News and Announcements

ISER has hired two new assistant professors of economics, Andrew Bibler and Kevin Berry. Andrew Bibler will receive a Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University this spring, and will start work at ISER in August 2016. He has a strong background in applied econometrics, program evaluation, and education policy. Kevin Berry holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wyoming. He will arrive at ISER in January 2017, bringing experience in bioeconomic modeling and dynamic systems.

Resumes: Andrew Bibler (PDF, 135KB) • Kevin Berry (PDF, 127KB)

Nearly 2,700 Alaska children were in foster care in any given month of 2015—20% more than in 2014. More children of all races, all ages, and all regions of the state were in foster care in 2015. But the fastest growth was among White and other non-Native children; among the youngest children; and among children in Anchorage. These are among the findings of a new paper by Diwakar Vadapalli and Jessica Passini that reports on trends among Alaska children in foster care from 2011 through 2015.

Download the paper, The Growing Number of Alaska Children in Foster Care, 2011-2015 (PDF, 2.0MB). If you have questions, get in touch with Diwakar Vadapalli, assistant professor of public policy, at dkvadapalli@alaska.edu or 907-891-6686.

Total construction spending in Alaska will be about $7.3 billion in 2016, down 18% from last year’s $8.9 billion. That drop can be traced to the recent steep decline in oil prices, after several years of very high prices. Those high oil prices had stimulated construction spending throughout the state economy, especially in the oil and gas sector and in state government. Those are among the findings of the new 2016 Construction Spending Forecast, prepared by Scott Goldsmith and Pamela Cravez of ISER for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska.

Many sectors of the economy will see drops in construction spending, particularly the oil and gas sector, which had record spending in 2015. But spending in some sectors will be up or the same as last year. Spending for national defense projects will be up 27%, and spending by basic industries other than oil and gas (tourism, seafood, air cargo, and timber) will be up 39%. Spending for highways and roads will be the same as in 2015, as will spending by the mining industry.

Download the report, 2016 Alaska Construction Spending Forecast (PDF, 1.6MB). If you have questions, get in touch with Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics, at osgoldsmith@uaa.alaska.edu.

Gunnar Knapp, ISER’s director and a long-time fisheries economist, has received the 2016 Marine Research Award, from the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. It is one of several Alaska Ocean Leadership Awards the center awards annually to those who contribute, in various ways, to awareness about and sustainability of Alaska’s marine resources. The Marine Research Award is given specifically for “an original breakthrough contribution to any field of scientific knowledge about Alaska’s oceans.” Dr. Knapp was recognized for the extensive research he has done over more than 25 years, looking at fisheries management and seafood markets in Alaska and elsewhere, and for the relationships he has built with people in all sectors of the seafood industry. The award is sponsored by Dr. Clarence Pautzke and Dr. Maureen McCrea.

Updated February 4, 2016

Researchers at ISER and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources are surveying floatplane pilots, to collect information that will help state and federal resource managers protect remote lakes and streams from invasive plants.

Learn more about this survey.

Note: This post is not the survey. If you received a letter from us, please enter the personalized link you are provided with into the URL address field of your Internet browser (usually in the top left corner of the browser window). It should look similar to: http://www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/A#### (where the # is your personalized ID). Do NOT enter this link into google search or the search field of your browser.

You are in the right place when you see the survey and a personalized greeting containing your first and last name.

How do taxes and other revenues the state government collects from the commercial fishing, mining, and tourism industries compare with what the state spends to manage them? That’s the question the Alaska Division of Economic Development asked ISER researchers Bob Loeffler and Steve Colt to answer. In a new study, the researchers report their findings, but they first emphasize that their study is not a broad analysis of all the benefits and costs of these industries, which would also weigh many other factors—including the substantial income and thousands of jobs the industries generate for Alaskans. The researchers also point out that the state’s management goals for these industries include many things besides collecting taxes, and that their study does not say anything about what taxes on these industries should be.

The authors found that commercial fishing, mining, and tourism all generate combined state and local revenues in the same ballpark—averaging about $120 million to $135 million annually in recent years. All three industries pay more in combined state and local taxes than the state spends to manage them, with revenues from tourism and commercial fishing particularly important to local governments: 60% of the revenue from tourism and 40% from fishing goes to local governments. Counting only state revenues (excluding local revenues), the state spends more to manage fishing than it collects from the industry. State revenues from tourism roughly equal what the state spends for management. Mining brings in about six times more than the state spends to manage it.

Bob Loeffler is a visiting professor of public policy at ISER, funded by a grant to the University of Alaska Foundation from the Council of Alaska Producers. Steve Colt is a professor of economics at ISER. The report findings are those of the authors, not ISER, the University of Alaska Anchorage, or the research sponsors.

Download the summary (PDF, 734 KB) or the full report (PDF, 2.6 MB), Fiscal Effects of Commercial Fishing, Mining, and Tourism. If you have questions, get in touch with Bob Loeffler at bobl@uaa.alaska.edu or 907-250-4621.

Research Matters No. 95. Assessing Repeat Child Maltreatment in Alaska December 15, 2015 Statistics from the federal Children’s Bureau show that the rate of repeat child abuse and neglect in Alaska is among the highest in the country. But a new study by ISER researchers Diwakar Vadapalli and Jessica Passini finds that even those grim numbers may underestimate how many children in Alaska are repeatedly abused or neglected.

Gunnar Knapp, ISER’s director since 2013 and a professor of economics at ISER for 35 years, has announced he will retire from the University of Alaska Anchorage in June 2016. But after retiring he plans to work part-time with ISER, in particular continuing his research and public outreach to help Alaskans understand the big fiscal challenges the state faces. He will also continue his decades-long research on Alaska’s salmon industry and salmon markets, which has earned him an international reputation as a fisheries economist.