Research

With less than two weeks to go before the start of New York City’s 2012 fiscal year, Mayor Bloomberg insists he must eliminate 6,100 teaching positions and close 20 fire companies to balance the next city budget. Read More

The end-of-session sausage-making machine is moving into high gear in Albany, where the state Senate's Republican majority has cooked up a of spicy meat and meat substitutes, including a property tax cap, New York City rent regulations, permanent lo Read More

"Wall Street plans to get smaller this summer," the New York Times today.  "Faced with weak markets and uncertainty over regulations, many of the biggest firms are preparing for deep cuts in jobs and other costs." This would have signif Read More

Nicole Gelinas has a in the New York Post today skewering state Senate Republicans for passing a bill that would repeal the in the Metropolitan Transportation Region without offering a solid plan for closing the holes in the MTA operating a Read More

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella group of labor unions, have the idea of tapping a union-controlled health care slush fund to prevent 4,100 scheduled scheduled teacher layoffs and 20 Read More

Ending the moratorium on "hydrofracking" of natural gas in upstate New York would spur over $11.4 billion in economic output, create 15,000 to 18,000 jobs in the Western New York and the Southern Tier regions, and generate $1.4 billion in state and l Read More

CoreLogic released some data last week on the number of homeowners who are "underwater" on their mortgages; that is, they owe more than their homes are worth. The good news: New York has the lowest percentage nationwide of homeowners with Read More

New York City's pension actuary is "likely" to recommend a reduction in the interest rate used to calculate tax-funded pension contributions, the New York Post (not for the first time) yesterday.  A lower interest rate will lead to higher pension c Read More

Governor Cuomo today that follows exactly -- which is a disappointment, if not exactly a surprise.  Certainly if Cuomo's pension program ends here, it will undermine the governor's attempts to portray himself as a reformer. Read More

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has released its index. New York is dead last overall, and last, too, on economic and fiscal freedom. The report, by William Ruger of Texas State University and Jason Sorens at the University of Buff Read More

The Wall Street Journal r that the state's Department of Transportation (ultimately overseen by Gov. Cuomo) may be overstepping its bounds in forcing contractors to manage their workforces under union rules if they want to win construction p Read More

Directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing have unlocked vast new reserves of natural gas in the United States. Development of these resources is now well under way in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Unlike their neighbors to the south, however, New York residents are not directly benefiting from natural gas development as the result of a government-imposed moratorium, itself a response to environmental concerns surrounding hydraulic fracturing. Read More