News and Announcements

Alaskans care about their environment. Whenever we discuss development and conservation proposals, there is always a discussion about whether our water and air are being protected and whether some industries have a good record protecting our air and water. Or not.

In March 2020, as the first warm rays of sun hit Orca Inlet, Cordova started to emerge from a ferry-less winter. The Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) is used by 30 communities for reliable and affordable year-round transportation. But, following the passage of the FY 2020 budget, the Alaska Legislature cut funding for the AMHS by $44 million dollars, a 31% reduction from previous fiscal years.  As a result, according to the Alaska Municipal League, many coastal communities, including Cordova (Figure 1), spent six to eight months with no ferry service during the 2019/2020 winter. Additional funding for the AMHS is included in the FY21 state budget, but Cordova will likely have to wait until July 2020 for the first ferry of the year. By that time, Cordova will have been without ferry service for 9.5 months.

Two UAA staff recently presented information to the Alaska Legislature about the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on the Alaska economy.  Mouhcine Guettabi (ISER) and Nolan Klouda (UAA’s Business Enterprise Institute) made presentations to the House Labor and Commerce Committee on April 24, 2020.  Video and audio from that hearing can be found online.

The coronavirus crisis has dramatically affected economic and social behavior in Alaska. Getting immediate measures of the impact on economic activity is limited by the inherent lags built into the collection of data on economic variables such as employment and sales. Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi turned to some near-real-time electronic data to get a more immediate sense of how activity has been impacted.

Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi and Jon Bittner join host Lori Townsend on a recent episode of Alaska Public Media's Talk of Alaska to discuss the effects of COVID-19 on Alaska's economy. The recording and transcript are available from their website.

Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi has completed an initial estimate of the possible impact of the COVID-19 business closures on the Alaska economy. To develop those estimates, he focused upon the impacts on the three most directly affected industries: leisure and hospitality, retail, and transportation. He estimated that the direct and indirect effects from reduced activity in those three sectors would be about 48,000 jobs and would reduce state GDP by almost $2 billion in the second quarter of 2020, If the closures are sustained, an additional $2 billion could be lost. Professor Guettabi's estimates may not capture the impacts of many smaller losses spread throughout the economy and do not include possible impacts on the economy from the recent collapse of oil prices. They also do not include the possible offsetting impact of federal COVID-19 aid to Alaska.

Faculty members Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi and Dr. Kevin Berry answer questions about the COVID-19 pandemic in the latest releases of Ask a UAA Expert. Dr. Guettabi answers questions related to the State economic consequences while Dr. Berry addresses pandemic economics. Check out the videos!

On Wednesday, March 18, Dr. Dayna DeFeo, Director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, and Dr. Diane Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, testified to the Alaska Legislature’s House Education Committee. Their testimony wove together major findings from seven CAEPR research studies to explore teacher supply, demand, retention, turnover, and competition in Alaska and relative to the lower 48. They shared some of Alaska’s areas of opportunity in meeting the need to staff its classrooms with high-quality educators, including expanding efforts to grow our “homegrown” teacher pipeline, improving working conditions that drive turnover, particularly in rural Alaska, and ensuring that compensation structures are on par with other states. DeFeo and Hirshberg’s presentation followed a discussion of current educator turnover research from REL Northwest.