News Sources: Gov't Response to Mortgage Crisis

When an election campaign coincides with both a crisis on Wall Street and soaring home foreclosures across the country, the traditional ideological battles over “more government” or “less government” become blurred.But while their philosophies might seem starkly different, in reality both parties have come to the conclusion that major government involvement is needed to rescue the financial and housing markets. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges and universities, including (click on names for contact information):

John Caskey - Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College - An expert on the use of financial services by low-income U.S. households. Author of "Fringe Banking: Check-Cashing Outlets, Pawnshops, and the Poor" (1994), which examines banking alternatives for poorer people. He has also researched community development banks and economic development in poor communities.

Karl Case - Professor of Economics, Wellesley College - Case is a nationally recognized expert on real estate markets and prices. He has authored several studies that attempt to isolate the causes and consequences of boom and bust cycles and their relationship to regional economic performance.

Kevin McIntyre - Economics/Business Assistant Professor, McDaniel College - McIntyre is an expert on all things macroeconomics including the Federal Reserve, gas prices, inflation, retail markets, financial markets, international markets, and monetary policy.

Who Ya Gonna Call? Wal-Mart!

As reviled as they may be, local big-box stores are often a big source of relief in times of disaster, according to a new stody by St. Lawrence University economics professor Steven Horwitz. Horwitz says stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot often outperform the government in terms of responding to local crises.

News Sources: California Health Revamp Fails

The demise of California's proposed health-care restructuring underscores a difficulty states face in achieving universal insurance coverage: their inability to slow the upward trajectory of health-care costs, analysts said. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Merton Finkler - Professor of Economics, Lawrence University - A specialist in the economics of health care, Finkler has served as consultant to California's Kaiser Permanente Medical Group since 1987. He also runs Innovative Health Associates, a private consulting firm specializing in long-term care and managed care evaluation and strategy. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in health care finance.

Edward Sayre - Assistant Professor of Economics, Agnes Scott College - Sayre has written extensively on the effect of HMOs on the quality of health, care.

Ann Owen - Associate Professor of Economics, Hamilton College - Owen served as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors before joining Hamilton College. Owen focuses her research on the effects of international trade on health and savings behavior. Owen is a frequent media commentator on issues related to Federal Reserve decisions, Social Security, and various economic indices for outlets including MarketWatch, Associated Press, The New York Times, UPI, Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Baltimore Sun. She also serves as director of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton College and is a board member for the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession.

News Sources: Economic Stimulus Talks

President Bush has jump-started the talks between the White House and Congress over how to give a needed boost to the slowing US economy, announcing he wants to pump about 140 bln usd into the hands of consumers and businesses.

Philip N. Jefferson - Associate Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College - Former research economist at the Federal Reserve Board. Has researched small business employment and effect of the money supply on economic performance. Expert on the Fed and its chairman.

Ann Owen - Associate Professor of Economics, Hamilton College - Economics professor Ann Owen served as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors before joining Hamilton College. She has published several papers on long-run growth and income distribution. Owen is a frequent media commentator on issues related to Federal Reserve decisions, Social Security, and various economic indices for outlets including MarketWatch, Associated Press, The New York Times, UPI, Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Baltimore Sun. She also serves as director of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton College.

Steven E. Schier - Position:Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, Carleton College - Schier's interests are primarily in methodology and American politics, including the role of interest groups, elections, fiscal policy, generational politics, and political parties. Schier also publishes widely on the federal government. He is co-author of Payment Due: A Nation in Debt, a Generation in Trouble, and author of Congress in Default, which looks at why Congress has failed to solve the federal budget deficit.

Did Welfare Reform Work?

We know that the welfare case load fell and that work increased following the passage of welfare reform legislation in 1996. But how did this affect children, family structure, and incomes of recipients? Bowdoin College economist John Fitzgerald's demographic studies of government welfare and anti-poverty programs showed little, if any, decline in single motherhood as a result of reforms partially aimed at reducing the number of unwed mothers.

News Sources: Health Insurance Cost Hikes

The increasing cost of health insurance is putting coverage out of reach for many small to midsize companies and their workers, even though the rise in premiums this year was the lowest increase in eight years. Since 2001, the cost of premiums has gone up 78 percent, far outpacing a 19 percent increase in wages and 17 percent jump in inflation, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research group that annually tracks the cost of health insurance. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including (click on names for contact information):

Merton Finkler - Professor of Economics, Lawrence University - Finkler is a specialist in the economics of health care. He has served as consultant to California's Kaiser Permanente Medical Group since 1987. He also runs Innovative Health Associates, a private consulting firm specializing in long-term care and managed care evaluation and strategy. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in health care finance.

Alan H. Goodman - Professor of Biological Anthropology, Hampshire College - Goodman teaches and writes on the health and nutritional consequences of political-economic processes such as poverty, inequality and racism. He conducts several long-term studies into undernutrition in ancient cultures and correlating social factors. He is the author of Races and Wrongs: Why Good Science is Bad Science.

Martin A. Strosberg - Professor of Management, Union College - Strosberg, a leader in the evaluation of intensive care units, co-edited Rationing America's Medical Care: The Oregon Plan and Beyond and Rationing of Medical Care for the Critically Ill. He has researched the impact of New York State's 1987 Do-Not-Resuscitate Law.

News Sources: The Fed's Action and Credit Markets

The Federal Reserve's move to encourage bank lending last week has helped ease some of the panic in financial markets, but the underlying problems that led to the seizing up of credit markets are still there - and won't disappear overnight. The broader credit market is still working through the problems at the root of the crisis - risky subprime mortgages and the complex securities they have been packaged into - which means certain long-term borrowers will face difficulty getting financing for some time. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including:

Karl Case - Professor of Economics, Wellesley College - Case is a nationally recognized expert on real estate markets and prices. He has authored several studies that attempt to isolate the causes and consequences of boom and bust cycles and their relationship to regional economic performance.

Lendol Calder - Assistant Professor of History, Augustana College - Calder is the author of Financing the American Dream, A Cultural History of Consumer Credit and a proponent of simple, debt-free living.

Beth V. Yarbrough - Professor of Economics, Amherst College - Yarbrough is the author of Cooperation and Governance in International Trade and The World Economy: Trade and Finance.

News Sources: College Gender Gap

Colleges are increasingly worried about the fact that their applicant pools and student bodies are becoming lopsidedly female. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests this shift in college enrollment patterns results from some long-term societal shifts. For example, more women are choosing to spend more of their lifetimes working, and the wage differential between college-educated and non-college educated woman has always been greater than for men. Another factor, the authors say, is that women do better in high school. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including (click on names for contact information):

Cecilia A. Conrad - Associate Professor of Economics, Pomona College - Conrad's primary research is on impact of race and gender on economic status in the United States and the economics of the family. A member of the economics board of Black Enterprise Magazine and a past president of the National Economic Association, she was selected the 2002 California Professor or the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and CASE.

Rick Pringle - Professor of Psychology, Goucher College – Pringle’s research is focused on understanding how males and females learn, develop, work and communicate. His areas of expertise include relational psychology, gender issues, education equity issues, critical pedagogy, and coeducation. He was one of two principal researchers who investigated classroom dynamics during Goucher's transition from single-sex to coeducational college.

Carey Thompson - Dean of Admission and Financial Planning, Centre College - With 17 years experience in admissions, Thompson has been a leader in professional organizations including the Southern Association of College Admissions Counselors. He chaired the Southern Consortium of Colleges and Universities from 1994 to 1996 and was a member of the Southern Regional College Board Council from 1992 to 1995.