ISER presents a webinar event, "Permanent Fund Dividend: Past, Present and Future," on Wednesday, December 1 from 5:30-7 pm. Please join us for a look at the origins of the PFD program, how it has evolved over time, how it affects Alaskans today and how it may evolve in the future—and how ISER has studied these questions over the past 40 years. Panelists include former ISER directors Scott Goldsmith, Gunnar Knapp and Fran Ulmer, and current ISER researchers Matt Berman, Brett Watson and Mary Kopriva. UA President Pat Pitney will moderate.
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Panelists for ISER's webinar on the Permanent Fund: Past, Present and Future
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In recent years, ISER economists have studied various impacts the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend has on the state and its residents. Studies have looked at poverty, income inequality, birth rates, crime rates and more. Current studies are looking into the effects of the PFD on mortgage delinquency and maternal health.
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On April 1, 2020, Commonwealth North hosted a debate “How Permanent is Permanent?” between Ralph Townsend (ISER Director) and Craig Richards (chair of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation Board of Trustees and former Alaska Attorney General.) Because of the COVID-19 restrictions on meetings, the debate was conducted via Zoom.
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Two emeriti ISER directors, Scott Goldsmith and Gunnar Knapp, debated how best to manage the Permanent Fund at a Commonwealth North lunch at the Petroleum Club on November 8, 2019. The specific resolution for the debate was: “Resolved: The Alaska Constitution should be amended to specify that the Permanent Fund should be managed as an endowment, with a limited and sustainable annual distribution.” Under the format of the debate, a coin was flipped at the beginning of the debate to determine which side each debater would defend.
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Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) and Professor of Economics, Dr. Ralph Townsend, will participate in an upcoming debate with ISER’s former director and Professor Emeritus of Economics, Dr. Gunnar Knapp. Moderated by another former director of ISER and Professor Emeritus of Economics, Dr. Scott Goldsmith, the discussion will focus on whether the Permanent Fund Dividend should be constitutionally structured as an endowment and what that would mean to Alaska’s finances and dividend program going forward.
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The Institute of Social and Economic Research’s (ISER) Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi, Associate Professor of Economics, was recently published in Scientific American where he discussed his recent research and results on the impact of universal basic income (UBI) on childhood obesity. The article drew from a longer report which Dr. Guettabi co-authored with Drs. Brett Watson and Matthew Reimer.
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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.