ISPS Government Effectiveness Working Group

Advancing evidence-based approaches to build state capacity and promote economic dynamism

The ISPS Government Effectiveness Working Group is an interdisciplinary research group committed to exploring evidence-based approaches to tackle the economic and political challenges that America faces. We bring together scholars from across the social sciences and law to study how institutions can be designed and reformed to work more effectively for citizens.

Our research examines the political processes that shape policy outcomes and investigates how regulatory barriers, procedural obstacles, and institutional design choices constrain the capacity to build the housing, infrastructure, and investments that communities need.

MISSION

The ISPS Government Effectiveness Working Group is dedicated to interdisciplinary research on state capacity, regulatory reform, economic growth, and institutional design. We aim to bridge the gap between academic research and real-world policy implementation, fostering dialogue among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from across the political spectrum who share a commitment to effective, evidence-based governance.

FOCUS AREAS AND APPROACH

  • Housing & Infrastruture: Examining barriers to building the housing and infrastructure communities need
  • Regulatory Reform: Analyzing how regulartory processes can be streamlined while maintaining protections
  • Institutional Design: Studying how institutions can be structured to work more effectively
  • Evidence-Based Governance: Promoting rigorous empirical analysis to inform policy decisions

Through rigorous empirical analysis and cross-disciplinary collaboration, we examine the political processes that shape policy outcomes. Our work investigates how regulatory barriers, procedural obstacles, and institutional design choices – often shaped by politics and public opinion – constrain or enable effective governance. We examine how policy reforms can reduce costs, expand opportunity, and promote innovation.

DIRECTORS

Joshua Kalla photoJoshua Kalla is associate professor of political science with a secondary appointment in statistics and data science and a faculty affiliate in Jewish studies. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley (2018). His research focuses on political persuasion, campaign effects, prejudice reduction, and decision-making among voters and political elites, primarily through the use of randomized field experiments.

Zachary Liscow photoZachary Liscow is a professor of Law at Yale Law School. In 2022–23, he was the chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. His wide-ranging work in law and economics currently covers tax policy, benefit-cost analysis, and infrastructure construction costs. He is particularly interested in developing cost-effective policies to address inequality and understanding what drives the high costs of building U.S. infrastructure. He has also worked in a variety of other areas, including environmental policy and empirical legal studies. Liscow’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, Bloomberg, CNN, and elsewhere.

Liscow earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with degrees in economics and in environmental science and public policy. He grew up in South Haven, Michigan. In 2009–2010, he was a staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He also worked for the World Bank’s inspector general. Liscow clerked for the Honorable Stephen F. Williams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

David Schleicher photoDavid Schleicher is the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School and is an expert in local government law, land use, federalism, state and local finance, and urban development. His work has been published widely in academic journals and popular outlets. He recently released a new book, In a Bad State: Responding to State and Local Fiscal Crises, and has co-authored leading casebooks about local government and property law. Professor Schleicher is also the co-host of the hit podcast, Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast.

Schleicher has been called “the ideal legal scholar of cities” (Edward Glaeser, Harvard University), “the leading lawyer on state and city governments” (former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch ’58), and “one of the most brilliant and far-ranging political thinkers of his generation.” (Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker).  In the press, he has been called “the most important thinker we have on the subject of local government” and “ingenious” by National Review and one of the “most interesting writers on land use” by Washington Monthly. His work has been described as “great but old fashioned” by Vox, “interesting” by The Nation, “clever” by The Economist, “neat” by Slate, “startling” by City Observatory, “excellent” by Forbes, and discussed extensively in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Affairs and Reuters, among a number of other places.

Schleicher was previously an associate professor of law at George Mason University School of Law, where he won the university’s Teaching Excellence Award. He has also taught at Georgetown, Harvard, and New York University. He is a 2004 graduate of Harvard Law School. He also holds an MSc. in economics from the London School of Economics and an A.B. in economics and government from Dartmouth College.