Ike Brannon is president of the consulting firm Capital Policy Analytics in Washington, D.C. He is a former economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and also has been a senior fellow for the Bush Institute. He was director of economic policy for the American Action Forum.
He served as the chief economist for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chief economist for the Republican Policy Committee, senior adviser for tax policy at the U.S. Treasury, principal economic adviser for Sen. Orrin Hatch on the Senate Finance Committee, chief economist for the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, and senior economist for the Office of Management and Budget.
Ike Brannon and Vicki McKenna discuss the impact of the unemployment bonuses on employment in WI
The Vicki McKenna Show: May 2, 2022
Pandemic population push?
Wisconsin’s small cities offer an escape for suddenly mobile metropolitan workers long cramped by a viral lockdown
By Ike Brannon
The pandemic and the UW System
With fewer students and huge deficits likely, the state should consider closing some campuses and following online model for certain courses
By Ike Brannon
June 18, 2020
A reasoned response to the COVID-19 crisis
Badger Institute analysts and visiting fellows have weighed in on the COVID-19 health and economic crisis from a variety of perspectives over the past several weeks.
By Ike Brannon, David Fladeboe, Julie Grace, Robert W. Poole Jr. and Marie Rohde
State law inflates prescription drug costs
Wisconsin’s minimum markup law is particularly egregious when Wisconsinites are suffering
By Ike Brannon
April 9, 2020
Economic impact of UW campuses is overstated
Outside of UW-Madison, the argument that the colleges have huge multiplier effect on communities and the state is nonsensical.
By Ike Brannon
August 2, 2019
The Foxconn lesson: State should level the playing field, not offer firm-specific incentives
Wisconsin’s deal should be scrapped for reasons far beyond the possible switch from factory jobs to research jobs.
By Ike Brannon
March 4, 2019
Foxconn deal: There are better ways to create jobs and growth
Governments aren’t very good at figuring out which businesses are likely to grow and which are likely to fail.
By Ike Brannon
August 16, 2017
The cost of Wisconsin’s opioid crisis
Beyond the lives lost and countless other tragedies related to addiction, the opioid epidemic imposes a heavy monetary cost in Wisconsin.
By Ike Brannon and Devorah Goldman
May 4, 2017
A new approach for occupational licensing in Wisconsin
Wisconsin currently licenses hundreds of professions. Some of those are unobjectionable, but other licenses are problematic.
By Ike Brannon
April 7, 2017
Help students succeed before they get to college
Admitting students with little chance to graduate helps no one; tying UW System funding to graduation rates would force change.
By Ike Brannon and Mike Nichols
March 1, 2017
Fixing colleges is hard, but here are ideas on how to start
We need to rethink how we use the faculty at the non-Ph.D.-granting schools in Wisconsin to improve the lot of the state’s students.
By Ike Brannon
November 22, 2016
Recognize the costs of increasing minimum wage
The harder we make it for young people to get on the first rung of the job ladder, the harder it will be to move up.
By Ike Brannon
April 8, 2015
