What We Talk About When We Talk About the Arts

by Jason Smith | Nov 15, 2013 | Magazine Article

“Now … I should note that the point of the arts is obviously not to create economic impact or jobs; the point is to help us communicate in new ways about what it is like to be human, the good, the painful, the ugly, and the sublime. But isn’t it great to know...

The Enduring Effects of the Great Recession

by Timothy Smeeding | Mar 14, 2013 | Videos

Economist Timothy Smeeding, director of the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty, explores the “Great Recession” of recent years and its implications for employment, poverty and inequality in the U.S. Smeeding will also discuss the...

The Poet as Job Creator

by Jason Smith | Sep 8, 2012 | Magazine Article

At first glance the title of my editorial in this issue might seem to be satirical. After all, the term job creators has been bandied about for the last twenty years as a way of characterizing what some see as the primary animating force of the American economy. Poets...

As Goes Janesville

by Katie Ginther, Liam Kane-Grade | Sep 8, 2012 | Magazine Article

For nearly a century, a General Motors assembly plant was the economic hub of Janesville, Wisconsin, employing some 7,000 workers at its peak of operation. During the sport utility vehicle boom of the 1990s, the plant shifted its base production to the large-size,...

The Post-9/11 Economy: Getting "Civilized" About Deficit Reduction

by Diane Lim Rogers | Sep 8, 2012 | Videos

In her Academy Evenings talk, chief economist at the Concord Coalition (Washington DC) and EconomistMom.com blogger Diane Lim Rogers gives us a fair-minded assessment of the current debate over the federal budget, the widening gap between revenues and spending, and...