A half-day forum examines the use of financial incentives by city and state policymakers to reduce poverty and make people healthy.

‘Do You Get What You Pay For? Financial Incentives in Public Policy’ - Sept. 26

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and New York Times contributing writer Tina Rosenberg will be among numerous experts of distinction participating in a forum Monday, September 26 on the use of financial incentives by city and state policymakers to alleviate poverty and improve the health of their populations.

The half-day forum, “Do You Get What You Pay For? Financial Incentives in Public Policy,” is  presented by MDRC, Center for an Urban Future, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, and the Economic and Finance Association at NYU Wagner. It begins at 8:00 a.m. in NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life, Rosenthal Pavilion, 60 Washington Square South (at LaGuardia Place), and concludes at 12:30 p.m.

The latest innovations in the use of financial incentives in social and health policy will be described, much of them pioneered in New York City. Lessons learned from these and other examples will be used to assess their applicability to policymakers at the city and state levels, with particular emphasis on providing relevant ideas to the relatively new gubernatorial administrations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. What has been learned about financial incentives over the past decades of wide experimentation? What concrete reform ideas are needed for the next generation of policy development — within the context of the “new normal” of budgetary constraints?

Keynote Speakers:

Welcome: Ellen Schall, Dean, NYU Wagner

Overview: Gordon Berlin, President, MDRC

Forum Moderator: Jonathan Bowles, Executive Director, Center for an Urban Future

Panel 1: Can Incentives Alleviate Poverty?

Panelists:

Richard Buery, President and CEO, Children’s Aid Society

James Riccio, Director, MDRC’s Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area

Dan Rosenbaum, Senior Economist, federal Office of Management and Budget

Veronica White, Executive Director, NYC Center for Economic Opportunity

Tina Rosenberg, New York Times, moderator

 Panel 2: Can Incentives Make People Healthy?

Panelists:

Joann Casado, Executive Director, The Bronx Health Link

Brian Elbel, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, NYU School of Medicine

Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor, Urban Public Health, Hunter College

Kevin Volpp, Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management, Director of the Center for Health Incentives, University of Pennsylvania

Ben Barnes (Wagner MUP '93), Secretary of the State of Connecticut Office of Policy and Management, moderator.

 RSVP is required – go to http://wagner.nyu.edu/events/wagner-09-26-2011.

 Media coverage is invited -- contact Robert Polner via 212.998.2337 or robert.polner(at)nyu.edu.

Press Contact

Robert Polner
Robert Polner
(212) 998-2337