Yale Tobin Center Announces Initiatives and Partnerships Supporting Core Themes of Modern Supply Side Economics
Marking the occasion of Secretary Yellen’s visit to the Tobin Center for Economic Policy, we are excited to announce a number of new actions that connect to the core themes of modern supply side economics. To carry out this important new work, we are partnering with the State of Connecticut, New Haven Public Schools, the City of New Haven, University of Nebraska’s Buffett Early Childhood Institute, and Georgetown University’s Massive Data Institute, McCourt School of Public Policy, and Beeck Center.
These new data-driven research initiatives intend to help policymakers across federal, state, and local governments advance modern supply side economics’ goal of promoting growth while protecting the environment and reducing inequality.
Several of the new actions are in collaboration with the Connecticut Governor’s Office, which made a parallel announcement on “a series of new steps that respond to Secretary Yellen’s call for states to implement inclusive and green policies and for academic economists to deploy their skills in support of state efforts.”
Here in Connecticut, we are fortunate to have leading academic researchers like those at Yale’s Tobin Center who we can partner with to ensure that the policies we are implementing are efficient, methodical, and produce the best results for the residents of our state. I appreciate their willingness to partner with us, and academics at the state’s other great universities, on these efforts.” - Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont
Those efforts include collaborations between Connecticut’s Chief Data Officer, the Tobin Center, and Georgetown University’s Beeck Center to advance and support its nationally recognized data strategy and develop effective partnerships with researchers and higher education; work to support Connecticut Medicaid to better serve recipients, led by Professors Chima Ndumele, Jacob Wallace, and Zack Cooper; and, research on the connection between child care and workforce participation, led by Professors John Eric Humphries and Seth Zimmerman.
At the ‘fireside chat’ with Yale President Peter Salovey during which he shared several of the announcements, Secretary Yellen referenced the Center’s past work on child care stating, “Child care is a necessary component of being able to have women advance and participate, and I think there’s a lot to still do on that front.”
To provide policy leaders with on-the-ground insights, the center will redeploy the largest-ever survey of the U.S. child care workforce with a multidisciplinary Yale team and the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska. In partnership with New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) the Center is featuring unique services of the new NHPS Explorer to make it easier for parents to navigate the many Pre-K options offered by NHPS. This project is assisted by Professor Christopher Neilson with support of the Tobin Center.
“Providing residents with access to high-quality childcare and early childhood education opportunities is critical to unlocking the potential of today’s workforce, as it allows parents to enter the workplace and have the peace of mind that their kids are being well cared for – and it’s also critical to the development of tomorrow’s workforce as it sets our kids up for success in school, work and life,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said. “This first-of-its-kind study will help inform and empower both policymakers and parents with evidenced-based findings that help advance the priorities of childcare access, workforce participation, and workforce development in New Haven and beyond.”
Tobin Center also announced that they will be convening leading accountants, economists, and policymakers to discuss natural capital accounts and environmental-economic statistics, which will help government leaders make policy decisions that provide sustainable growth and economic prosperity. Regarding this initiative led by Professor Eli Fenichel, who recently returned to Yale from serving in the White House, Secretary Yellen said:
I’m really pleased by Eli’s work to take account of these environmental effects and degradation of our resources…Yale and the Tobin Center have been very important in doing all the fundamental work to let us know what the impact of climate change policy will be.”
Launched in 2018, the Tobin Center seeks to reduce the time it takes for research to have national impact. These new initiatives mark an exciting new phase for the Tobin Center as it invests more deeply in studying modern supply side economics and increasingly its already robust engagement with supply-focused research and policy work across issue areas.
“I feel very strongly, as [James] Tobin did, that economics should be about something, and that it should make a difference to the well-being of our nation and the world, and that […] research directed at important policy questions can be critically important, make a huge difference, and that it should be data driven and nonpartisan,” said Secretary Yellen at the Fireside Chat with Salovey. “And I think these are really the values that the Tobin Center stands for.”
These new actions were all first announced by Yale President Salovey during his fireside chat, a video of which was live streamed nationwide by the Treasury Department and can be seen here. A full audio recording is available of President Salovey’s Yale Talk podcast.
Read the full list of announcements and partnerships here: Yale Tobin Center Fact Sheet.