of the late 1990s anytime soon.

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Statewide numbers paint a picture of declining employment and output, continuing widespread layoffs, slow wage and income growth, rapidly declining consumer confidence, weak consumer spending, stagnant tax revenues, high vacancy rates in the commercial real estate market, and no clear sign of growth in demand for the state’s technology products.

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Massachusetts is still in a recession. Forecasts made earlier in the year — that the state economy would be experiencing modest growth by now — have been revised. Instead, it continues to contract. Joining long-suffering sectors such as technology and manufacturing, finance and state government are now making employment cuts. Even consumers, whose continued spending has been a last stronghold of the state economy, are showing signs of distress. Will the Commonwealth follow the nation on the road to recovery, or is our trajectory taking us elsewhere?

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

While no longer contracting, the Massachusetts economy has not yet turned the corner, either. Delays in the recovery of the technology sector, along with state government fiscal problems, have offset modest expansion in health, education, and residential real estate. But consumer confidence and spending, buoyed by low interest rates and rising home equity, have been making up for weak business capital spending. Could slow growth be just ahead?

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The Commonwealth’s economy appears to have bottomed out and may already have started to expand. The Massachusetts Leading Economic Index for February forecasts that real gross state product will grow at an annualized rate of 1.8 percent through August. This is the fourth consecutive positive reading. Furthermore, the current economic index has remained steady for three months in a row.

Medical Devices: A Stronghold Of The Commonwealth's Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

We benefit from medical devices throughout our lives: Prenatal development is monitored by ultrasound devices, sports injuries are diagnosed with magnetic resonance imaging and fixed with arthroscopic tools, and heart blockages are cleared with angioplasties and drug-coated stents. Devices include the simple and mundane—eyeglasses and thermometers—and stretch to the boundaries of technology—laser scalpels, needles embedded with microprocessors, MRI machines, and artificial hearts. All are products of the medical device industry. Massachusetts is one of the nation’s leading states in medical device development and production.

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

It all seems clear in hindsight: The national recession began last March and the state recession in December 2000. The difference in timing reflects the importance of technology production and the stock market to the Massachusetts economy.