Maxwell School News and Commentary

Stuart Rosenthal, professor and chair of economics, gave a keynote lecture titled "Building Specialisation, Anchor Tenants and Agglomeration Economies," which offered a new perspective on the productivity of cities. Rosenthal discussed the productivity spillovers that occur when tenants in tall commercial buildings are in close proximity, and how this leads to shared skilled labor, intermediate inputs and knowledge.

"Crew changes aren't unusual and when they do happen, the reassigned astronauts almost always fly on a later mission," says Sean O'Keefe, Howard and Louise Phanstiel endowed Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership. "The exceptions are very few and far between."

Elizabeth Cohen, professor of political science, claims that President Trump's grandfather's chances of being allowed into the country if the RAISE Act were in place when he immigrated from Germany in 1885 would have been highly unlikely".

According to Tom Dennison, director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion, the migration of profitable procedures to free-standing surgery centers makes it more difficult for hospitals to cover the cost of 24/7 emergency care and other "safety net" services that are not profitable. 

Yilin Hou, professor of public administration and international affairs, believes that a good tax system should generally comply with five major design principles, namely fair tax burden, focus on efficiency, appropriate tax administration, sufficient tax revenue and openness and transparency.

According to Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion, interventions should target communities with populations in "significant economic distress," focusing on "places that have experienced major labor market shifts and income decline over the past four decades." "Failure to consider the underlying economic causes could lead to ineffective policy strategies," she says.

William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, discusses the House’s passage of an extension to the Foreign intelligence Surveillance Act.

"Whatever damage takes place here would not happen in a vacuum," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science, about the unwritten rule in the Capitol, often called the Bear Mountain Bridge Compact, that dictates: "What happens in Albany stays in Albany."