Press Interviews

http://go.osu.edu/nedhillvideo

The local town hall meeting looks like the basic building block of American democracy. A lot of cities are finding out that’s not exactly true. They’re pushing for policies that conflict with state governments and Donald Trump’s Washington-NPR On Point, Tom Ashbrook. http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/02/07/states-cities-government-regulation


Dan Gearino’s story in the Dispatch November 17, on our work on the cost of electricity deregulation: Consumers would be hurt if electricity industry is regulated again, report says http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2016/11/17/electricity-industry-regulated-again.html#

This was off of the release of the executive summary of the report.  The report itself will be released this week by NOPEC. "The report was written by faculty members at Cleveland State University and Ohio State University. It was financed by the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council, a group that negotiates electricity and natural gas contracts on behalf of several hundred participating communities. Among the co-authors are Andrew Thomas, an energy policy specialist at Cleveland State, and Ned Hill, an economist at Ohio State.”


Columbus Dispatch and Canton Repository on Trade and Ohio’s Economy, Trump’s trade talk more likely to bring recession than jobs
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/11/27/1-tough-trade-stance-by-trump-risks-recession-minimal-job-gains.html

"I understand it’s pandering to populist and progressive interest groups, but I hope we all enjoy the resulting recession,” said Edward Hill, a professor of economic-development policy at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University...Ohio, often portrayed as the center of the Rust Belt, a region of abandoned factories, has increased its gross domestic product from $480 billion in 1997 to $608 billion measured in 2015 dollars. “It’s automation, and if we didn’t automate, the American consumer would vote with their feet and buy this stuff elsewhere,” Hill said. “If you want to bring back American manufacturing to the efficiencies and technologies of 1970, try it.”


WOSU on Santuary Cities on Wednesday with Esther Honig: http://radio.wosu.org/post/what-sanctuary-city-and-will-columbus-become-one

What exactly is a sanctuary city? Ned Hill, a professor of Public Affairs at OSU, says it's essentially a political statement. "It's a political statement against nativism," says Hill. "It's a political statement that we welcome newcomers.” In the U.S., there are at least 300 sanctuary cities. Hill says the policies that defines them can vary. It can be as simple as a statement made by city officials, who say "immigrants are welcome here." And it can be much more drastic. In the case of cities like San Francisco, officials have prohibited police from enforcing federal immigration law. That bans immigration raids, or sharing a person's immigration status with Immigration Customs and Enforcement, or ICE. Hill says cities like San Francisco are clearly violating U.S. immigration law. But he says that's complicated by deportations that could tear families apart. "When you have the absence of policy -- and we've had an absence of a real conversation on migration policy -- you're going to end up with a mess. Congratulations, we're there," says Hill.


Alana Semuels, Democrats Don’t Have an Easy Answer for the Rust Belt http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/democrats-rust-belt/508544/

But the question is what Democrats should say. The biggest problem Democrats face now, and will face in the future, is that there are no simple solutions to the economic crisis in the Rust Belt. Democrats have tried, with proposals like infrastructure projects, science and technology education, and tax credits for companies that offer apprenticeships, but few of the policy prescriptions that could begin the process of getting millions of white, working-class men back to work are very sexy. “There’s no silver bullet,” Ned Hill, a professor at Ohio State University and the faculty affiliate for the Ohio Manufacturing Institute, told me. “This is an adult conversation so easy answers aren’t there.” 

Hill says that one way to create jobs in the Rust Belt is to bolster apprenticeship programs so that unskilled workers can get trained in some of the hundreds of thousands of jobs now going unfilled. Another is to model the manufacturing system on the one in Germany, where public-private institutes translate research into potential commercial products, and detailed educational pathways help train students for jobs that will be in demand. “We’ve lost the ability to train a sophisticated manufacturing workforce,” he said. One-fifth of the German workforce is employed in manufacturing—double the U.S.’s share.


Tom Troy, Toledo Blade, Nov 20 ,RENEGOTIATING NAFTA: Many Trump foes eager to see him act on NAFTA,  But economists warn against protectionism
http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2016/11/20/Many-foes-of-Trump-eager-to-see-him-act-on-trade-vow.html

Many economists see NAFTA as a scapegoat for job losses that have more to do with efficiencies, such as robotics and obsolete plants being closed. Ned Hill, professor of public affairs and city and regional planning at Ohio State University, said a withdrawal from NAFTA will drive business to Vietnam and Thailand because of the need for low-cost labor. “If their goal is to raise trade barriers to any country that has a labor cost advantage over the U.S., two things are going to happen: There’s going to be a trade war and the American consumer is going to revolt” because of the suddenly high cost of products, he said. And the manufacturers in the United States who export to Canada, Mexico, and China — Ohio’s three biggest export customers — will suffer.


John Funk, Plain Dealer, November 17: "Deregulation shaved $15 billion from Ohio electric bills, lawmakers to meet Friday to re-regulate"
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2016/11/deregulation_shaved_15_billion.html

"The claim is based on joint research and statistical analysis completed for NOPEC by Cleveland State University's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs and Ohio State University's John Glenn College of Public Affairs."


RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY, NOV. 16. Ned Hill offers some thoughts on what's next in manufacturing. http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20161116/BLOGS09/161119604/ned-hill-offers-some-thoughts-on-whats-next-in-manufacturing


Thom Knox Columbus Business First, Nov 9: "Factory towns felt left behind by Clinton, says Ohio State manufacturing economist"
http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2016/11/09/factory-towns-felt-left-behind-by-clinton-says.html


Mark Williams and Dan Gearing, Nov 9, Will Trump’s victory be good for Ohio businesses? http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2016/11/10/1-will-trumps-victory-be-good-for-ohio-businesses-it-all-depends.html

It all depends “The single-most-important thing is the future of NAFTA and the future of the North American trading bloc, because that’s enormously important for Ohio,” said Ned Hill, an Ohio State University economist. Hill cites Honda as an example of a major employer that stands to lose if Trump follows through on his talk about trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. Honda has assembly plants in Marysville and East Liberty, and it also has factories in Mexico and Canada. A Honda spokesman had no comment. Hill’s larger worry is that Trump does not seem to have a clear economic worldview. That leaves companies guessing about his priorities.

 

 

Edward (Ned) Hill

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Edward [Ned] Hill, PhD, is an OMI faculty associate.  He teaches economic development policy, public policy and public finance at Ohio State's Glenn College of Public Affairs and College of Engineering’s Knowlton School of Architecture City and Regional Planning section. As a recognized authority on manufacturing policy, he has served on the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership advisory board, is a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, and has been appointed by to multiple statewide and regional manufacturing task forces. 

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Contact: hill.1973@osu.edu