he Urban Institute's research agenda mirrored many of the public policy issues that dominated the news and vexed Americans most in 2007—the economy, health care access and costs, preparation for retirement, immigration, crime, job security, and housing prices. All year, we were called upon to weigh evidence, offer perspectives, set the record straight, and propose innovative fixes for these and other challenges.
Early in 2007, Senior Fellow Edward Gramlich alerted policymakers in Washington to the possibility and consequences of a subprime mortgage market meltdown.
Gramlich's analysis—Subprime Mortgages: America's Latest Boom and Bust—was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as the "bible for reporters and policymakers trying to figure out what had gone wrong."
Within six months, hundreds of decisionmakers had seen the book, thousands of college students had been assigned it, and foreign editions were in progress. More important, by late December, several of Dr. Gramlich's recommendations for tightening mortgage-lending standards had been taken up by the Federal Reserve Board.
Work by the Institute's Tax Policy Center spoke to the mounting concern about tax fairness and the growing gap between the country's rich and poor.
In May, Center Director Leonard Burman circulated a policy proposal for saving wide swaths of the middle class from paying the alternative minimum tax—a levy originally intended to prevent the wealthy from sheltering income to reduce their tax bills but poised to snare 23.4 million mostly middle—class households by year's end without congressional action.
Our proposal, adding 4 percent to the tax bills of singles making an adjusted gross of $100,000 and couples earning twice that much, was hailed by the New York Times as "fair and smart." It remains the most practical idea on the table for the next president and Congress to consider after the temporary patch passed in late 2007 expires.
States' interest in the Institute's research on financing health care insurance exploded in 2007.
After our analysis in 2005 and 2006 for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts showed the state legislature that near-universal insurance was affordable, New York and other states asked us to help them figure out how what they spend on health care for the uninsured stacks up against the costs and benefits of extending public or private insurance to these same people.
For the initial work on Massachusetts' health care system, we won the AcademyHealth 2007 Impact Award.
Immigration ranked among voters' top concerns in 2007, so our study of what happens to the children of undocumented workers picked up in workplace raids touched a nerve.
Our finding that five children were left temporarily stranded for every nine undocumented workers seized in workplace raids was widely reported.
A month after our study's release, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency changed its arrest guidelines.
Our research on aging and retirement expanded in 2007 as the economic importance of the massive wave of aging baby boomers grew more pressing.
Our volume, International Perspectives on Social Security Reform, showed how public pension systems in OECD countries compare with each other.
Institute researchers also found that aging boomers don't plan to beat a path to early retirement like their parents—lucky, since that would drive the number of workers per retiree down and shrink the tax base that finances Social Security and other public benefits.
Other Institute research warned families and government to prepare to provide long-term care to older adults as the over-65 population doubles to 80 million by 2040, and floated politically practical proposals for keeping Medicare and Medicaid solvent during the coming crunch.
We also did pioneering research on what boomers will do once they stop working, showing that their sheer numbers could make them the greatest generation of do-gooders yet if government, employers, and nonprofits on the receiving end sponsor more opportunities to volunteer and set up networks to match boomers' interests with unpaid jobs.
Our education work in 2007 spoke to Americans' growing concern about boosting and measuring student progress.
In Good Schools in Poor Neighborhoods, Principal Research Associate Beatriz Chu Clewell and her coauthor Patricia B. Campbell overturned the conventional wisdom that urban elementary schools in poor areas are doomed. The authors pointed education's decisionmakers toward other positive influences—strong principals, excellent teachers, parental involvement, and high expectations for kids.
At the same time, our National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, founded in 2006, began producing scholarly reports on what teacher and school governance policies, teacher effectiveness, and the culture surrounding schools do to the bottom line—student learning and success.
Our work on the nonprofit sector this year ranged from the variations in governance practices and compensation to the need for longer-term post-disaster relief.
We also profiled the sector, and Senior Fellow Gene Steuerle testified before Congress on an innovative balance-sheet method for measuring and testing organizational charitability.
Another high point was the debut of the second edition of Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict—now a widely used college text.
Wave-making reports from 2007 reached far beyond policy and academic circles.
One report explaining why street thefts are rising even though other property crimes aren't—the hottest new gadget, the iPod, is just too easy to steal—circulated virally through dozens of newspapers, tech e-zines, and blogs here and in Europe.
Other findings—claims that U.S. math and science scores are not undermining the nation's international competitiveness and that we aren't, as often thought, graduating too few scientists and engineers—sparked lively debate in dozens of tech blogs, a National Public Radio interview, and both trade and professional journals.
Our work on economic mobility, begun more than a decade ago, took a new turn in 2007 when we teamed up with three other think tanks under foundation auspices to explore the veracity of the American Dream—work that is getting national media coverage.
In and around the District of Columbia, we worked hard in 2007 to help local authorities and nonprofits expand opportunity and improve services.
Our sixth annual edition of Housing in the Nation's Capital assessed how well the greater metropolitan area is housing the frail elderly, disabled, and homeless.
Just ahead of the subprime mortgage debacle, we let the region's decisionmakers know that these fast-growing special-needs groups would soon need more housing and more help finding it, and we recommended ways to provide both.
In 2007, our Assessing the New Federalism project expanded into the Low Income Working Families project.
Researchers studied working families' struggles to raise their children and pay for basics on low incomes. We also analyzed the public and private supports to help these families.
Abroad, our work in 2007 was as high-impact as it was far-flung.
In Ethiopia, for instance, we surveyed citizens on local government's openness and accountability.
In Colombia, we advised the government on performance-based budgeting and managing for results.
In Pakistan, we helped government gauge and respond to citizen priorities and activate the district councils that bridge government and civil society.
In the run-up to the presidential election year, the Institute is now working at full speed to provide the policy data, context, insights, and new ideas that policymakers and the public expect from our researchers.
Finally, we honor three individuals whose impact on the Institute has been profound. Senior Fellow Ned Gramlich was with the Institute for a time as short as his impact was enormous. In the months before his untimely death, he laid the groundwork for the debate about what went wrong with the subprime mortgage market. Bob McNamara, a trustee since 1968, and Dick Thornburgh, a trustee since 1995, both stepped down in 2007 after years of dedicated service. It's hard to imagine a trustee meeting without their wise counsel and firm hands on the Institute's keel. We are grateful for the contributions of these three fine and dedicated public servants.
