Summit mourns the passing of Professor William J. Baumol, who died at the age of 95 last month.  The world lost a brilliant economist, and Summit lost a beloved mentor and friend. 

Today, Summit released a new white paper on estimation designs used in program evaluation.

This week, Dr. China Layne will present a webinar to members of the Association of Public Data Users (APDU). She will present on “Improving Administrative Data Quality for Research and Analysis” on Wednesday, June 21, from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

Last week, I presented my study, “Pathways to Entrepreneurship: Personal and City Predictors of Self-Employment,” at the 2017 Annual Conference of the Labor and Employment Relations Association.

Dr. Layne examined how personal characteristics and regional economic factors affect an individual’s likelihood of being self-employed. Specifically, the research focuses on how three sets of factors each affect residents’ probability of being self-employed: (1) human and social capital, (2) the previous year’s employment experience, and (3) the mix of occupations within a region. Dr. Layne’s project used data from the Current Population Survey and employed a multinomial logistic model to investigate the effects of these factors on the likelihood of being self-employed in incorporated and non-incorporated businesses separately.

When times are good and delinquency rates are low, it's easy to ignore the tools at our disposal to help keep borrowers current on their mortgages and in their homes. 

Today, Summit's Chief Housing Economist Dr. Edward Seiler and Senior Research Fellow Dr. George Cave released a white paper on the housing counseling industry in collaboration with SP Group. 

Last weekend, Summit hosted the third annual Washington, DC-area American Statistical Association DataFest™ with the University of Maryland. The yearly competition brought together more than ten teams from 6 local colleges and universities to analyze the same set of data and brainstorm unique ways to use and present it. 

Last week, I attended the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) 2017 Eastern Regional Meeting & Expo in New York. The title of this two-day conference was “Reverse Mortgages in a Time of Change.” The theme of many of the sessions and presentations centered on the administration transition and the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program going forward.

It is generally acknowledged that engagement plays a critical role in learning. Unfortunately, the study of engagement has been stymied by a lack of valid and efficient measures. When researchers from diverse disciplines come together and collaborate, breakthroughs happen.