Manhattan Institute

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Manhattan Institute
for Policy Research
Motto Turning Intellect into Influence
Formation 1978
Type Public policy think tank
Headquarters 52 Vanderbilt Avenue
Location New York, NY
President Lawrence J. Mone
Website www.manhattan-institute.org

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative[1][2], market-oriented[3] think tank established in New York City in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William J. Casey, with its headquarters at 52 Vanderbilt Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.[4] They describe their mission as to "develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility". The Institute, known for its advocacy of free market-based solutions to policy problems, supports and publicizes research on the economy, energy, education, health care, welfare reform, the legal system, crime reduction, and urban life, among others. Their message is communicated through books, articles, interviews, speeches, op-eds, and through the institute's quarterly publication City Journal, targeted at policymakers, politicians, scholars, and journalists.

George W. Bush addressing a Manhattan Institute-sponsored event at Federal Hall on November 13, 2008, speaking against too much government involvement in resolving Global financial crisis of 2008.

Contents

[edit] Divisions

[edit] Center for the American University

Directed by senior fellows John Leo and James Piereson, the Center for the American University hosts forums and conferences with influential voices in higher education reform like Mark Bauerlein, Victor Davis Hanson, and Anthony Kronan,[5] and manages the web site Minding the Campus, in addition to producing regularly published articles and op-eds.[6][7] It also oversees the administration of the VERITAS Fund for Higher Education Reform,[8] the goal of which "is to restore what conservative and other critics see as leading casualties of the campus culture wars of the 1980s and '90s: the teaching of Western culture and a triumphal interpretation of American history"[9] and serve to "work against the thrust of programs and courses in gender, race and class studies, and postmodernism in general".[10]

[edit] Center for Civic Innovation

The Center for Civic Innovation's regularly publishes research reports and bulletins on the topics of prisoner re-entry, pension reform, public housing, infrastructure, school choice, and policing, and manages an online database of urban policy resources, Cities on a Hill, launched in November 2009.[11]

[edit] Social Entrepreneurship Initiative

The Center for Civic Innovation's Social Entrepreneurship Initiative was established in 2001 on the belief that "in a healthy society, markets are complemented by charitable and philanthropic enterprises which both help those in need and help prepare citizens to realize their potential".[12][13] Each year, it awards up to five innovative nonprofit leaders with a $25,000 Social Entrepreneurship Award.[14] It also gives out a $100,000 William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship.[15] Past winners include Knowledge Is Power Program founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin and The Doe Fund founder George T. McDonald. The Social Entrepreneurship Initiative also sponsors an annual William E. Simon Lecture on philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, delivered in 2009 by Bridgespan Group founder Thomas J. Tierney.[16][17]

[edit] Urban Innovator Award

Since 2000, the Center for Civic Innovation has awarded the annual Urban Innovator Award to urban leaders with "effective approaches to improving life in America’s cities".[18] Past winners include NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Former Washington DC Mayor Anthony A. Williams, and Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The 2009 Urban Innovator Award was presented to Atlanta Housing Authority President Renee Glover.[19]

[edit] Center for Legal Policy

The Center for Legal Policy, directed by senior fellow James Copland,[20] is known for its position that "America's litigation system reduces innovation and investment, lowers safety and well-being, and erodes the risk-taking and personal responsibility essential to our free society."[21]. It regularly publishes reports and books on the subject and sponsors three web sites: Point of Law, Trial Lawyers Inc., and Walter Olson's Overlawyered.

Institute scholars Walter Olson and Peter Huber were two of the first public policy experts to advocate for tort and litigation reform.[citation needed] Huber's books Liability: The Legal Revolution and its Consequences (1988) and Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom (1991) and Olson's book The Litigation Explosion: What Happened When America Unleashed the Lawsuit (1991) are credited by many[who?] with framing the initial political debate over frivolous litigation, and raising the profile of this previously obscure political issue in the early 1990s. Both have published extensively since, and both continue to hold senior fellowships with the Institute's Center for Legal Policy.[22][23]

[edit] Center for Medical Progress

Reports from the Center for Medical Progress, directed by senior fellow Paul Howard,[24] focus on Medicare (United States)/Medicaid, consumer-driven health care, Food and Drug Administration reform, and drug importation/price controls. The center also publishes MedicalProgressToday.com, a web magazine about market-friendly health care-related public policies featuring original articles, podcast interviews with health care experts, and opinion forums.

Senior fellow and Canadian physician David Gratzer, was called upon to testify before the United States Congress twice in 2009. On June 10, 2009, he appeared before the United States House Education Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions to testify on the single payer health care option.[25][26] On June 24, 2009, he appeared before the House Committee on Ways and Means to testify on reforming the U.S. health care system.[27]

In November 2009, Encounter Books published Gratzer's broadside "Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster", which examines the current system and presents free-market strategies to reform it "without ruining the patient / doctor relationship, stifling scientific advances, and further devastating our economy".[28][29]

In May 2009, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, wrote a report for the Manhattan Institute on bipartisan health care reform based on conservative principles entitled Forging a New Plan For Health Care: Principles and Priorities for Sustainable Reform.

[edit] Center for Energy Policy and the Environment

[edit] Empire Center for New York State Policy

Established in January of 2005 under the directorship of senior fellow Edmund J. McMahon, the Empire Center for New York State Policy is "dedicated to promoting freedom, opportunity, and enterprise in the Empire State"[30] through research reports, conferences, and commentary aimed at policymakers, media, and the public. It is located at 119 Washington Avenue in Albany, New York.

[edit] Notable positions and accomplishments

[edit] Law enforcement

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The Manhattan Institute is perhaps best known for its influence on law enforcement methods. In particular, the Institute is widely credited with pioneering community policing methods and more specifically quality-of-life policing,[citation needed] sometimes known as "broken windows theory" after the landmark 1982 Atlantic Monthly article "Broken Windows" by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. Kelling remains a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innovation. Broken Windows posited that dealing more effectively and comprehensively with low-level quality of life crime that might have previously been ignored by over-stretched police forces would pay dividends in combating more high-profile violent crime by combating the general lawlessness that had overrun inner city areas in many American cities in the 1970s. Broken Windows policing was put to its first major large-scale test in the mid-1990s after the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor of New York City. Giuliani was an outspoken advocate of community policing, and has frequently cited the influence "Broken Windows" had on his thinking as mayor. Giuliani appointed Kelling’s intellectual collaborator William Bratton as New York City Police Commissioner in 1994. Mayor Giuliani told Time magazine, "I chose Bill Bratton because he agreed with the Broken Windows theory[31].

A follow-up book by Kelling and Catherine Coles published by the Manhattan Institute in 1996 led to further interest in community policing methods, and many municipalities have since adopted quality-of-life and community policing as official policy. Giuliani-era New York City Police Commissioner William J. "Bill" Bratton took these methods to the West coast on being appointed Los Angeles Police Department chief of police, and Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker has been lauded for his Broken Windows-based approach to crime since taking office in 2006.

[edit] Welfare reform

The Manhattan Institute was one of the key institutions that successfully pressed for reform of the welfare system in the mid-1990s.[citation needed] Charles Murray's Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (1984) was one of the first books to argue that the welfare state had fostered a culture and cycle of dependency that was to the detriment of both welfare recipients and the United States as a whole.[32]

Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass (1993) laid much of the intellectual foundation for the welfare reform movement, and was cited by President George W. Bush as the book that has influenced his thinking the most after the Bible. Karl Rove has stated that Dream underlies the entire compassionate conservatism movement.

[edit] School choice

Senior fellow Jay P. Greene’s empirical research on the efficacy of school choice helped to convince the Supreme Court of the United States to affirm the constitutionality of school vouchers in its landmark Zelman v. Simmons-Harris decision. His research was cited four times, including three times by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who court-watchers had identified as the “swing vote” on the case.[33][34]

[edit] Health policy

Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow at Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress,[35] opposes allowing the federal government to negotiate prices in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, and argues that patients and their doctors should make their own decisions to choose drugs like Vioxx, rather than having the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decide on the basis of "bureaucratized ... scientific study."[36]

The Manhattan Instititute issued a report by Frank Lichtenberg, a business professor at Columbia University, on the adverse effects of drug price negotiating in the Veterans Administration. Lichtenberg said that the VA National Formulary excludes many new drugs. Only 38% of drugs approved in the 1990s and 19% of the drugs approved since 2000 are on the formulary. He also argues that the life expectancy of veterans "may have declined" as a result.[37]

[edit] Financial crisis

After the financial collapse of 2008, Paul Singer, chairman of the Manhattan Institute, called for regulation of all investors and traders. Singer wrote that the failures were in the private market, not government.[38]

[edit] Events

[edit] Wriston Lectures

The Wriston Lecture series, established in 1987 in honor of Walter Wriston,[39] seeks "to inform and enrich intellectual debate surrounding the great public issues of our day, and to recognize individuals whose ideas or accomplishments have left a mark on their world."[40] Several of the annual lectures have garnered national media attention and debate, such as 2008's "How to Read the Constitution" by the Honorable Clarence Thomas[41][42][43] and 2009's "Decline is a Choice" by Dr. Charles Krauthammer.[44][45][46]

[edit] William E. Simon Lectures on Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship

Supported by the William E. Simon foundation and part of the Institute's Social Entrepreneurship Initiative, the lecture has been delivered annually since 2007 in New York City. Senior Fellow Heather Mac Donald delivered the inaugural lecture which was adapted for and published in City Journal.[47]

[edit] Alexander Hamilton Award

The Alexander Hamilton Award is awarded annually by the Manhattan Institute to individuals who have made a lasting contribution to New York City. The awards are given at an awards dinner that also serves to raise money for the Manhattan Institute. In 2008, tables at the awards dinner ranged from $75,000 to $5000 or $1000 for individual tickets. The recipients of the 2008 Alexander Hamilton Award were Herman Badillo, a former U.S. Congressman, Deputy Mayor of New York City, and Bronx Borough President and Maurice R. Greenberg, chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr and Co. and a Manhattan Institute trustee.

[edit] Young Leaders Circle

The Manhattan Institute launched its Young Leaders Circle program for policy-minded New York City-area young professionals on January 17, 2007 with inaugural speaker David Brooks.[48][49] The exclusive group meets monthly to hear from leading thinkers on the pressing issues of the day in an evening lecture and cocktail party forum. Past speakers include Ambassador John Bolton, Steve Forbes, Former Attorney General Edwin Meese, and Niall Ferguson, in addition to some of the Manhattan Institute's own senior fellows like Nicole Gelinas, Steven Malanga, and Peter W. Huber.

[edit] People

People currently affiliated with the Manhattan Institute include:

People formerly affliated with the Manhattan Institute include:


Notable members of the board of trustees include: William Kristol, The Weekly Standard; Peggy Noonan, of The Wall Street Journal; Robert Rosenkranz, CEO, Delphi Financial Group, Inc; and Andrew Saul, Chairman of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.[50]

[edit] Funding sources

The Manhattan Institute received $19,470,416 in grants from 1985-2005, from foundations such as the Koch Family Foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundations, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.[51] The Manhattan Institute does not disclose its corporate funding, but the Capital Research Center listed its contributors as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Exxon Mobil, Chase Manhattan, CIGNA, Sprint, Reliant Energy, Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, and Merrill Lynch.[52]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5DE1631F932A05751C1A965958260
  2. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A07E4D8173FF931A25753C1A9669C8B63
  3. ^ About Manhattan Institute, Manhattan Institute web site.
  4. ^ Gottlieb, Martin (May 5, 1986). "Conservative Policy Unit Takes Aim at New York". The New York Times: B4. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5071FFA35590C768CDDAC0894DE484D81. 
    DeParle, Jason (November 30, 1990). "An Architect of the Reagan Vision Plunges Into Inquiry on Race and I.Q". The New York Times: A22. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDA1F38F933A05752C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. 
    Redburn, Tom (December 31, 1993). "Conservative Thinkers Are Insiders; It's Now Their City Hall, and Manhattan Institute Is Uneasy". The New York Times: B1. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5DE1631F932A05751C1A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. 
    Scott, Janny (May 12, 1997). "Turning Intellect Into Influence; Promoting Its Ideas, the Manhattan Institute Has Nudged New York Rightward". The New York Times: B1. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E0DA1039F931A25756C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. 
    Kaplan, Fred (February 22, 1998). "Conservatives plant a seed in NYC; Think tank helps Giuliani set his agenda". The Boston Globe: A4. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_bglobe-conservatives_plant_a_.htm. 
    Confessore, Nicholas (October 25, 2005). "Giuliani Guide Is Bloomberg Gadfly; Manhattan Institute Has More Influence Outside New York". The New York Times: B1. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/nyregion/metrocampaigns/25manhattan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all. 
  5. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cau_events.htm
  6. ^ Center for the American University
  7. ^ Minding the Campus
  8. ^ VERITAS Fund for Higher Education Reform
  9. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22conservative.html?_r=3&ref=education&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
  10. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22conservative.html?_r=3&ref=education&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
  11. ^ Center for Civic Innovation
  12. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/social_entrepreneurship.htm
  13. ^ Center for Civic Innovation's
  14. ^ Social Entrepreneurship Award
  15. ^ William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship
  16. ^ http://www.bridgespan.org/manhattan-institute-william-e-simon-lecture-2009.aspx
  17. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/video/index.htm?c=120309MI
  18. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ui_winners.htm#daley
  19. ^ http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlanta-housing-director-to-219780.html
  20. ^ James Copland
  21. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/clp.htm
  22. ^ Walter Olson Biographical Sketch
  23. ^ http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=marketing_papers
  24. ^ Paul Howard
  25. ^ http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/testimony/20090610DavidGratzerTestimony.pdf
  26. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/10/health-professionals-tell_n_213873.html
  27. ^ http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=7868
  28. ^ http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/obamahealthcare/
  29. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=5598
  30. ^ http://www.empirecenter.org/AboutUs/EmpireCenter/
  31. ^ "http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983960-2,00.html
  32. ^ "Losing Ground by Charles Murray", Conservative Monitor
  33. ^ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-1751
  34. ^ http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/07/01/42oconnor_web.h24.html&levelId=2100
  35. ^ Benjamin Zycher
  36. ^ One-Size-Fits-All Rules Will Hurt Drug Quality, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2007
  37. ^ [1]Older Drugs, Shorter Lives?: An Examination of the Health Effects of the Veterans Health Administration Formulary
  38. ^ Paul Singer, Free-Marketeers Should Welcome Some Regulation; The private sector made the biggest mistakes. Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2009
  39. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25323-2005Jan20.html
  40. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/wriston.htm
  41. ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122445985683948619.html
  42. ^ http://theusconstitution.org/blog.history/?p=438
  43. ^ http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjMwMmMwMjhjNDg5MTkyZWUxODE3Yjk3M2QyMmY3OGI=
  44. ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/056lfnpr.asp?pg=1
  45. ^ http://spectator.org/archives/2009/10/21/president-obama-chooses-declin/print
  46. ^ http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/12/decline-is-a-choice-that-hasnt-been-chosen/
  47. ^ http://city-journal.com/author_index.php?author=126
  48. ^ Young Leaders Circle
  49. ^ http://www.nysun.com/blogs/out-and-about/2007/04/thinking_out_lo.html
  50. ^ http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/trustees.htm
  51. ^ [URL:http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=198]
  52. ^ [URL:http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Manhattan_Institute]

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 40°45′15″N 73°58′39″W / 40.754275°N 73.97747°W / 40.754275; -73.97747

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