In the News

There’s an interesting study out from the NYU School of Law which buttresses the argument that America would save a ton of money down the road, and make life easier for many of its citizens, if lawmakers today were able to muster up the moxie to remodel criminal justice systems. It’s a concept that requires political foresight and a patient public, which means most politicians and their constituents will blindly reject it, but I hope serious people everywhere take a long look at this.

A new report out today from NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity encourages policymakers to apply an economic analysis to criminal justice policy. And such an analysis, the report says, would reach this conclusion: “Public safety can be prioritized and even improved at a lower cost than traditional incarceration, using techniques like behavioral therapy for young offenders, intensive supervision, or a new iteration of a drug court. “

Corporate opponents of Net Neutrality have been arguing that rules protecting an open Internet will stifle innovation and economic growth. But a new study says that is just plain false.

New York University Law School’s nonpartisan Institute for Policy Integrity says the Internet generates huge economic benefits for consumers – as much as $5,600 per user, per year.

Executive director Mike Livermore explains that the infrastructure of the Net – the wires, cables and other hardware – and the content that flows through that hardware – combine
to create value for the user. Livermore says that without Net Neutrality rules to keep the Internet an open, level playing field for everyone who uses it, the value to users could diminish.

A study by the Institute of Policy and Integrity at New York University has crunched some numbers and determined that the combination of network infrastructure and content that comprise the Internet offers significant economic value to consumers. The authors describe their methods below:

“The results suggest that the consumer surplus generated by the Internet is very large. The average survey respondent spent 114.5 minutes a day on the Internet recreationally. The benefits that use generates are equivalent to 5.2 percent to 7.1 percent of income. If we use the median income value of Pew’s survey, we find that individual consumers collect between $4,155 and $5,686 worth of value from the Internet per year. This estimate is big, but it is in the same neighborhood as those found by Goolsbe and Klenow. They found that the consumer benefits of the Internet were somewhere between 2 percent and 3 percent of total income. The amount of time consumers spend on the Internet suggests that they receive a great deal of benefit from access.”

A new report from the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law finds that a weakening of net neutrality rules might actually “reduce incentives to invest in Internet content and infrastructure.”

In sum, the authors determined that Web users “collect between $4,155 and $5,686 worth of value from the Internet per year.” And the report notes an end to net neutrality rules — the FCC’s version of which the authors describe as “imperfect” — could shift investment from content creation into service provision, reducing the value of the Internet to its users.

“Industry will favor that approach, states will favor it, environmental groups will favor it—and we believe the EPA has the legal power to do it,” says Michael Livermore, a law professor at New York University and the executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. The IPI released a paperr earlier this year that makes the case that the EPA has power under the Clean Air Act to recognize state cap-and-trade programs. “The only question,” says Livermore, “is how risk-averse the EPA is.”

President Obama’s announced halt to the EPA’s proposal to strengthen ozone standards is problematic, but does not necessarily indicate (as some fear) that the administration is caving on its entire environmental agenda. The move is, however, likely to bolster the “environment vs. jobs” rhetoric that has been used by many on the right against recent EPA public health protections. If other regulations fall under that political steamroller, the country stands to lose billions in public health benefits that can be achieved at minimal costs. The President needs to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Others, however, have argued that tougher ozone standards would save money currently lost when Americans get sick from air pollution.

“Those rules will generate billions of economic benefits in excess of compliance costs,” said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. “With each year of delay, that means additional costs imposed on the public, included lost productivity, hospital bills, more asthma cases and untimely deaths.”

In a report last year by New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity, the state got the discouraging mark of D+ for its process of reviewing regulations. One of Cuomo’s goals should be to make our state a model for the nation: tightening rules that don’t adequately protect New Yorkers from harm, but loosening those that slow job growth without sufficient benefit.

Tuesday’s announcement could be the last best chance, said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. “One granting programme obviously isn’t going to be a game changer in terms of advanced biofuels,” he said.

Cutting the $6bn subsidies for corn ethanol would be a far bigger boost. But Livermore added: “It’s kind of a reality test to ensure that there is genuine interest and this is not just a government boondoggle. If they don’t show interest, it is a real sign that maybe this isn’t such a good avenue in the future.”