The New England Public Policy Center (NEPPC) was established by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in January 2005. The Boston Fed has provided support to the public policy community of New England for many years; NEPPC institutionalizes and expands on this tradition.
Promote better public policy in New England by conducting and disseminating objective, high-quality research and analysis of strategically identified regional economic and policy issues. When appropriate, work with regional and Bank partners to advance identified policy options.
Yolanda Kodrzycki (Director)
Darcy Rollins Saas (Deputy
Director)
Alicia Sasser Modestino (Senior Economist)
Bo Zhao (Senior Economist)
Jennifer Weiner (Senior Policy Analyst)
Robert Clifford (Policy Analyst)
Angela Cools (Research
Assistant)
Julia Dennett (Research Associate)
Jingyi Huang (Research Associate)
Nina Johnson (Adminstrative Assistant)
Yolanda Kodrzycki
Yolanda is Vice President and Director of the New England Public Policy Center. In this role, she is responsible for establishing the Center’s research and outreach agenda, serving as its public spokesperson, and providing strategic and administrative direction to staff. Prior to assuming this position, Yolanda was a senior economist and policy advisor in the Boston Fed's Research Department. She specializes in regional, labor market, and public sector economics. Her research has examined diverse topics, including economic development strategies for older industrial cities, the long-term implications of job loss, the migration patterns of college graduates, causes of regional differences in educational attainment, privatization of government functions, and corporate tax policy at the national and state levels. She is a senior contributor to "Toward a More Prosperous Springfield," a multi-year commitment by the Boston Fed to support the economic revitalization of Springfield, Massachusetts. Yolanda serves as an advisor to numerous organizations with an interest in the New England and national economies. During 1991-92, she took a leave of absence from the Federal Reserve to consult for the U.S. Treasury advisory program in Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining the Boston Fed in 1986, she taught economics at Amherst College. A graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard University), Yolanda received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her favorite place in New England is her farm in Sandwich, New Hampshire. Email Yolanda
Darcy
Rollins Saas
Darcy started with the New England Public Policy Center
as a Policy Analyst in 2005. She was promoted to Deputy
Director in 2007; in this position, she is responsible
for working with the Director of the Center and its
staff to develop and to implement its strategy and mission,
including development of a research agenda and outreach
strategy. Darcy has written on subjects ranging from
regional housing policy to the costs and benefits of
film tax credits in New England. She previously worked
at the Maine Development Foundation, where she was an
analyst for the state's annual economic indicators report
and managed a community economic development program.
Darcy holds a masters in public policy from Tufts University
and a BA in political science from Colgate University.
Darcy's favorite place in New England is Portland, Maine. Email Darcy.
Alicia
Sasser Modestino
As a Senior Economist, Alicia leads research projects on regional economic and policy issues for the Center. She specializes in the fields of labor, public finance, and health economics. Her current research focuses on the labor market, migration, housing, and health care reform. Her work has appeared in journals such as Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Human Resources, and Health Affairs and has been presented at the annual meetings of the American Economic Association. She holds a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Boston University as well as master's and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Harvard University where she also served as a doctoral fellow in the Inequality and Social Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government. Prior to joining the Center, Alicia worked as an economist in the private sector and taught economics at Mount Holyoke College. Her favorite place in New England is sailing around the islands in Boston harbor. Email
Alicia.
Bo
Zhao
As a Senior Economist, Bo leads research projects on regional economic and policy issues for the Center. He specializes in urban, regional, and public economics, with research interests in state and local public finance, housing markets, and fair housing and lending. His work has been published in several academic journals such as the Journal of Urban Economics, National Tax Journal, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He also made presentations at various academic meetings, including annual conferences of the National Tax Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Bo was selected by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as one of 20 young scholars nationwide to participate in the 2005 Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp. He served on the Municipal Aid Subcommittee of the Municipal Finance Task Force between 2006 and 2007. Bo earned a Ph.D. in economics and a master's degree in applied statistics from Syracuse University. His favorite place in New England is the Charles River between River Street and JFK Street in Cambridge. Email Bo.
Robert Clifford
As a Policy Analyst, Robert conducts analysis of regional economic and policy issues for the Center. His research interests include public finance, labor economics, and income inequality. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Robert was a Research Associate with the Center. Originally from New Hampshire, Robert holds a Masters in economics from the University of New Hampshire and a BA in economics from Keene State College. Robert's favorite place in New England is the Lake of the Clouds Hut near the peak of Mount Washington. Email
Robert.
Jennifer Weiner
As a Senior Policy Analyst, Jennifer prepares analyses of regional economic and policy issues for internal and external communications. Her research interests include health policy, public finance, and labor economics. Prior to joining the Center, Jennifer performed health economics and outcomes research for a Boston-based consulting firm and conducted policy analyses for the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Originally from New Hampshire, she holds a masters in public affairs from Princeton University and a BA in economics from Bates College. Jennifer's favorite place in New England is the top of West Rattlesnake Mountain in Holderness, New Hampshire. Email
Jennifer.
Angela Cools
As a Research Assistant, Angela conducts data analysis and research on economic and policy issues for the Center. Her research interests include public policy, economic demography, and economics of religion. Originally from Michigan, Angela received her BA from Pomona College in Economics. Angela's favorite place in New England is the Boston Harbor. Email Angela.
Julia Dennett
As a Research Associate, Julia conducts data analysis and research on economic and policy issues for the Center. Her research interests include public finance, labor economics, and political economy. Originally from Colorado, Julia received her BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Economics. Prior to joining the Center, Julia worked as an assistant economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Julia’s favorite place in New England is Nauset Light Beach on Cape Cod. Email Julia.
Jingyi Huang
As a Research Assistant, Jingyi conducts data analysis and research on economic and policy issues for the Center. Her research interests include public finance, education policy and political economy. Originally from Chengdu, China, Jingyi received her BA from Mount Holyoke College in Mathematics/Economics and History. Jingyi's favorite place in New England is the Pioneer Valley. Email
Jingyi.
Nina Johnson
As the Center's Administrative Assistant, Nina supports the operations of the Center and its staff. Nina has extensive experience in the coordination, planning and support of daily operational and administrative functions. Prior to joining the Center, Nina worked in the health care industry and for the Massachusetts Senate and the Town of Saugus. Her favorite place in New England is Provincetown in the winter. Email
Nina.
The Center periodically invites researchers to serve as visiting scholars. Visiting scholars work on research about a public policy issue of relevance to New England and that complements the work of the Center.
The Center is currently seeking applications for its 2013-2014 Visiting Scholar program. While submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, priority will be given to applications received by September 28, 2012.
For more information about application requirements and the program, click here.
Lucie Schmidt
Lucie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Williams College and a Research Affiliate at the National Poverty Center. Her research has focused on social insurance programs in the United States and on the economics of marriage and fertility decisions, and her work has been published in the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Health Economics, Feminist Economics, and Demography, among others. While at the NEPPC, she is studying the determinants of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) caseloads, and examining how those determinants may have changed following the passage of welfare reform in 1996. She received an A.B. in Government from Smith College, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. Email Lucie.
Reagan Baughman
Reagan Baughman is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of New Hampshire. While visiting the NEPPC, she worked on a project on the determinants of wages, occupational selection and turnover for nursing and home health aides. Dr. Baughman specializes in the fields of health, labor and public economics and also does research on health insurance coverage for low-income families. Her work has been published in the National Tax Journal, Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Review, Demography and the Journal of Health Economics. She holds a B.A. in economics from Drew University and a Ph.D. in economics from Syracuse University. After graduate school, she completed a two-year fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy program at the University of Michigan. Email Reagan.
Susan Dynarski
Susan M. Dynarski is an Associate Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy and Associate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. She studies and teaches the economics of education and tax policy, and has a special interest in the interaction of inequality and higher education. She has been a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1999. Dynarski has studied the impact of grants and loans on college attendance; the impact of state policy on college completion rates; and the distributional aspects of college savings incentives. She has testified on her research to the U.S. Senate and the President's Commission on Tax Reform. Her research has been published in academic and policy journals, as well as featured in the popular media. Dynarski earned an AB in social studies at Harvard College, an MPP at Harvard, and a PhD in economics at MIT. Email Susan.
Judy Geyer
Judy is a Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon University. Her areas of scholarly interest include public economics, public policy, urban
economics, and labor economics. While at the Center she will finish her
dissertation on the mobility of low-income households. Geyer received a
BSE in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, an MSE in
Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MS in
Economics from Carnegie Mellon University. She expects a PhD in Economics
from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012. Email Judy.
Ross Gittell
Ross Gittell is the James R. Carter Professor at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business and Economics. Professor Gittell’s scholarly focus involves applying economic, organizational and management theory to regional, state, and community economic development issues. His main areas of specialization and research include entrepreneurship, sustainable development and collaborative public and private sector efforts. While at the NEPPC he will be studying the influence of changes in energy policy on New England regional economic growth and competitiveness. He is particularly interested in researching the influence of recently enacted energy and environmental policies in fostering private sector innovation and the development of new energy technology in the region. Gittell received a BA at the University of Chicago in Economics, an MBA from University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard University. He is Vice President, forecast manager and on the board of the New England Economic Partnership and also on the boards of the Exeter Trust Company, the Foundation for Healthy Communities and Exeter Hospital.
Email Ross.
Katherine Kiel
Katherine Kiel is an Associate Professor of Economics at the College of the Holy Cross. Her fields of interest are urban and environmental economics. Her current research focuses on the impact of various kinds of pollution and land use regulations on house prices. She has also published in the areas of real estate price indices, racial discrimination in the housing market, and on the demand for environmental quality in the United States, with her work appearing in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Land Economics, the Journal of Urban Economics and other peer-reviewed journals. Katherine received her Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego and her A.B. from Occidental College. She has been awarded research grants from the Environmental Protection Agency and serves on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance. Email Katherine.
Brian Knight
Brian Knight is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Brown University and is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He previously worked as an economist in the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board. He received his PhD in 2000 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his B.S. in 1992 from Miami University. Research interests include political economy and local public finance. His research has been published in American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, and Journal of Public Economics. Email Brian.
Maria Luengo-Prado
María José Luengo-Prado is an Associate Professor of Economics at Northeastern University. Her research interests include Macroeconomics and Public Economics. Her research to date has focused on understanding households' consumption and savings decisions under uncertainty and the effect of these decisions on the broader economy. In particular, she has studied the dual role of housing (and other durable goods) as consumption and savings. For example, Dr. Luengo-Prado has examined the impact of lower down payments on consumption volatility, and the role of housing on explaining the wealth distribution. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Economic Review, the Jornal of Monetary Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Review of Economic Dynamics. Dr. Luengo-Prado has also written on the use of vouchers to improve education and several aspects of the airline industry. While visiting the NEPPC, Dr. Luengo-Prado will investigate the effect of home equity loans on consumption smoothing. Dr. Luengo-Prado holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University, an M.A. in Economics from the Katholique University of Leuven, Belgium, and a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Salamanca, Spain. Email Maria.
Robert Mohr
Robert Mohr is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of New Hampshire. His research focuses on public finance, innovation, and environmental policy. His work on New England regional issues include a study of current use property taxation and a study on the use of public-private partnerships by small and rural municipalities in New Hampshire. Robert's scholarly publications include contributions to the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Contributions to Economic Analysis and Policy, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Ecological Economics, and Land Economics. At the University of New Hampshire, he teaches graduate courses in microeconomic theory and public finance and undergraduate courses in microeconomics, public policy and environmental economics. Robert holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. His favorite season in New England is fall. Email Robert .
Jessica Reyes
Jessica Wolpaw Reyes is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Amherst College. She specializes in the fields of public finance, labor economics, and health economics. Her current work focuses on public health and social impacts of environmental pollution, gender gaps in medicine, factors influencing judicial decision-making, and other topics in applied microeconomics. While at the NEPPC, she will be studying the effects of childhood lead exposure on school outcomes in Massachusetts. Reyes received a BA in Mathematics and Chemistry from Amherst College, a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. She is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and her research has been published in academic journals and featured in the popular media.
Email Jessica.
Katherine Swartz
Katherine Swartz is Professor of Health Policy and Economics at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Swartz was a senior research associate at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. for 10 years before joining the faculty at the School of Public Health. From September 2000 through June 2001, she was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York. Her current research interests focus on the population without health insurance and efforts to increase access to health care coverage; reasons for and ways to control episodes of care that involve extremely high expenditures; and how to pay for expanded health insurance coverage. Since November 1995, Dr. Swartz has been the editor of Inquiry, a journal that focuses on health care organization, provision and financing. Dr. Swartz’s new book, Reinsuring Health: Why More Middle-Class People Are Uninsured and What Government Can Do, was published in June 2006. The book’s proposal for government-sponsored reinsurance for people with very high expenditures is being discussed in a number of states as a policy option for expanding insurance coverage. Dr. Swartz was the 1991 recipient of the David Kershaw Award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management for research done before the age of 40 that has had a significant impact on public policy. Email Katherine.
Ariel Dora Stern
Ariel Dora Stren is a doctoral candidate in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, here she studies health economics and health policy. Her current research focuses on roductivity in healthcare, the role of technology and information in consumer health care ecision-making and variations and disparities in physicians’ provision of health services. Ariel graduated with the distinction Presidential Scholar from Dartmouth College with an AB in economics and completed an MA in Economics at the Free University of Berlin and Hunter College. She has worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the German Institute for Economic Research, the German Development Bank (KfW) and is currently a National Bureau of Economic Research Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Aging and Health Economics and a fellow of the Harvard Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy. Email Ariel.
Bridget Terry-Long
Bridget Terry Long is an Associate Professor of Education and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Using the theory and methods of economics, Dr. Long studies the transition from secondary to higher education and beyond. Her work has focused on college access and choice, factors that influence college student outcomes, and the behavior of postsecondary institutions. Past projects have examined the effects of financial aid programs, the impact of postsecondary remediation, and the influence of class size and faculty characteristics on student persistence. Current projects include an aid simplification study, analysis of the growing gender gap in college enrollment, and research on community colleges.
Dr. Long received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the Harvard University Department of Economics and her A.B. from Princeton University. She is a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). She received the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and has been awarded numerous research grants from organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, and the Ford Foundation. In July 2005, the Chronicle of Higher Education featured her as one of the "New Voices" in higher education. Email Bridget.
Philip Trostel
Philip Trostel is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Maine, where he holds a joint appointment with the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and the Department of Economics. In addition, Dr. Trostel is a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. He earned a PhD in economics from Texas A&M University. He has previously worked at North Carolina State University, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, University of Warwick (England), Dartmouth College, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Trostel is an applied microeconomist specializing in public finance. Most of his research focuses on higher education policy, human capital, and fiscal policy. His research has been supported by grants awarded from the National Science Foundation, American Educational Research Association, Brookings Institution, and U.S. Economic Development Administration. He has published articles in the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Monetary Economics, National Tax Journal, Economic Inquiry, Labour Economics, Review of Regional Studies, Education Economics, and other refereed journals. In addition, he has written dozens of newspaper opinion columns and policy reports intended for general audiences. He has also made numerous appearances before committees of the Maine Legislature and on Maine television and radio stations. Email Philip.
Richard Woodbury
Richard Woodbury is an economist, an administrator with the program on aging at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a former Representative in the Maine State Legislature. His academic work has focused on the implications of population aging, and on the design of public and private retirement policies. In the Maine legislature, he chaired the tax committee, as well as the joint select committee on property tax reform. He also served on the insurance and financial services committee, and the joint select committee on future Maine prosperity. His research as a Visiting Scholar deals with the design of state pension plans in New England, and with the political economy of recent tax reform initiatives in Maine. He is a graduate of Williams College and received a PhD in economics from Harvard University. Email Dick.
Jeffrey Zabel
Jeffrey Zabel is an Associate Professor of Economics at Tufts University, a Research Associate at the Center for Real Estate at MIT, and a Fellow at the NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy. His current research is in the areas of K-12 education, welfare economics, urban and real estate economics, and environmental economics. Recent research on New England public policy issues includes affordable housing in the greater Boston area, the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, and Proposition 2 ½. Email Jeff.
Junfu Zhang
Junfu Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Clark University. He specializes in applied microeconomics. His research interests include entrepreneurship and job creation, labor market effects of business decisions, regional development, and racial housing segregation. Zhang received a B.A. from Renmin University of China and a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University. He was a dissertation fellow at the Brookings Institution during 2000-2001. Before joining Clark University in 2006, he worked as a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Email Junfu.
The Supplemental Security Income Program and Welfare Reform
by Lucie Schmidt, Williams College
Public Policy Discussion Paper No. 12-X (June 2012)
Childhood Lead and Academic Performance in Massachusetts
by Jessica W. Reyes, Amherst College
NEPPC Working Paper No. 11-3 (August 2011)
Unaffordable Housing and Local Employment Growth
by Ritashree Chakrabarti, IHS Global Insight and Junfu Zhang, Clark University
NEPPC Working Paper No. 10-3 (June 2010)
Spatial Competition and Cross-border Shopping: Evidence from State Lotteries
by Brian Knight, Brown University and Nathan Schiff, University of British Columbia
NEPPC Working Paper No. 10-1 (January 2010)
The Struggle for Tax Reform in Maine, 2003-2009
by Richard Woodbury, former Maine State Representative and National Bureau of Economic Research
NEPPC Discussion Paper No. 09-2 (September 2009)
House Prices and Risk Sharing
by Dmytro Hryshko, University of Alberta, María José Luengo-Prado Northeastern University and NEPPC Visiting Scholar, Bent E. Sørensen , University of Houston and CEPR
NEPPC Working Paper No. 09-3 (August 2009)
The Role of the Housing Market in the Response to Employment Shocks
by Jeffrey Zabel, Tufts University
NEPPC Working Paper No. 09-2 (July 2009)
Public-Private Partnerships, Cooperative Agreements, and the Production of Public Services in Small and Rural Municipalities
by Robert D. Mohr, University of New Hampshire, Steven Deller, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and John Halstead, University of New Hampshire
NEPPC Working Paper No. 08-4 (June 2008)
The Lengthening of Childhood
by David Deming and Susan Dynarski, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University
NEPPC Working Paper No. 08-3 (June 2008)
The Labor Market for Direct Care Workers
by Reagan Baughman and Kristin Smith, University of New Hampshire
NEPPC Working Paper No. 07-4 (November 2007)
The Impact of Wetlands Rules on the Prices of Regulated and Proximate Houses: A Case Study
by Katherine A. Kiel, College of the Holy Cross
NEPPC Working Paper No. 07-3 (November 2007)
The Fiscal Impact of College Attainment
by Philip A. Trostel, University of Maine
NEPPC Working Paper No. 07-2 (November 2007)
Do Loans Increase College Access and Choice?
Examining the Introduction of Universal Student Loans
by Bridget Terry Long, Harvard Graduate School of Education and NBER
NEPPC Working Paper No. 07-1 (November 2007)
The New England Public Policy Center’s Advisory Board advises Center staff on how to disseminate its research strategically to policy makers and thought leaders in the New England region.
Throughout the year, the New England Public Policy Center offers a limited number of internships. We look for outstanding graduate and undergraduate students to assist us with research in the fields of applied economics and public policy. Typically, interns are assigned to projects which involve quantitative and qualitative analysis and are required to independently perform data collection, statistical and econometric analysis, literature reviews, and writing tasks.
Summer Internships
Summer internships are full-time, paid, and generally last ten to twelve weeks. When a position is available, applications are solicited through the research department.
Academic-Year Internships
The Center also periodically offers academic-year internships that are unpaid and require that the student receive academic credit. Students are asked to commit to at least 15-20 hours per week for an entire semester. Please contact the Center if you are interested in an academic internship.