Scott Goldsmith

In early April, Northrim Bank made a grant of $100,000 to ISER for its ongoing research initiative, Investing for Alaska's Future. Northrim has now granted ISER a total of $1 million for this research, which is examining the importance of investment for building a strong Alaska economy. Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, directs the initiative. See more about this announcement at the UAA Archive. 

A presentation by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, to Commonwealth North, examining whether the state government is saving enough of its petroleum wealth to sustain economic prosperity into the future—and if the state isn't saving enough, how it could. 

Download the PDF (3.5MB)

The estimated value of construction spending in Alaska in 2013 will be about $8.4 billion, up 8% from spending in 2012. That's according to the 2013 Alaska Construction Spending Forecast, prepared by Scott Goldsmith and Mouhcine Guettabi of ISER for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska. More spending in the oil and gas sector will account for most of the growth.

Alaska's state government can afford to spend about $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2014 (July 2013 to June 2014). That's the most recent estimate of the level of General Fund spending the state can sustain over the long run, from a new paper by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER. The $5.5 billion figure is based on the state's current petroleum nest egg of about $149 billion. The nest egg is a combination of state financial assets (the Permanent Fund and cash reserves) and the value of petroleum still in the ground. 

Alaska’s state government is sitting pretty right now, with oil revenues at record levels, $60 billion in savings, and maybe another $100 billion worth of petroleum in the ground. Still, a new paper by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, finds that trouble is looming, with declining oil production and growing state spending. 

Oil started flowing through the trans-Alaska 35 years ago this summer, on June 20, 1977. Since then, the state government has collected $170 billion in revenues from North Slope oil, in today's dollars. A new paper by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, assesses what the state has done with its oil wealth so far. 

To read the paper, click here (PDF, 944.8KB).

A new analysis by Scott Goldsmith and Sohrab Pathan at the Institute of Social and Economic Research and Nathan Wiltse at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center looks at broad effects of the state Home Energy Rebate Program so far. That program rebates homeowners part of what they spend to make their houses more energy-efficient and less expensive to heat. The analysis was done for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, which administers the program. 

After nearly a decade of explosive growth, federal spending in Alaska has turned flat. A new analysis of federal spending in Alaska by Scott Goldsmith, professor of economics at ISER, finds that except for temporary stimulus funds provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, federal spending in the state has been roughly the same for the past several years. The analysis discusses the composition of federal spending in Alaska, reviews stimulus spending, and provides examples of the importance of federal funds to the state economy.