COLLEGE STATION, Texas—The Texas A&M Foundation received a grant from the Charles Koch Foundation for $3.405 million to support the Private Enterprise Research Center (PERC) at Texas A&M University.
The Charles Koch Foundation supports students and scholars through academic grants and educational initiatives at more than 300 universities and colleges across the country.
“We are thankful for the opportunity to join others in supporting the center’s outstanding scholars,” said Charles Koch Foundation Director of University Relations John Hardin. “They’re engaging research and students on critical issues to improve economic mobility and opportunity for all people.”
Students listen to a PERC-sponsored Kirby Lecture with economist Dr. John B. Taylor last fall.
PERC’s mission is to provide Texas A&M, the state of Texas and the nation with analysis of important policy issues. The center provides a broad range of academic support for scholars at Texas A&M and market-oriented solutions to public policy problems.
Although PERC works closely with the Department of Economics, it is housed in the Allen Building on the Bush School of Government and Public Service campus, where it operates as its own unit under the Office of the Provost. Therefore, the center receives its funding via private gifts and grants from former students, foundations and corporations.
“Through its public policy studies and academic support, PERC provides timely and rigorous research on contemporary issues that enhances the scholarly mission of Texas A&M,” said Dr. Dennis W. Jansen, the center’s director and the Jordan Professor of Economic Policy. “Our policy research focuses on the scientific application of economics to national issues. We believe that through objective analysis of the issues, we can enhance economic freedom throughout the world.”
Researchers have studied how Medicare and Social Security are financed and modeled, investigated the health care market and evaluated government spending. PERC has produced three books and numerous articles on Medicare and Social Security reforms, some of which have been highlighted in national newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the New York Times. Current research focuses on the distribution of Medicare spending across and within generations, as well as issues with retirement, health care markets and government finance.
The center supports academic research through its Research Fellows program, Graduate Student Summer Fellows and Dissertation Fellows programs and professorships. It also hosts an Applied Economics Seminar Series, which invites visiting scholars from around the world to speak on topics ranging from immigration to increasing wage disparity.
“By allowing us to hire additional postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students, this grant from the Charles Koch Foundation provides us the support needed to strengthen our existing research programs and expand our focus to include more work on issues ranging from school choice to fiscal and monetary policy,” said Jansen.
The Charles Koch Foundation’s generous gift counts toward Texas A&M’s comprehensive “Lead by Example” campaign, an endeavor to raise $4 billion by 2020 in support of university staff, faculty and programs.
