Empire Center for Public Policy

What We Do

AIER conducts scholarly research and then leverages this work to reach the broader public through accessible educational programming and outreach, including media engagement and speaking in public fora. We think of it as our Research, Train, and Communicate approach.

We have a great team of scholars here at AIER that publishes top-notch research and actively engages in public discourse in our areas of expertise and focus. In the pages of the Wall Street Journaland the Washington Post, on CBS News and Fox News, and on Capitol Hill and campuses around the country, AIER scholars are giving voice to the freedom perspective. Our researchers similarly shape the scholarly debate at the highest levels of academia, with groundbreaking research in top venues including the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Macroeconomics, the Economic Journal, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking.

AIER publishes a wide array of original content through the Daily Economy section of our website, a working papers series at the Social Science Research Network, and a publishing department that produces original scholarly monographs in the classical liberal and fusionist traditions and annotated reprints of classic works in economic, political, and social theory.

AIER also hosts robust visiting fellow and internship programs here at our beautiful 120+ acre campus in the Berkshires. And our programs team conducts a variety of conferences and colloquia around the country as well as overseeing our Bastiat Society, with dozens of chapters in the U.S. and around the globe.

While we aim to clearly articulate a broad classical liberal vision of society, we currently have three Priority Focus Areas for our work:

Monetary Economics

Monetary policy influences inflation, employment, and economic activity. A stable but dynamic monetary system is vital for supporting economic growth, individual liberty, and a prosperous society. Therefore, we examine the causes and consequences of monetary policy (including inflation), identify ideal and practical steps towards a better monetary policy regime, and look at monetary alternatives and financial regulation. We host the Sound Money Project.

Economics and Economic Freedom

A free and prosperous society requires a functioning market economy at its foundation. Using a broad array of tools drawn from price theory, public choice analysis, Austrian theory, and classical empiricism, our study of economics and economic freedom explores the underpinnings of the market system, the roots of economic prosperity, and emerging threats to the same in the public policy sphere. Our work includes the measurement of freedom and providing practical economic information for people to make better decisions.

Defending Freedom, Combatting Collectivism

Against collectivist impulses, the defense of freedom, personal responsibility, and the moral, political, legal, and economic foundations of a free society is ever necessary. Protecting the American experiment in ordered liberty is a debt that we owe to the past, and a challenge to pursue in the future. We examine the following issues in this area: the case for free trade vs. protectionism, individualism vs. the new collectivists (DEI/Critical Theory/Marxism/Social Democracy/Economic Nationalism/etc.), shareholder capitalism vs. ESG and stakeholder capitalism, foreign policy for a free society, and the foundations and first principles of freedom and free markets.

Join Us

Securing freedom and free markets here in America is only possible through the partnership of our dedicated supporters. If we do not treasure and disseminate these foundational principles of human flourishing, we risk losing them, perhaps forever.

By supporting AIER, you not only help advance research concerning the principles of individual liberty and free markets, you also help communicate those principles to an audience both influential and broad. The ideas cherished by America’s Founders that have animated AIER’s work since 1933 hold the key to a brighter future for our country and the world. Through your support, AIER can help bring that future closer to reality.

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Empire Center for Public Policy is a nonpartisan think tank that promotes public policy reforms in support of free-market principles, personal responsibility, and limited government intervention. ^1 The Empire Center supports right-of-center tax policy, education reform, and government transparency in New York. ^2

The Empire Center for Public Policy is an affiliate member of the State Policy Network, a coalition of free market policy organizations that focus on state-level policy implementation. ^3 While the Empire Center is nonpartisan, several members of its staff have affiliations with the Republican Party.

Activity

The Empire Center for Public Policy was launched in 2005 as a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and became an independent nonprofit in 2013. ^4 The Empire Center for Public Policy is a nonpartisan think tank that supports free-market policy, advocating for tax changes, education reform, and increased government transparency in New York. ^5

The Empire Center advocates for state tax and spending reforms that would reduce government spending, eliminate tax increases, and reduce the state’s reliance on federal bailout money. The Empire Center claims that New York has the highest state spending for K-12 education and Medicaid and has endorsed measures to lower these expenditures to match the national average. The Empire Center has argued that lowering this spending will reduce property and sales taxes and ultimately reduce costs for the federal government. ^6

The Empire Center did not support Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) proposed 2021 tax increase for New York’s highest earners and claims that the state’s existing high tax rate for millionaires provides an incentive for individuals to relocate to states with lower tax rates. The Empire Center claims that if New York’s tax rates for high earners had been in line with the national average, then the state would have collected an additional $4.1 billion in tax revenue over a 10-year period by attracting high earners to the state and retaining existing high earners. ^7

The Empire Center also advocates for school choice programs. The Center has endorsed the creation of a voucher program for low-income students and students with disabilities, the development of a virtual education system, and the removal of restrictions created by teacher certification requirements. The Empire Center has also advocated for spending cuts to K-12 education, arguing that data from the New York Education Department demonstrates a decreased enrollment in public schools but increased enrollment in charter schools. The Empire Center has used such data to argued that increased spending on public education has not created better learning outcomes. ^8

In an effort to promote government transparency, the Empire Center runs the website SeeThroughNY.net, a database containing payroll information for all New York state public employees, including information on pensions and contracts for unions and school employees. The website provides state budget information and tracks where funding originates, how it is spent at the state and local levels, historic spending trends, and pork spending. ^9

Funding

The Empire Center for Public Policy is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, and businesses. While the Empire Center for Public Policy does not disclose its donors, tax filings show donations from Donors Trust, which contributed between 2017 and 2019;¹⁰ Donors Capital Fund, which contributed between 2013 and 2016; ^11 and the State Policy Network (SPN) , which contributed between 2013 and 2018. ^12

Staff

Tim Hoefer is president and CEO of the Empire Center for Public Policy. Hoefer formerly worked in communications and public affairs for the New York State Senate and Assembly. ^13

Bob DiCostanzo is the director of donor relations at the Empire Center. DiCostanzo formerly worked as a policy analyst for the Commonwealth Foundation. ^14

Cameron Macdonald is the director of projects and a fellow at the Empire Center. Macdonald formerly worked as executive director and general counsel for the Government Justice Center. ^15

Edmund McMahon is the founder of the Empire Center. McMahon is a senior fellow at the Empire Center and an adjunct fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. McMahon formerly served as chief fiscal advisor to the Assembly Republican Conference and as deputy commissioner in the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. ^16

Ben Moulton is a data analyst at the Empire Center. Moulton formerly interned with the Charles Koch Institute, the Cato Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the Republican Party of Virginia. Moulton also formerly worked as a press intern for U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC). ^17

Board of Directors

Peter Hein sits as chair of the board and as a trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission. ^18

Board member Kevin Albert formerly served on the board of the American Investment Council. ^19 Board member Ken Bond formerly served on the Legal and Legislative Committee of the New York State Government Finance Officers Association and as a trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission. ^20

Debi Ghate is an Empire Center for Public Policy board member and the vice president of strategy and innovation at the Philanthropy Roundtable. Ghate formerly oversaw the education and policy programs at the Ayn Rand Institute, worked on the leadership teams at both the Charles Koch Foundation and the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, and worked as senior director of grant strategy at the Snider Foundation. ^21

Frank H. Suits, Jr. formerly sat as chair of the New York Materials Association, president of the Liquid Asphalt Distributors Association, and on the board of the New York Chapter of the Association of General Contractors. ^22

References

Empire Center for Public Policy | LinkedIn

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Empire Center for Public Policy

https://www.empirecenter.org

The Empire Center is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank located in Albany, New York. Our mission is to make New York a better place to live and ...

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Empire Center for Public Policy

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The Empire Center for Public Policy is a fiscally conservative think tank and government watchdog group based in Albany, New York.

History · ‎Policy areas · ‎State budget · ‎Healthcare

Empire Center for Public Policy

What We Do

Monetary Economics

Economics and Economic Freedom

Defending Freedom, Combatting Collectivism

Join Us

CONTENTS

Activity

Funding

Staff

Board of Directors

References