Talks from the Hoover Institution

Presenters: Mark P. Mills, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute; and David Victor, professor of innovation and public policy, University of California–San Diego. Chair: Neil Chatterjee, senior advisor, Hogan Lovells, and former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mark Mills argued that ambitious goals to achieve zero carbon emissions in the coming decades are delusional. He said that over the past 20 years, after $5 trillion spent worldwide, there hasn’t been any significant movement toward transitions to renewables. Today, global energy derived from wood exceeds that of solar and wind power combined (which make up just 3 percent of all fuels).  Moreover, a rapid transition to these other renewable sources, including batteries, would require a level of mineral extraction never seen in history. In his first of four points, David Victor described the fragmented policy action in countering various pollutants. In replacing carbon, some alternative energies are farther along than others. Meanwhile, some industries face bigger challenges from other pollutants, such as aviation through the emission of contrail clouds from jet engines. These and other segments of the economy have different features that will determine if a market-driven or a mandate-based approach is more effective at mitigating environmental damage. Niall Ferguson examined the rhetoric of proponents of drastic action against climate change, many of whom believe that if the policies they favor aren’t adopted, the world will experience a catastrophe involving extraordinarily high temperatures, precipitation, and sea levels. _______________________ Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-institution-hosts-conference-evaluating-market-driven-versus-regulatory-approaches

Presenters: Christopher Costello, distinguished professor of resource economics, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California—Santa Barbara; and Barton “Buzz” Thompson, Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law, Stanford University Law School. Chair: Dominic Parker, Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution. During his remarks, Christopher Costello articulated the advantages of markets over regulatory approaches to conservation and mitigation of harms inflicted on the environment. As an example, he described that the coastal waters of Santa Barbara are home not only to one of the most biodiverse maritime habitats in America but also to some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. These circumstances have resulted in large container vessels causing harm to maritime wildlife while traveling to and from the Port of Los Angeles. Buzz Thompson provided another example of the feasibility of markets for environmental protection. Delivery of water from the Colorado River was weakening the flow of its stream and, in turn, endangering its fish population. He explained that limiting water to farmers would have been a daunting challenge. Understanding this reality, authorities instead paid farmers for access to their water rights so that they could strengthen the flow of the river. ___________________________ Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-institution-hosts-conference-evaluating-market-driven-versus-regulatory-approaches

Presenters: Matthew Kahn, Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences, University of Southern California; and Maria Waldinger, Deputy Director of the Ifo Center for Labor and Demographic Economics. Chair: Terry Anderson, John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution. Maria Waldinger provided a historical analysis of how societies have adapted to climate conditions. The oldest adaptation strategy was migration, she explained, which was more easily achieved when societies were nomadic and there were no political boundaries. More modern societies have adopted various processes to ensure their survival. She explained that crop failures were an omnipresent feature of European societies between the 14th and 19th centuries, a period of regional cooling that has been referred to as the “little ice age.” Matthew Khan outlined to the audience how markets can provide optimal incentives for adaption to climate change and reduce its economic effects. If enough people are facing a challenge, markets are the mechanisms that can empower entrepreneurs to produce and deliver innovations, Kahn maintained. ______________________ Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-institution-hosts-conference-evaluating-market-driven-versus-regulatory-approaches

Presenters: Sanjai Bhagat, professor of finance at the University of Colorado–Boulder; and John H. Cochrane, Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution. Chair: John Taylor, George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics, Hoover Institution. Sanjai Bhagat explained that ESG investing principles and new standards of corporate social responsibility are not based on the fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. They are primarily centered, he said, on maintaining the well-being of societal stakeholders, including customers, employers, suppliers, and communities, as well as particular objectives such as environmental justice. John Cochrane asserted that the Security and Exchange Commission’s plan to enforce ESG investment practices isn’t based on “saving the planet” but on bending corporations to serve a particular political agenda. Echoing Bhagat, Cochrane said the ESG mandates would not maximize shareholder value. It would instead deny capital to companies, lower their asset prices, and curb returns to investors. ESG mandates would also pervert markets, destroy competition, and encourage some companies to rent-seek from the government. ____________________________ Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-institution-hosts-conference-evaluating-market-driven-versus-regulatory-approaches

Presenters: Terry Anderson, John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Dominic Parker, Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution. Terry Anderson began the conference sessions by providing definitions for mandates and markets in their environmental contexts. Mandates (or rules) means that politics and administrations assign environmental objectives and use fixed command-and-control mechanisms to achieve them. On the other hand, markets are based on processes whereby resource owners respond to changing values.  Dominic Parker examined the trade-offs of both market-driven and mandate approaches to environmental policies. He explained that there are cases in which mandates have proved effective, but that their policy outcomes should be analyzed with a nuanced perspective. ______________________________ Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-institution-hosts-conference-evaluating-market-driven-versus-regulatory-approaches

Hoover director Condoleezza Rice introduced the conference by recalling the institution’s long history of researching environmental policy issues. Rice explained how the imitable George P. Shultz was a pioneer in advancing environmental solutions. In partnership with Tom Stephenson, former chair of the Hoover Board of Overseers, the late secretary of state formed a task force dedicated to identifying pragmatic policies aimed at strengthening America’s energy security while providing environmental protection. ___________________________ Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-institution-hosts-conference-evaluating-market-driven-versus-regulatory-approaches

February 14, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.  In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Senior Fellow Terry Moe and Hoover Fellow Michael Hartney, author of How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American Education on Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 10:00 am PT / 1:00pm ET. ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Michael Hartney is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. Hartney’s scholarly expertise is in American politics and public policy with a focus on state and local governments, interest groups, and K–12 education politics and policy. His work has been published in top academic journals such as the American Political Science Review and the American Journal of Political Science and received press coverage in the Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Hartney has also written for popular outlets including City Journal, Education Next, National Review, and the Washington Post.  ABOUT THE BOOK  A critical, revelatory examination of teachers unions' rise and influence in American politics. As most American labor organizations struggle for survival and relevance in the twenty-first century, teachers unions appear to be an exception. Despite being all but nonexistent until the 1960s, these unions are maintaining members, assets—and political influence. As the COVID-19 epidemic has illustrated, today’s teachers unions are something greater than mere labor organizations: they are primary influencers of American education policy. How Policies Make Interest Groups examines the rise of these unions to their current place of influence in American politics. Michael Hartney details how state and local governments adopted a new system of labor relations that subsidized—and in turn, strengthened—the power of teachers unions as interest groups in American politics. In doing so, governments created a force in American politics: an entrenched, subsidized machine for membership recruitment, political fundraising, and electoral mobilization efforts that have informed elections and policymaking ever since. Backed by original quantitative research from across the American educational landscape, Hartney shows how American education policymaking and labor relations have combined to create some of the very voter blocs to which it currently answers. How Policies Make Interest Groups is trenchant, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why some voices in American politics mean more than others.

February 6, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Beatrice de Graaf. Beatrice de Graaf illuminates how, long before economic considerations set in motion the creation of the European Union, collective European security provided the first impulse for the integration of European norms and institutions.  After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Europe’s victorious powers sought to forestall the reemergence of war and revolutionary terror by establishing the Allied Council. The Council transformed interstate relations into the first, modern system of collective security in Europe. Drawing on the records of the Council and the correspondence of key figures such as Metternich, Castlereagh, Wellington, and Alexander I, Beatrice de Graaf tells the story of Europe's transition from concluding a war to consolidating a new order.  ABOUT THE SPEAKER Beatrice de Graaf is a historian and a security researcher. She studies the emergence of and threats to European security arrangements from the 19th century until the present. Her book Fighting Terror after Napoleon: How Europe Became Secure after 1815, won the 2022 Arenberg Prize for European History. She is currently working on a translation of her latest book, Radical Redemption: What Terrorists Believe In, which combines testimony, history, psychology, politics and theology to understand how the search for radical personal redemption can lead to violence. Beatrice is a member of The Netherlands Academy of Sciences and of the Academia Europaea. She is the editor of Terrorism and Political Violence, as well as of the Journal of Modern European History. She is also a fellow at the Program on Extremism and the ISIS Files Project at George Washington University. ABOUT THE PROGRAM The Hoover History Working Group aims to conduct and disseminate historical research on issues of national and international concern, and provide concrete recommendations on the basis of research and discussion. The mission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives is to collect, preserve, and make available the most important materials about global political, social, and economic change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We serve as a platform for a vibrant community of scholars and a broad public interested in the meaning and role of history.

January 27, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Margaret O’Mara. The Hoover History Working Group hosted a seminar on The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America on Friday, January 27, 2023 from 12:00 pm - 1:20 pm PT. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Margaret O’Mara is the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington. She writes and teaches about the growth of the high-tech economy, the history of American politics, and the connections between the two. Margaret is the author of two acclaimed books on the history of the modern technology industry: The Code (2019) and Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search For The Next Silicon Valley (2005). She also is a historian of the American presidency and author of Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century (2015), as well as a coauthor of the widely used United States history textbook, The American Pageant. From 1993 to 1997, she served in the Clinton Administration as an economic and social policy aide in the White House and in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ABOUT THE TALK Margaret O’Mara chronicles how entrepreneurship, venture capital, and state and federal funding transformed Silicon Valley into a crucible of American economic dynamism. She explores the rise of each era’s key companies and their products, as well as their changing relationship with government, including the slow evolution of computing capabilities as an issue of national security and economic competitiveness.

A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Jon Davis. Jon Davis puts the recent gyrations in the prime minister’s office in historical perspective, analyzing how various prime ministers since the postwar era have exercised authority. Rather than being entirely autocratic or collective in style, prime ministers continuously adjust their decision-making approach within their cabinets. This framework helps shine a light on the dysfunction that plagued successive British governments after the 2016 Brexit referendum, and that dysfunction's acceleration following the COVID-19 pandemic. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Jon Davis is Director of the Strand Group at King's College London. Before joining King’s, Prof. Davis spent a total of eighteen years at Queen Mary, University of London, and rose to be Director of the Mile End Group (2004-2014), overseeing more than 100 increasingly high-profile events over more than a decade. Major project partnerships included those with No. 10 Downing Street and the Treasury.    Davis worked for five years in investment banking at JP Morgan, Banque Paribas and Hambros Bank, and spent the year 2000 in the Modernising Government Secretariat of the Cabinet Office. ABOUT THE PROGRAM The Hoover History Working Group aims to conduct and disseminate historical research on issues of national and international concern, and provide concrete recommendations on the basis of research and discussion. Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group The mission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives is to collect, preserve, and make available the most important materials about global political, social, and economic change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We serve as a platform for a vibrant community of scholars and a broad public interested in the meaning and role of history.