Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

Manhattan Institute
for Policy Research

File:Manhattan Institute.gif
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, market-oriented 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. 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.

Divisions

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 , and manages the web site Minding the Campus, in addition to producing regularly published articles and op-eds. It also oversees the administration of the VERITAS Fund for Higher Education Reform, 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” and serve to “work against the thrust of programs and courses in gender, race and class studies, and postmodernism in general”.

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.

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". Each year, it awards up to five innovative nonprofit leaders with a $25,000 Social Entrepreneurship Award. It also gives out a $100,000 William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship. 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.

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". 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.

Center for Legal Policy

The Center for Legal Policy, directed by senior fellow James Copland, 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.". 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. 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 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.

Center for Medical Progress

Reports from the Center for Medical Progress, directed by senior fellow Paul Howard, focus on Medicare (United States)/Medicaid, consumer-driven health care, Food and Drug Administration reform, and drug importation/price controls.

Notable Positions and Accomplishments

Law enforcement

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, 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. 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. Former 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.

Welfare reform

The Manhattan Institute was one of the key institutions that successfully pressed for reform of the welfare system in the mid-1990s. 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.

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.

Health policy

Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow at Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress, 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."

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.

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.

Events

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.

Young Leaders Circle

The Manhattan Institute launched its Young Leaders Circle program for policy-minded New York City area young professionals on January 17th, 2007 with inaugural speaker David Brooks [2]. 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.

People

People currently affiliated with the Manhattan Institute include:

Lawrence Mone(Mone bio), president Brian C. Anderson, editor, City Journal John Avlon, senior fellow Herman Badillo, senior fellow, Josh Barro, senior fellow Claire Berlinski, contributing editor, “City Journal” James R. Copland, director, Center for Legal Policy Theodore Dalrymple, contributing editor, City Journal Richard Epstein, visiting scholar Reverend Dr. Floyd H. Flake, adjunct fellow Center for Civic Innovation Diana Furchtgott-Roth, adjunct fellow Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal Edward Glaeser, senior fellow and contributing editor, “City Journal” David Gratzer (Gratzer bio), senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress Jay P. Greene, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation Richard Greenwald, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation Marie Gryphon, senior fellow, Center for Legal Policy Roger Hertog, philanthropist and Chairman Emeritus of the Institute. Stephanie Hessler, adjunct fellow Douglas Holtz-Eakin, fellow Paul Howard, senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress Peter W. Huber, senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress , Center for Legal Policy, Center for Energy Policy and the Environment Howard Husock, vice president, Policy Research Kay S. Hymowitz, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal

Stefan Kanfer, contributing editor, City Journal George L. Kelling, adjunct fellow, Center for Civic Innovation Andrew Klavan, contributing editor, “City Journal” Bill Kristol, Board of Trustees member John Leo, senior fellow, Center for the American University Heather Mac Donald, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal Myron Magnet, editor-at-large, City Journal Steven Malanga, senior fellow and senior editor, City Journal James Manzi, senior fellow Edmund J. McMahon, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation, director, Empire Center for New York State Policy John McWhorter, senior fellow, Center for the American University Judy Miller, adjunct fellow and contributing editor, City Journal Peggy Noonan, Board of Trustees member Walter K. Olson, senior fellow, Center for Legal Policy James Piereson, senior fellow, director, Center for the American University Peter Salins, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation Max Schulz, senior fellow, Center for Energy Policy and the Environment Fred Siegel, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation and contributing editor, “City Journal” Guy Sorman, contributing editor, “City Journal” Harry Stein, contributing editor, “City Journal” Sol Stern, senior fellow and contributing editor, City Journal William J. Stern, contributing editor, City Journal Marcus Winters, senior fellow, Center for Civic Innovation

People formerly affliated with the Manhattan Institute include:

David Asman, former official, now anchor for Fox News Channel J. Michael Barrett, senior fellow, Center for Policing Terrorism Timothy Connors, director, Center for Policing Terrorism R.P. Eddy, senior fellow, Center for Policing Terrorism Regina Herzlinger, senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress Tamar Jacoby, senior fellow Abigail Thernstrom, senior fellow Stephan Thernstrom, senior fellow Julia Vitullo-Martin, senior fellow, director, Center for Rethinking Development Benjamin Zycher, senior fellow, Center for Medical Progress

Notable members of the board of trustees [3] 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.

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. 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.

References

• Fred Kaplan, Conservatives plant a seed in NYC Boston Sunday Globe, Sunday February 22, 1998
• Janny Scott, "Turning Intellect Into Influence: Promoting Its Ideas, the Manhattan Institute Has Nudged New York Rightward", New York Times, Monday May 12, 1997
• Jennifer Medina, "A Reversal on School Vouchers, Then a Tempest", New York Times, Feb. 13, 2008.
• "SourceWatch - Manhattan Institute for Policy Research"

External links

• Official site