ISER's Mouhcine Guettabi gave a presentation on the economic impacts of Governor Dunleavy's veto of $409M from the state budget at the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce's "Make it Monday," telling the audience that employment losses from cuts will exceed any gains that have been realized during Alaska's fragile economic recovery of the last few months.
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ISER's Mouhcine Guettabi provides context on the Governor Dunleavy's vetoes and their potential impact on the Alaska economy in a series of tweets, showing that just the University of Alaska direct cuts, without accounting for all other line item vetoes (Medicaid, K-12, seniors, debt reimbursement, etc) essentially pushes the Alaska economy back into a recession.
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Scott Goldsmith, Professor Emeritus of Economics at ISER, spoke with Abbey Collins of Alaska Public Radio Network last week about increased construction spending in Alaska, particularly increases in petroleum and national defense spending. These increases, along with spending as a result of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake in November, are contributing to what Goldsmith estimates to be about a 10% increase in construction spending over 2018. Goldsmith's estimates of spending by sector are available in the 16th annual construction forecast, prepared for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska.
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Ralph Townsend, ISER director, gave presentations on Alaska’s economy and the state budget (PPTX, 701KB) to the Board of Directors of the Alaska Federation of Natives, CIRI’s Tikahtnu Forum and the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce in early May.
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A new study of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program shows that an additional $1,000 PFD decreases the probability of an Alaskan child being obese by as much as 4.5 percentage points, translating to about a 22% reduction in obesity.
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For the last 37 years, Alaska residents have received a Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), but it is only recently that researchers have begun to analyze the effect of the PFD on the socio-economic well-being of Alaskans. In a new paper, Mouhcine Guettabi, associate professor of economics and ISER faculty, summarizes the research, including his own, on what is known of the PFD’s effect on employment, consumption, income inequality, health, and crime.
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There are positive signs that the recession is coming to an end, with a slight growth in jobs during January and February 2019, but the recovery is fragile and will be sensitive to changes in oil prices and budget cuts, Mouhcine Guettabi, associate professor of Economics and ISER faculty told attendees at a series of Alaska Economic Summits sponsored by Northrim Bank in April.
Overall, employment increased by 400 jobs between February 2018 and February 2019. This is in comparison to losses of more than 12,500 jobs since 2016.
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Mouhcine Guettabi provided an economic overview and answered questions concerning the impact of the governor's proposed budget to members of the Alaska State Senate and House Finance Committees on Thursday, March 7.
Mouhcine's presentation, Budget options: What are the short term effects?, is available for download.
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Within the first few weeks after the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) is paid, substance-abuse incidents increase, while property crime decreases. On an annual basis, however, changes in criminal activity associated with the payment are small and estimated costs are a small portion of the total payment, according to a new analysis of the PFD by Brett Watson, Mouhcine Guettabi, and Matthew Reimer of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER).
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Matthew Berman and Jennifer Schmidt, faculty members at ISER, recently completed a study titled Economic Effects of Climate Change in Alaska. Findings from that research were also included in the Alaska chapter of the recently released report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).
The graph shows Alaska statewide annual average temperatures for 1925-2016.