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Discussion Paper
Unintended Consequences in School Accountability Policies
Over the past two decades, state and federal education policies have tried to hold schools more accountable for educating their students. A common criticism of these policies is that they may induce schools to “game the system” with strategies such as excluding certain types of students from computation of school average test scores. In this post, based on our recent New York Fed staff report, “Vouchers, Responses, and the Test Taking Population: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Florida,” we investigate whether Florida schools resorted to such strategic behavior in response to a ...
Discussion Paper
Waiting for Recovery: New York Schools and the Aftermath of the Great Recession
A key institution that was significantly affected by the Great Recession is the school system, which plays a crucial role in building human capital and shaping the country’s economic future. To prevent major cuts to education, the federal government allocated $100 billion to schools as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), commonly known as the stimulus package. However, the stimulus has wound down while many sectors of the economy are still struggling, leaving state and local governments with budget squeezes. In this post, we present some key findings on how ...
Discussion Paper
The Changing Face of the Higher Education Market
The higher education landscape changed drastically over the last decade and a half. This evolution was largely characterized by the unprecedented growth of the private for-profit sector. In this post, we examine whether the evolution of the higher education market was associated with changes in the types of students who attended the institutions in various sectors of the market. Was the growth in enrollment spurred by an increased entry of traditional students? Or was it driven by an inflow of nontraditional students? Has student composition in higher education changed differentially between ...
Journal Article
Agriculture in a Global Economy: 2018 Agricultural Symposium
Similar to other segments of the economy, the agricultural sector is increasingly global. In some regions, the production of food and agricultural products has advanced well beyond what is required for consumption within that region. In other areas, agricultural production is more limited. The persistent gap between regions of excess and regions of scarcity has led to an increasing reliance on agricultural trade as global populations and incomes rise, but recent months have also pointed to increased uncertainty about the future of trade and implications for agriculture. Similarly, the ...
Discussion Paper
The Changing Role of Community-College and For-Profit-College Borrowers in the Student Loan Market
In the first post in this series, we characterized the rapid transformation of the higher education market over the 2000-2015 period, a transformation that was led by explosive growth of the for-profit sector of higher education. In the second post, we found that most of this growth was driven by nontraditional students entering these institutions. Given this growth and the marked change in student composition, it is important to understand what impact these patterns might have on student loan originations, student loan volume, and the borrower pool in the various sectors of higher education. ...
Journal Article
How Mergers in the Farm Credit System Have Affected Ag Banks
Commercial banks and the Farm Credit System (FCS) have been the most important sources of agricultural loans in the United States in recent decades. Since the 1990s, however, mergers and acquisitions have increasingly concentrated both the FCS and commercial banks, raising concerns about potential effects on the agricultural credit market. Starting in the 2000s, the FCS gained a substantial market share of total agricultural debt, lending credibility to these concerns. Thus far, however, how the FCS’s evolving size and scope affect agricultural bank operations, particularly through mergers, ...
Journal Article
Long-Run Uncertainties for U.S. Agriculture : Agricultural Symposium 2019
Changes in global food and fuel demand, the effects of climate change, and regional depletion of groundwater resources for irrigation create uncertainty for U.S. farmers.
Discussion Paper
Just Released: Press Briefing on Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment Trends, 2015
This morning, Jamie McAndrews, the Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, spoke to the press about the economic recovery, and his speech was followed by a special briefing by New York Fed economists on student loans. Here, we provide a short summary of the student loan briefing.
Discussion Paper
Who Falters at Student Loan Payback Time?
This is the final post in a four-part series examining the evolution of enrollment, student loans, graduation and default in the higher education market over the course of the past fifteen years. In the first post, we found a marked increase in enrollment of 35 percent between 2000 and 2015, led mostly by the for-profit sector?which increased enrollment by 177 percent. The second post showed that these new enrollees were quite different from the traditional enrollees. Yesterday?s post demonstrated an unprecedented increase in loan origination amounts during this period?nearly tripling between ...
Discussion Paper
How Did the Great Recession Affect New York State's Public Schools?
Surprisingly, there is no literature on how recessions (including the Great Recession) have affected schools. Perhaps this is because educational funding stresses and decisions vary among and within states, which makes it hard to reach general conclusions. Yet schools play an indispensable role in our society, educating the populace and building the nation’s future. Therefore, it is important to understand how the Great Recession is affecting public spending on schools, the delivery of education services, and student learning. In this post, we analyze one state’s experience, drawing on ...