Fighting Bob La Follette: the Righteous Reformer

La Follette School of Public Affairs

La Follette School of Public Affairs

Experts tell us that 4-year-olds have much to gain from a stimulating and nurturing preschool experience, and mounting evidence suggests that these benefits accrue to society on a much larger scale as well. Although numerous proposals acknowledge the benefits of and need for improved early childhood education, few contain specific recommendations for how to go about financing a major expansion....

La Follette School of Public Affairs

In all developed countries, single-parent families are particularly vulnerable to poverty. In contrast to many European countries that provide some guaranteed income support for children, the United States has emphasized private responsibility, increasingly requiring child support from the other parent. The reliance on a private approach raises several questions concerning the adequacy and dist...

La Follette School of Public Affairs

We combined an expert elicitation and a bottom-up manufacturing cost model to compare the effects of R&D and demand subsidies. We modeled their effects on the future costs of a low-carbon energy technology that is not currently commercially available, purely organic photovoltaics (PV). We found that (1) successful R&D programs reduced costs more than did subsidies, (2) successful R&D enabled PV...

La Follette School of Public Affairs