Investing for Alaska's Future

Dr. Ralph Townsend presented information about Alaska's demographics and highlighted an ongoing downward trend in labor force participation. How long has this been happening, is Alaska different from the rest of the U.S., and what can the state do to address it?

In a January 26 presentation, Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi describes the likely path of Alaska's economy in 2022, and includes a look back on the pandemic and pre-pandemic factors that have impacted the state's growth.

Join ISER on January 26, 2022 for a lunchtime presentation with insights from economist Mouhcine Guettabi. He will give an overview of how the economy has changed since the onset of the pandemic and a look at the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi, Associate Professor of Economics at ISER and the College of Business and Public Policy, gave a presentation this week on “The State and the Stimulus,” in which he highlighted observations and analysis of the current state of Alaska’s economy and the impacts of federal aid.

UAA Professors Mouhcine Guettabi and Alex James have just published a paper in the journal Resource and Energy Economics entitled “Who benefits from an Oil Boom?  Evidence from a Unique Alaska Data Set.”  The paper applies a statistical approach called the “Synthetic Control Method” to examine the impact of the oil boom that began in 2006 on employment and income for residents and non-residents of the North Slope Borough.  The study uses data from 2000 to 2016. 

On August 21st, Mouhcine Guettabi, Associate Professor of Economics at ISER, and Jonathan King, an Anchorage private business consultant, were interviewed by Lori Townsend on Alaska Insight*, Alaska Public Media’s weekly public affairs program.  That program discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the Alaska economy.  Dr. Guettabi opened the discussion by explaining that employment in Alaska will probably not fully recover by 2022.  Even if a vaccine is developed that ends the business closures and re-opens tourism by summer 2021, Dr. Guettabi projects that employment in the Alaska economy in 2022 will still be 5% below pre-pandemic levels.

Two UAA staff recently presented information to the Alaska Legislature about the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on the Alaska economy.  Mouhcine Guettabi (ISER) and Nolan Klouda (UAA’s Business Enterprise Institute) made presentations to the House Labor and Commerce Committee on April 24, 2020.  Video and audio from that hearing can be found online.

Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi and Jon Bittner join host Lori Townsend on a recent episode of Alaska Public Media's Talk of Alaska to discuss the effects of COVID-19 on Alaska's economy. The recording and transcript are available from their website.

Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi has completed an initial estimate of the possible impact of the COVID-19 business closures on the Alaska economy. To develop those estimates, he focused upon the impacts on the three most directly affected industries: leisure and hospitality, retail, and transportation. He estimated that the direct and indirect effects from reduced activity in those three sectors would be about 48,000 jobs and would reduce state GDP by almost $2 billion in the second quarter of 2020, If the closures are sustained, an additional $2 billion could be lost. Professor Guettabi's estimates may not capture the impacts of many smaller losses spread throughout the economy and do not include possible impacts on the economy from the recent collapse of oil prices. They also do not include the possible offsetting impact of federal COVID-19 aid to Alaska.