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  Summary: Regulating Robo Advice Across the Financial Services Industry

  Tom Baker

  In general, a robo advisor can be defined as an automated service that ranks, or matches, consumers to financial products on a personalized basis, sometimes in addition to providing related services such as educating consumers and selling products to them. Often associated with web-based financial investment services, a robo advisor can also include consumer financial product intermediaries such as automated mortgage brokers and insurance exchanges, as well as lead generation services such as Zillow, NerdWallet, and Mint.com. Although investment-focused robo advisors have received the most scrutiny from regulators, the same promises and regulatory concerns raised by investment robo advisors apply to their insurance and banking counterparts. The benefit of defining robo advisors as a general category of tools that span different financial services sectors is that an inclusive approach will encourage more cross-sharing and collaborative thinking to tackle similar challenges and opportunities, including regulatory questions.

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  Summary: Effects of the US Worldwide Tax Regime on Domestic Investment

  Jennifer L. Blouin

  There are two basic systems for international corporate taxation. The US operates under a worldwide taxation system, in which the US government asserts its right to tax the global income of US resident corporations, whether that income is earned within the US or outside it. The US is the only G7 nation that maintains such a tax system. The majority of other nations in the world use a territorial taxation regime. A territorial regime embodies a source-based system where countries only tax business activity that happens within their borders. This summary of Professor Jennifer Blouin's B-School Seminar, focuses on differences in corporate tax regimes worldwide and the implications for corporate tax reform.

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  Summary: Who's Responsible for Job Skills?

  Peter Cappelli

  There has been much discussion in recent years about a skills gap in the U.S., driven largely by employer complaints over filling jobs. The term “skills gap” can mean different things. Usually, it refers to a belief that there is something fundamentally lacking in the labor force. In the typical telling of the skills gap story, schools are failing to educate students effectively and are graduating students who do not have the skills employers need, thus creating a basic skills shortfall in the labor force as a whole. Others who talk about a skills gap really are referring to a skills shortage, meaning that at the current market price for labor, employers cannot hire the people they are looking for. The third sense of a gap entails a skills mismatch, and describes parts of the U.S.—for instance, North Dakota, when energy production there skyrocketed—where labor demand is booming but where people in the region do not have matching job skills. A skills gap, skills shortage, and skills mismatch are all different and theoretically could be going on all at once.This seminar, presented by Peter Cappelli, examined various aspects of workforce development: why employer investments in worker training have declined, including the role that tax treatments have played; wage trends; and the value of higher education for the American worker.

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  Summary: Achieving Regulatory Excellence

  Cary Coglianese

  Regulatory excellence is governmental excellence. Three primary mechanisms exist for promoting regulatory success: Procedure, Management, and Technology. This seminar, based on research conducted at the Penn Program on Regulation, focused on analyzing the impacts of regulation on the economy and promoting the attributes of a high-quality regulatory system. An emphasis was placed on the role of legislators in overseeing and supporting the achievement of regulatory excellence, situated within the context of ongoing efforts for regulatory reform as well as new imperatives, such as the development of algorithmic technologies.

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  Summary: Advancing Evidence Based Social Policies through Intergovernmental Data Sharing Partnerships

  Dennis P. Culhane

  In response to the challenge of addressing complex social problems with limited resources, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Congress have called for evidence-based initiatives to facilitate program evaluation and policy research. In 2016, Congress established the Commission on Evidence Based Policy Making to make recommendations on how to accomplish this. While Congress considers mechanisms to link data from federal agencies on a national level, there is much that the federal government can learn from the use of integrated data systems (IDS) at the state and local levels.

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  Summary: Service Exports and the US Trade Deficit

  Joao F. Gomes

  A trade deficit is defined by the amount by which a country’s imports exceeds the value of its exports. The US has consistently held a trade deficit since the 1970s; as of the end of 2016, the deficit had risen to $502 billion. This trade deficit has been a “political hot potato,” particularly with respect to China, on the assumption that a sustained deficit weakens the overall economy. But is that accurate? In this B-School for Public Policy Seminar Summary, Professor Gomes takes a closer look at the economics of boosting service exports as a means of rebalancing the US trade deficit and, in the process, sheds new light on policy discussions regarding the future of America's trade agreements.

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  Summary: The Decline of U.S. Corporate Investment

  Joao F. Gomes

  U.S. corporations over the past decade have shied away from making large-scale capital investments. Given their reticence, does it make economic sense for the government to pursue major investments in infrastructure at this time?

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  Summary: Antitrust in Labor Markets

  Herbert Hovenkamp

  Today, unlike in years past, labor is much more likely to be viewed as the victim and not the perpetrator of an antitrust violation, and there is increasing recognition that firm behavior can negatively affect wages, restrict worker mobility, and otherwise harm the interests of workers. Pretty much all the labor-related antitrust litigation of the last 20 years has involved problematic agreements or arrangements among employers, from which labor deserves protection.

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  Summary: Insuring High Risks Fairly, Protecting Individuals Against Flood Losses

  Howard Kunreuther

  The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) encompasses issues of risk transparency and fairness. There is general agreement that floodplain residents need to know their risk-based insurance premium-and with that information, how to make their homes safer and thus make flood insurance more affordable. In this B-School Seminar, Professor Howard Kunreuther focused on the importance of accurate mapping of flood risk, how to encourage investment in cost effective mitigation measures, and ways to deal with fairness and affordability in designing a flood insurance program for the future.

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  Summary: Business Innovation Creates Policy Disruption

  Sarah E. Light

  New forms of business in the sharing economy, and new technologies like autonomous vehicles, have the potential to “disrupt” existing regulatory structures. This seminar examined the challenges facing regulators and legislators, who must respond so as to both (a) promote innovation and (b) protect the public interest.

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  Summary: Universal Basic Income

  Ioana Marinescu

  Concern over massive structural unemployment, due to technological automation and globalization, is on the rise. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has attracted attention from both sides of the aisle as one potential solution to a scenario where a large number of people are not able to earn a livable wage. In order to understand the economic implications of UBI, economists have studied previous and current examples of UBI-type programs, analyzing their impact on consumption, labor force participation, education, health, and other key metrics.

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  Summary: Economic Return of Nation Brands

  David J. Reibstein

  It is generally considered good business practice for a company to invest in its brand. A positive brand image typically results in a more loyal customer base and an overall increase in profit. Likewise, nations have brands, and the reputation of a country has an economic impact on its gross domestic product (GDP).

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  Summary: Designing Successful Carbon Markets

  Arthur van Benthem

  There are a lot of developments happening right now in carbon markets in different parts of the world—from New Zealand to Canada and many points in between. As policymakers continue to explore cap-and-trade in the United States, there is much to learn about what does and doesn’t work from these carbon markets already in place.

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  Summary: Blockchain, The Rise of Trustless Trust?

  Kevin Werbach

  Blockchain is a term that is used for a family of distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Although there is one virtual ledger, every participant in the network has a copy, allowing for local control of data and transparency while ensuring all ledgers remain in sync. This summary of Professor Kevin Werbach's B-School for Public Policy Seminar, discusses how blockchain platforms and more traditional legal mechanisms can be made to work together.