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PPI’s Trade Fact of the Week: First intercontinental submarine cable message: August 1858.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

FACT: First intercontinental submarine cable message: August 1858.

THE NUMBERS: Cable data capacity –

2Africa, 2023:                180,000,000,000,000.0 bytes per second
TAT-8, 1988:                                   280,000,000.0 bytes per second
Atlantic Telegraph, 1858:                               0.1 bytes per second

WHAT THEY MEAN:

It’s been 165 years since the first shout across the oceans: The submarine cable joining the United States and the U.K. in 1858, via terminals at Newfoundland and Valentia Bay in Ireland, was as thick as a finger and weighed a ton per mile. The inventors coated a core of seven copper wires with waterproof gutta-percha (the dried sap of a Malaysian tree, used then to make golf-balls and piano keys), then wrapped it in hemp and sealed the hemp with tar, and finally covered the whole assemble with iron wire cladding. Two newly designed steam warships, U.S.S. Niagara and HMS Agamemnon, unspooled the wire and met in the middle to splice the wire together. The cable’s first message, a suitably austere 657-character note from the mighty Queen Victoria to the less admiringly-remembered President James Buchanan, arrived on August 16th after a sixteen-hour transmission:

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON: The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this great international work, in which The Queen has taken the deepest interest. The Queen is convinced that the President will join her in fervently hoping that the electric cable, which now connects great Britain with the United States, will prove an additional link between the nations, whose friendship is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem. The Queen has much pleasure in thus communicating with the President, and renewing to him her wishes for the prosperity of the United States.

The cable broke down in September and wasn’t replaced until after the Civil War. By 1880, though, second-generation copper wires centered on London connected not only the UK, continental Europe and North America, but China, Australia, India, Egypt, South Africa, Singapore, Russia, Japan, and South America. The first trans-Pacific cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu, went live in 1902. The first fiber-optic cable, TAT-8, lit up in 1988; by 2002, the modern ultra-pure glass network had replaced copper entirely.

Seventeen decades after the Queen’s first tweet-like message, 60 specially-designed cable-laying ships are busily unspooling new and more powerful cables at a pace of about three per month. Cable specialists Telegeography report 552 active fiber-optic cables as of mid-2023, together making up about 1.4 million kilometers of wire, and 35 new ones this year. These are about the same size as the 1858 cable – about a finger’s width, and weighing more or less the same, but replacing (a) the chubby copper wires with up to 96 hair’s-width fibers of ultra-pure glass, (b) the electric Morse pulses with modulated laser light, (c) the gutta-percha, hemp, and tar with a silica cladding, and (d) the iron sheath with plastics. A selection of cables lighting up this year:

*   2Africa, circumnavigating Africa from the Mediterranean around the Cape and back up to the Red Sea across 45,000 kilometers, with 48 terminals in 33 countries including Italy, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, South Africa, the Comoros, Somalia, Pakistan, UAE, etc., is said to be the longest cable in the world. It has a capacity of 180 terabytes of data per second, about a million times the capacity of now-antique TAT-8, and 2 quadrillion times that of the 1858 Atlantic cable.

*   FISH (“Fiber Internet Serving Homes in Alaska”), with a more modest length of 276 kilometers, connecting the Alaska mainland with islands.

*   Amitie, linking France with Lynn, Massachusetts, across 6,792 kilometers, with a branch to the UK.

*   Topaz, a Google cable connecting Vancouver and Japan, length not yet reported to Telegeography.

*   Natitua Sud, a 2,680-km wire connecting Tahiti with southern islands in French Polynesia (and building on the earlier Natitua connection to the Marquesas).

Moving from physical infrastructure to daily life, submarine cables are often said to carry about 99 percent of all internet traffic. Telegeography tried to verify this factoid a few years ago and found the last FCC pronunciation on the matter dating to 2013. But they thought it wasn’t a unreasonable guess (though satellite deployment probably brings the share down a bit each year). Whatever the right figure, submarine cables remain the big arteries of the global information economy, carrying most of the $10 trillion in daily currency transactions; most of the U.S.’ $700 billion in annual digitally enabled services exports; and most of the world’s on-line exchanges. The latter includes this email, which has more bytes than Queen Victoria’s message, but by traveling via glass and laser as opposed to copper and electrical pulse took (assuming an average email speed) required not 16 hours but about 1/10th of a second to reach you this afternoon.

 

FURTHER READING

      Now —

Telegeography’s up-to-date submarine cable map.

The International Cable Protection Committee, a consortium of cable operators and regulators, reports on the world’s 60 operating cable ships.

… and a painting version of HMS Agamemnon, one of the two original cable ships, and as a first-generation steamship a maritime innovator in its own right.

On MOSAIC’s monthly podcast, PPI’s Ed Gresser joins FCC alumna/telecom policy expert Meagan Bolton and Alaska broadband advocate Christine O’Connor to learn about what’s coming next, closing the digital divide as modern civil rights, broadband deployment in Native American communities and more.

Policy — 

From the White House, the 61-country Declaration on the Future of the Internet.

… and with the Declaration as a point of departure, Gresser’s look at digital trade policy.

Now and then —

What’s in a fiber-optic cable.  The glass, the cladding, the plastics all explained.

The Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers looks back at the first cable’s technical advances, flaws, and lessons.

And the U.K.’s Royal Trust reprints the August 1858 message and its arrival on tickertape.  (And a little cheekily defines Buchanan as a “subject”.  Obvious response from the left side of the Atlantic: ‘we’re not amused’.)

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week

PPI Statement Ahead of Labor Day: It’s Time for America’s Leaders to Recommit to Workers

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Taylor Maag, Director of Workforce Development Policy and the New Skills for a New Economy Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, released the following statement ahead of Labor Day.

“As Americans across the country begin to celebrate this Labor Day, we must remember the reason for the long weekend — American workers. While we have made tremendous strides over the last century when Labor Day became a federal holiday, workers are still facing increased challenges navigating the economy and the rapidly-changing labor market from automation and technological innovation.

“This year, instead of a generic Labor Day statement, PPI urges policymakers at all levels of government to recommit to supporting workers across our nation. This recommitment does not mean pouring more dollars into the status quo, but focusing on quality skill development strategies and supportive services, such as deploying new and innovative policies that help workers navigate the ever-evolving nature of our workforce.

“America must invest in workers at an early age and continue to support them throughout their careers, including expanding apprenticeship programs, establishing more flexible postsecondary programs that better meet the needs or workers and their families, and investing in public and private partnerships to provide new ways of delivery learning that are tied to industry demand.”

Last year, PPI’s New Skills for a New Economy project released a framework, laying out these key priorities, among others, that are needed to create a more worker-centric policy agenda.

New Skills for a New Economy, a project of PPI, seeks to promote workforce development policies that level the playing field for degree and non-degree workers. This project plays a critical role in shaping federal and state workforce policy, weighing in on important debates, key legislation, and helping to lift up new ideas and best practices happening across the country.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

“Ever Rising: The Renaissance of HBCUs and K12 Education” and the UNCF UNITE Summit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“Don’t let the term ‘charter school’ fool you.” My words rang out through Atlanta’s Hyatt Regency at the 2023 UNCF UNITE Summit to a room of students, alumni, and senior officials from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU).

The summit gave me the platform to discuss the historical connections between the HBCUs and public education on our “Ever Rising: The Renaissance of HBCUs and K-12 Education” panel. The panel also was an opportunity to highlight the potential impact a revival of the connections between HBCUs and K-12 schools could have on dramatically improving educational opportunities for African-American families and students.

The debate over the expansion of public charter schools has divided African-Americans along the lines of those HBCU alumni who’ve attended, served, founded, voted for, or donated to a public charter schools and those African-Americans who characterize public charters as “selective,” “non-public,” and a financial strain on public schools.

UNCF UNITE is the nation’s premier annual gathering for accelerating strategies for African-American higher education and support for the institutional transformation of African-American colleges and universities. UNITE is founded by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).

The annual gathering is organized by UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building, whose mission is to partner with Historically Black Colleges & Universities and Predominately Black Institutions to help propel student success, community impact, and the advancement of educational equity and racial justice.

HBCUs punch above their weight. While HBCUs educate only 10% of African-American college students, they produce 50% of African-American Teachers, 85% of African-American Doctors, 80% of African-American Federal Judges, 75% of African-American Veterinarians, and 75% of African-American Military Officers.

The panel created an opportunity to discuss the role HBCUs played in producing an army of educators during the post-Reconstruction era, but also the connection HBCUs had with local K-12 schools. Over 5,000 Rosenwald schools were funded by the Rosenwald Fund, local African-American residents, and local tax dollars during this era. Rosenwald schools were African-American run and located in close proximity to HBCUs, establishing a pipeline of African-American students into HBCUs starving for a pool of capable applicants.

The panel also gave me the opportunity to participant in a rhetorical exercise highlighting how the opposition to public charters has less to do with the actual tenets of model and more to do with the false narratives about school choice. “Do you support autonomy for school leaders to make the best decisions for schools? Do you agree schools should be accountable for results and penalized if they don’t meet expectations? Do you agree parents should have choice in the schools that meet their kids’ needs? If you answered yes to these questions, you support charters…you just don’t like the term.”

HBCUs could and should play a greater role in starting, funding, and holding K-12 school accountable for performance. The most feasible way for HBCUs to improve outcomes for African-American students is to become authorizers for public charter schools.

The panel highlighted the controversy surrounding charter schools and the reluctant adoption by African-American politicians. I made the point that the term “charter” has distracted from the discussion on the importance of the key tenets of charter schools, notably accountability, accountability, and choice that most African-Americans support.

The panel was sponsored by the National Charter Collaborative (NCC) and included:

 

NCC supports single-site charter school leaders of color whose schools reflect the hopes and dreams of their students and cultural fabric of their communities.

NCC believes charter school leaders of color are a critical, yet overlooked, collective representing an estimated one-fourth of charter schools impacting over 335,000 students across the U.S.

UNITE 2023 included pre-conferences, plenaries and breakout sessions focused on institutional transformation, executive leadership, enrollment management, STEM initiatives, mental health, climate action, community empowerment, federal programming, industry collaboration, fundraising and advancement, K-12 partnerships, and career pathways.

To learn more, go to UNITE 2023 and 2022 on our YouTube channel.

Curtis Valentine is the Co-Director of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

The Belief Gap: 2023 National Education Summit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“We have a Belief Gap in education.” I uttered those exact words from the main stage of the Smithsonian’s Institute’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for the 2023 Smithsonian National Education Summit.

The summit came at a time when the country was becoming more and more divided along political lines on the topic of education and the teaching of American history. In states like Florida and Texas, elected and appointed leaders in the governor’s office, state legislature, and state board of education introduced and passed laws restricting the teaching of parts of American History that tell the full story of the experiences of marginalized groups like African-Americans, Jewish Americans, and members of the LGBTQ community.

Joining the first African-American Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute to keynote the National Education Summit was an extreme honor for me, especially at a time when educators and parents grapple with the teaching of American history…the good and the bad.

Dr. Lonnie Bunch is not only the first African-American to serve as Secretary of the Smithsonian, he’s also the first historian. As Secretary, Dr. Bunch oversees 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers and several education units and centers. Dr. Bunch’s is most famous for founding the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Dr. Bunch and I were joined by Jermar Rountree, the D.C. Teacher of the Year, on the panel. Rountree is a health and physical education teacher at Center City Public Charter School, Brightwood Campus. In the Center City network, Rountree serves as the District teacher lead for the physical education and health department.

This year’s Summit focused on the theme “Together We Thrive: Fostering a Sense of Belonging” and included four learning tracks: Life on a Sustainable Planet, STEAM Education, Reckoning with Our Racial Past, and An Integrated Arts Education.

The panel was moderated by Monique M. Chism, PhD, Under Secretary for Education for the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Chism’s questions centered on the importance of diversity in teaching and its impact on “fostering belonging” for students.

The Summit attracted thousands of educators from across the nation, including teachers, curriculum specialists, librarians, state education agencies, administrators, and museum and cultural educators. The debate over how to teach American history and when certain parts should be taught is one these summit participants came to Washington to better understand.

The Summit was also an opportunity for me to discuss new research highlighting the impact of teacher diversity but also Collective Teacher Efficacy or the power of a teacher’s belief in their student’s ability and that impact that belief has on student achievement.

I used the summit to highlight the relationship between the teaching of American history and America’s belief gap in education when I said, “teachers don’t believe Black students can succeed and parents don’t believe White students are capable of learning the entirety of American history without internalizing the wrongs of the worst of us. Believe in our students.”

The laws passed in Florida and Texas to restrict the teachings of America history, laws that would criminalize teachers and villainize parents, also subjugate students to an inferior education and make them less prepared for full citizenship.

I take pride in my knowledge of my own history and the impact access to a quality education meant to my family and life outcomes for my relatives. The panel gave me an opportunity to share the story of my great-grandparents, Beverly and Martha Valentine. As co-founders of the Carroll-Boyd Rosenwald School in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, my great-grandparents joined a long line of African-Americans who partnered with the Julius Rosenwald Fund to create nearly 5,000 schools throughout the South.

The historical significance and impact of Rosenwald schools is showcased in not one, but two, exhibits at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture where artifacts from The Hope School in Pomaria, South Carolina are displayed.

The legacy of Rosenwald schools live on in schools today that give school leaders more autonomy in how they are run…charter schools. Stephanie Deutsch, granddaughter in-law to Rosenwald and author of “You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South,” was asked about the modern-day equivalent of Rosenwald schools and she replied “charter schools.”

Sessions from this year’s summit were produced in collaboration with the Council for Chief State School Officers, D.C. Public Schools, Ford’s Theatre, the Library of Congress, National Council for Teachers of English, National Council for the Social Studies, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Science Teaching Association, North American Association for Environmental Education, and The Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School.

Video of full session can be viewed on Smithsonian Education YouTube Channel.

Curtis Valentine is the Co-Director of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

PPI’s Trade Fact of the Week: The world labor force has grown by 37 million workers this year.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

FACT: The world labor force has grown by 37 million workers this year.

THE NUMBERS: Total world labor force* –

2023    3.602 billion
2022    3.565 billion
2020    3.412 billion*
2010     3.159 billion
2000    2.752 billion

Estimates from ILO, World Employment and Social Outlook 2023; the 2020 total is artificially depressed, down from 3.465 million in 2019 due to temporary Covid-19 pandemic closures.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

The International Labour Organization’s 2023 “World Employment and Social Outlook” reports that each day around the world this year, about 3.43 billion workers arrive at offices, labs, fields, home computers, construction sites, schools, restaurants, market stalls and the like. Adding in the 0.21 billion currently unemployed, this makes for a world labor force of 3.60 billion. This total is up by (a) a third from the 2.75 billion of 2000, (b) 300 million from the 3.12 billion workers of 2010, and (c) by 37 million, or 100,000 workers per day, since last year. Divided by region, the ILO finds 2 billion workers in Asia, 650 million in Africa and the Middle East, 300 million in Latin America, and 500 million in North America, Europe, and the Pacific (with the U.S. labor force, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at 167 million). A quick snapshot of the working world of 2023 this Labor Day:

Total world labor force, 2023:        3.640 billion
Employed :                                      3.430 billion
‘Informal’ sector:                              2.100 billion
‘Extreme working poverty’*:              214 million
Unemployed:                                       211 million

* ILO’s definition for extreme working poverty is work at $1.90 per day or less, in constant 2012 dollars

Looking more closely, the ILO’s report suggests three big things about working life: the sharp decline of extreme working poverty; the lag in ‘governance’ and worker protections (though noting better performance in the ‘globalized’ international supply-chain workforce than in purely domestic industries); and the shift of work towards Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East:

1.    The recent past and the decline of deep working poverty – The fortunes of the world’s least privileged workers brightened in the last generation. Per ILO’s data, 667 million workers were extremely poor in 2000 – just over a quarter of that year’s 2.58 billion people with jobs – earning less than $1.90 per day in constant dollars. By 2010 this army of destitute labor had shrunk to 406 million, and as of 2022 (the last year for which ILO has an estimate) it was 214 million, or about one-sixteenth of all workers. From 2000 to 2010, the decline in extreme working poverty was concentrated in East Asia and Southeast Asia. These regions have now nearly eradicated deep working poverty, and the sharpest current decline is in South Asia, whose count of working poor has fallen from 131 million in 2010 to 52 million in 2020, and 34 million in 2022. Most of the world’s very poor workers – 152 million, about two-thirds of the total – are in Africa, but here too trends are promising, as the share of African workers in deep poverty has dropped from 57% in 2000 to 44% in 2010, and 35.5% in 2022.

2.    The present and the persistence of ‘informality’ – Set against a very positive poverty-reduction story is the big ‘policy and governance’ job that hasn’t been done. This is to provide workers with legal rights and protections. The ILO believes 58% of all workers, or 2 billion people, are working ‘informally’ – that is, in jobs either formally excluded from labor laws or de facto outside the labor-law world. This share has barely changed from the 60% estimate for 2010. By occupation, the highest rates of informality are in farm labor (92% of all workers), domestic service (84%), construction (74%), accommodation and food service (61%) and repair shops (60%); so a less technical picture of the world’s informal work is one of 500 million farmworkers, 61 million maids and nannies, and similar armies of day-laborers at construction sites, cooks and dishwashers working ‘under the table’ in small restaurants, and so on. In legal terms they lack holidays, family leave rights, minimum wages, health and safety inspections, and so on. More practically, they are at higher risk (whether to health and safety, or to secure earnings) than their 1.4 billion formal-sector colleagues, and are a lot poorer, earning by the ILO’s estimate 56% as much as formal-sector workers.

Here Asia’s remarkable achievement record in growth and poverty reduction has a shadow in lack of governance and legal protections: East Asia’s informality rate has dropped only from 55% to 48% since 2010, and Southeast Asia’s from 79% to 70%. In South Asia, the ILO’s estimate of informality has actually risen slightly, from 86.3% to 86.8%, meaning formal legal work in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh remains the province of a small and privileged labor aristocracy. North America (which in ILO regional terms means the U.S. and Canada; Mexico is in ‘Latin America and the Caribbean) has the world’s lowest informality rate at 9% of all workers, and western Europe’s is a bit higher at 13%.

2a.    … with a note on ‘globalization’ and supply chains: ILO’s report views economic integration and the development of international supply chains as contributing significantly to the improvement of working life over the last generation, both by providing higher wages and creating an outpost in which ‘informality’ is less common than in purely domestic jobs. Reviewing data for 24 middle-income countries, they conclude that:

“[S]ectors with higher GSC [“global supply-chain”] integration tend to have a larger share of wage and salaries employment, a lower incidence of informality and a lower proportion of low-paid employment – and hence in principle a higher quality of employment.”

This raises an unsettling question about the U.S. government’s approach to international labor issues. U.S. policy focuses intensely on policing supply chains and enforcing labor features of trade agreements. The ILO data, though, suggest that these are already areas where (overall) job quality and pay are well above average. This in turn implies that the U.S.’ work may be missing the areas of greatest current need, and that over-reliance on penalties and sanctions might push poor-country workers into sectors where conditions are generally worse.

3.     Towards the future and the geography of job growth: Finally, turning from the past generation and present challenges to look ahead, the ILO’s report answers a simple question – how many jobs? – with a relatively simple answer ‘34 million more than in 2022’. By region, though (and moving a few pieces around to merge the ILO’s “North Africa” region with its “Arab States”, and combining its counts for North America, Europe, and the Pacific), the answers to this question sharply diverge:

Job Growth 2022- 2023
World                                            +34 million
Sub-Saharan Africa                       +14 million
South Asia                                      +12 million
Southeast Asia                                +5 million
Arab states                                      +3 million
Latin America and Caribbean         +3 million
North America, Europe, Pacific         -1 million
East Asia                                            -1 million

Mirroring demography, these figures show labor force growth slowing in Latin America, turning negative in Europe and East Asia (though still growing a bit in North America), still strong in Southeast Asia and rapidly accelerating in Africa and South Asia. Or, more directly, as Africa has been adding 40,000 jobs per day this year and South Asia 33,000, Europe and East Asia have been dropping about 8,500 jobs daily. All suggesting that the center of growth for the next decade’s world economy, and for the urban working world, is shifting away from traditional ‘developed’ countries and Pacific Rim sites, and toward India, Pakistan, the Middle East, and Africa.

 

FURTHER READING

The International Labour Organization’s “World Employment and Social Outlook 2023.”

Informality –

And an in-depth ILO look at informal workers and businesses.

And the International Monetary Fund has perspective on informality and economic development.

Perspectives around the world –

PPI’s Taylor Maag on American job quality, and apprenticeships as a way to accelerate blue-collar wage growth.

New Delhi-based Just Jobs Network’s Sabina Dewan on technology, equity, and job quality in South Asia and Southeast Asia (together the sites for half of this year’s new jobs).

Cornell prof./former trade/labor negotiator Desiree Leclercq on trade, labor, and the Biden administration.

Kenya’s Ministry of Labour and Social Protection.

And the U.S. Department of Labor’s International Labor Affairs Bureau.

And perspective –

The Department of Labor’s Labor Day retrospective.

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week

Bledsoe for Medium: In Both U.S. and UK, Overtaxing Voters is Bad Climate Politics

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Paul Bledsoe

No political comparison is as discordant to British ears as one suggesting commonality with the American scene, particularly with Donald Trump still at large. Nonetheless, recent UK contretemps over energy taxes and climate policy may find an illustrative corollary in U.S. politics and prove the exception to the rule.

The decision this week by mayor Sadiq Khan to extend the Ultra-low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) tax to almost all of greater London may be justified in terms of helping air quality, but it is still questionable politics for a Labour Party attempting to regain power for the first time in 13 years.

Keep reading in Medium.

Moss for Competition Policy International: The State of Cloud Technology Markets: Challenges for Competition

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Diana Moss

This article unpacks the unique features of the cloud market, including rapid expansion through acquisition, static market structure, and weak merger enforcement. The analysis draws attention to the important link between market structure and conduct and its implications for strategic incentives around market positioning, entry and expansion by smaller rivals, and innovation competition.

A major implication is that competition enforcers and policymakers should pursue vigorous merger enforcement, at the same time they look carefully to identify competitive concerns around strategic conduct that could potentially hamper competition in cloud technology.

Read the full piece in Competition Policy International.

Weinstein for Forbes: Administrative Bloat At U.S. Colleges Is Skyrocketing

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Paul Weinstein Jr.

Basic economics tells us that when demand goes down, suppliers must reduce costs, cut supply, or lower prices to survive. That is the choice facing many U.S. colleges and universities starting in 2025, when the so-called “enrollment cliff,” begins. Between 2025 to 2029, undergraduate headcount will drop by over 575,000 students (15 percent) and, if recent history is an indicator, many schools will end up closing their doors rather than streamlining their operations.

The reason is that most institutions of higher learning are dependent on tuition revenue for survival. While a handful of elite universities (think Harvard, Stanford, Princeton) have endowments large enough to cover the cost of attendance for any student in need, the rest require undergrads to borrow on average over $30,000 to earn a bachelors.

In the past, when faced with funding shortfalls, colleges and universities attempted to “grow their way” out of the problem by opening up new sources of revenue. Many launched new graduate programs, including terminal master’s degrees (no doctoral option) and certificates. Others increased their online offerings to expand their access to part-time students beyond the gates of their campuses. And almost all opened their doors to international students who could afford to pay full price.

But unlike Purdue University—who used this new source of revenue to hold undergraduate tuition flat for a decade—most schools went on a hiring spree; one that massively expanded the ranks of all types of employees, with one notable exception—full-time faculty.

Keep reading in Forbes.

PPI’s Trade Fact of the Week: First round of the globalization debate: 90 BC.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

FACT: First round of the globalization debate: 90 BC.

THE NUMBERS: Dates –

Lao Tzu: 300 BCE?
Sima Qian: 90 BCE

WHAT THEY MEAN:

A “globalization” exchange from the Chinese classics A-list:

Writing in the seventh Han Dynasty reign (~90 BCE by the western calendar), Grand Historian Sima Qian takes a tolerantly pro-consumer “neoliberal” position as he pans a famous romantic-localist passage from the Tao Te Ch’ing:

Sima Qian: “There must be farmers to produce food, men to extract the wealth of mountains and marshes, artisans to process these things, and merchants to circulate them. There is no need to wait for government orders: each man will do his part as he gets what he desires. So cheap goods will go where they fetch more, while expensive goods will make men search for cheap ones. When all work willingly at their trades, just as water flows ceaselessly downhill day and night, things will appear unsought and people will produce them without being asked.

“[But] Lao Tzu has said that under the ideal form of government:

‘Though states exist side by side, so close they can hear the crowing of each other’s roosters and the barking of each other’s dogs, the people of each state will savor their own food, admire their own clothing, be content with their own customs and delight in their own occupations, and will grow old without ever wandering abroad.’

“Yet if one were to apply this type of government, striving to draw the present age back to the conditions of primitive times and close the eyes and ears of the people, I doubt one would have much success. From ancient times to the present, eyes and ears have longed for the most beautiful forms and sounds, bodies delighted in pleasure and luxury, and hearts swelled with pride at the glory of power and ability. So long have these habits been allowed to permeate the lives of the people, that even if one were to go from door to door preaching [Lao Tzu’s] most subtle arguments, he could never succeed in changing them. Therefore, the highest type of government accepts the nature of the people, the next best leads the people to what is beneficial, the next gives them instruction and orders, and the very worst compels them to act against their nature.”

FURTHER READING

From the 90 BCE debate to a 2023 summer-reading reprise –

Historian Tara Zahra’s Against the World: Anti-Globalism Between the Wars (PPI trade staff’s choice for best 2023 global-economy book) looks at anti-globalization’s advocates, critics, and effects in the 1930s.

… and Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar’s Homecoming pitches industrial anti-globalism as a 2020s program.

And back to the classics –

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ch’ing (Waley translation, see chapter 80 for the roosters and dogs).

Sima Qian on kings, sages, assassins, merchants, tyrants, economics, and more (Watson translation; see Shi Ji Chapter 129 for the Lao Tzu evaluation and Sima’s survey of early-empire economics and business).

The same author’s panoramic look at the Warring States, the First Emperor (the one with the terra-cotta army), and the rise and fall of the Qin Dynasty.

& a P.S.: What was the point of the army? Edward Burman’s review of recent scholarship.

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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Ritz for Facing The Future Podcast: Recent US Credit Rating Downgrade Should Be a Wakeup Call

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

WKXL – NH Talk Radio · Facing The Future: Ben Ritz: Recent US Credit Rating Downgrade Should Be a Wakeup Call

 

This week on Facing the Future, we hear from Ben Ritz, Director of the Center for Growing America’s Future at the Progressive Policy Institute, and one of our more frequent show contributors.

Ben has written several interesting pieces including one where he asserts that the Fitch rating agency’s recent downgrade of the federal government’s credit rating should be a wakeup call for all those concerned about the budget and our national debt. So we talk to Ben about that and also, how is the federal government doing about investing in scientific and technological research and innovation a year after Congress passed the Chips and Science Act.

Pankovits for Colorado Springs Gazette: Assessments vindicate Denver’s innovation schools

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Tressa Pankovits

Denver Public Schools (DPS) was once a national model for school innovation and reform. District leadership focused on student learning and giving parents choices to find the best fit for their children.

Now, the DPS board is stacked with directors beholden to the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. It’s so ideologically married to the union’s self-interests — and so incompetent — that it continually tests the city’s capacity for outrage.

Keep reading in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Maag and Sykes for The Messenger: Is Our Workforce Ready for a Successful Green Energy Transition?

Posted on by dcadmin

By Taylor Maag and Elan Sykes

Over the past two years, the Biden administration has made large national investments aimed at putting America ahead in the global race to develop clean energy industries and jobs. Investment is flowing all across the country, for projects like solar panel factories in Louisiana, energy-efficient apartment buildings in New York and electric vehicle battery factories sprouting everywhere from Georgia to Michigan.

This emphasis on a green transition comes at an important time. Just last week, our nation’s deadliest wildfire killed at least 111 people and destroyed Maui’s historic town of Lahaina. While detailed studies have not yet determined exactly how climate change influenced Maui’s fire, climate scientists have pointed to specific climate-driven factors, and existing attribution science suggests that climate change fuels warmer temperatures, less rainfall, stronger storms and powerful winds — increasing the likelihood of devastating events like this. It’s clear there is no time like the present to create a lower-emissions economy, mitigate climate impacts and protect public safety.

Yet, even with increased federal attention, implementing investments and new solutions has become difficult. One reason is our workforce. The rapidly growing clean energy sector is bumping up against serious labor constraints — facing challenges filling jobs and ensuring workers have the right skills for these positions. In the next seven years, there are expected to be over 550,000 new energy-transition jobs in the U.S. Just in 2022, U.S. green job postings on LinkedIn jumped 20% — yet, the pool of workers with the skills required to fill these jobs only grew by 8.4%.

Read more.

This story was originally published in The Messenger on August 20, 2023.

 

Pankovits for WisPolitics: On Wisconsin: Democrats listening to parents advance equal school funding

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Tressa Pankovits

Students may not realize it, but when they head back to school next week, public education will be funded at the highest level in Wisconsin history. It’s important to recognize a handful of Democrats, all from blue, blue Milwaukee, who courageously cast a hard vote this legislative session. As a result, Wisconsin will also provide more equal state funding for non-traditional K-12 schools.

Despite pressure from teachers unions, five Democrats supported increasing public charter school funding. The bill, Act 11, was an unexpected, complicated, bipartisan compromise that Democratic Governor Tony Evers hammered out with Wisconsin’s Republican legislative majority in order to pass the state budget. The charter school funding provision represents a concession for Evers, whose record on charter schools is lukewarm and, at times, antagonistic.

In addition to providing a historic level of K-12 education funding across the state’s education sectors, Wisconsin’s new two-year budget will eventually bring state spending on Milwaukee’s public charter school students to within 90% of what it spends on district school students. Specifically, public charter schools will get an extra $2,121 per child, increasing per pupil funding to $11,385.

Read more in WisPolitics.

New Report: How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

As America’s students are heading back to school in the coming weeks, non-instructional spending at colleges and universities — which includes spending on administration and student services — have been skyrocketing over the last several decades. Yet, there is little evidence that this massive expansion in administration and services has improved students’ academic experience.

Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report “How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges” detailing how administrative positions and spending at colleges and universities have grown disproportionately over the last several decades. Report author Paul Weinstein Jr., Senior Fellow at PPI, outlines the reasons administrative expenses and personnel at post-secondary institutions are rising and specifically reviewed faculty versus non-faculty positions at the top 50 universities in the country.

The report finds that on average, the top universities have only 1 faculty member per 11 students and by contrast, the same institutions have 1 non-faculty employee per 4 students. In fact, Weinstein finds that three universities on the list, California Institute of Technology, Duke University, and the University of California at San Diego have more non-faculty employees than students.

“The results of this research underscore that non-faculty employees at universities, both public and private, have grown considerably and without necessary oversight, under college presidents and their boards,” said Paul Weinstein Jr. “While some of this growth may have been necessary, there is no doubt that much of it has not.”

To address this growing issue and encourage universities to pass some of the savings on to students, Weinstein proposes to trim the number of non-faculty positions by 1% per year over the next five years. He also suggests that the federal government should shift its focus from increasing financial aid to using its leverage to encourage colleges and universities to reduce costs and lower tuition. Weinstein recommends that the government should be given the authority to negotiate the costs of tuition and fees with any post-secondary institution that accepts students who have received either grants, loans, or tax incentives from the federal government.

Read and download the report. 

 

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

INTRODUCTION

America’s colleges and universities are at a crossroads. The number of schools closing their doors continues to grow driven by the declining number of students pursuing a bachelor’s. This situation is expected to worsen because of a number of factors.

• Starting in 2025 the U.S. will face the so-called “enrollment cliff,” in which the population of college aid students will drop by 15% over four years. Colleges can expect to lose over 575,000 students over that four-year time span.

• The strong labor market has led more high school graduates to delay indefinitely their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree.

• Young Americans have become increasingly skeptical of the value of a college degree. The rising cost of college and the amount of debt students are required to take in order to graduate has re-enforced this viewpoint.

In the past when faced with funding shortfalls, colleges and universities have attempted to “grow their way” out of the problem. Many offered new graduate programs, including terminal master’s degrees (no doctoral option) and certificates. Purdue University, under former President Mitch Daniels, purchased the mostly for-profit Kaplan University in 2017 and turned it into Purdue Global, with approximately 30,000 online students paying full price. Other colleges and universities also began increasing their online offerings to expand their access to a larger number of part-time graduate students. But unlike Daniels and Purdue — who used the revenue to hold undergraduate tuition flat for a decade — most schools simply used the funds to avoid making tough choices such as cutting expenses.

Other approaches included the recruitment of international students interested in pursuing a degree at an elite American college, particularly wealthy Chinese students. At present, there are around 290,086 Chinese students attending university in the U.S., with another 199,182 from India.

But growth strategies won’t work as effectively going forward. Most leading universities now have extensive online programs and in recent years the number of international students coming to study in the U.S. has begun to recede as more options become available elsewhere. While some elite universities can increase the number of undergraduates they enroll, others, particularly those that are more tuition-dependent, will be forced to close or merge with other institutions.

There is another alternative, however, which is for schools to streamline their costs and pass some of the savings on to students in the form of increased scholarships, lower tuition, or a combination of both. Specifically, colleges could cut non-faculty positions by 1% per year over the next five years and use the savings to reduce tuition.

For several decades, higher education has experienced a significant upswing in administrative spending and it is projected to continue to grow by seven percent over the next 10 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Non-instructional spending, which includes spending on administration and student services, outpaced instructional spending from 2010 to 2018, according to the Council of Trustees and Alumni. During that period spending on student services rose a sizable 29% and administrative costs increased 19%, while instructional spending only rose 17% by comparison.

Not only did spending for administration and student services increase, so too did the number of employees in those areas. Between 1976 and 2018, the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by 92%, during which time total student enrollment increased by 78%. During this same period, however, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively.

There is little evidence that the dramatic expansion in staffing for administrative and student services improved students’ academic experience. In fact, some observers contend that the explosion in non-faculty has made it harder for faculty to educate students. In part, because many of these administrators have to justify their existence by creating more regulations and processes. As Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University has noted, “The interesting thing about the administrative bloat in higher education is, literally, nobody knows who all these people are or what they’re doing.

READ THE FULL REPORT.

 

Popovian for Clinical Leader: Patients Need Faster Access To Approved FDA Vaccines. What Can We Do?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Robert Popovian

There are times when a significant lag between the FDA approval of vaccines and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation of those vaccines throws any newly approved vaccines into patient access purgatory. Such action has occurred several times in the last few years, as guidance from CDC has taken several months or years to come to fruition after FDA approval.1,2

Unlike medicines or devices, patients and healthcare professionals don’t partake in the benefits of vaccines unless CDC provides guidance on who may receive the vaccines at what specific interval or, at times, provides guidance that does not align with FDA-approved usage. This leaves patients and healthcare professionals in a regulatory twilight zone since the FDA has approved the vaccine as safe and effective while CDC has failed to provide prompt guidance for its use or has provided recommendation contradicting the FDA-approved indication(s).

Keep reading in Clinical Leader.