• Chad Hart spoke with Dan Looker of Successful Farming about ethanol policy and impacts. He spoke with Chris Benderev of NPR about farm policy and the upcoming farm bill debate (background info for now but may tape something later). And he spoke with Jeff DeYoung of Iowa Farmer Today about the Missouri River flooding and price impacts on the national and local level.


• Hart spoke with Mike Anderson of IowaWatch about ethanol policies and presidential candidates. Bruce Babcock, director of CARD and professor of economics, spoke to Dan Pillar of the Des Moines Register about the Environmental Working Group's farm subsidy database, recently updated, and what it shows about payments to Iowa farmers.


• Hart responded to several calls from reporters in response to USDA's acreage and stocks reports, which surprised markets with projections of higher corn planted acreage: Fran Howard, AgWeb; Greg Myers, Financial Times; Dick Laymen, WHO Radio; Bethany Pint, Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman; Scott Kilman, Wall Street Journal; and Chet Hollingshead, AgriBusiness Report.


• Dave Swenson was interviewed Thursday by Donnelle Eller, a business reporter with The Des Moines Register; and Rebecca Maxwell, a reporter with WHO-AM in Des Moines, for pieces profiling Iowa manufacturing. Both stories were tied to President Obama scheduled visit to an Alcoa plant in Davenport Tuesday. Sue Danielson, assistant news editor, WHO-AM, also interviewed him today on the importance of manufacturing to the nation's recovery and the vulnerability of Iowa manufacturing to the pace of global recovery. The media contacts were all the result of a News Service tipsheet.


• Swenson was interviewed Wednesday by Nick Krause, a reporter with The New York Times, who had questions on the potential job impacts to ethanol producing states were the ethanol blenders credit to be eliminated.


• Swenson was also interview by Emily Carlson, WHO TV,  and Emily Horner, Iowawatch.org, on the importance of Iowa manufacturing and the President's visit to the ALCOA plant at Riverside. In reference to President Obama's visit to the Alcoa plant on Tuesday, Ed Tibbets, Quad City Times, wanted a comparison of manufacturing job performance in the QC area compared to the state since 2008 and an evaluation of the importance of Obama's visit to the regional economy.

Information courtesy of Jackie King, ISU News Service.

Mike Ferlazzo with ISU News Service has put together a Department of Economics "tip sheet" this week. This is a compilation of current research and work that has come out of the department - the tip sheet approach is designed to provide a brief description of work that's easy for media outside of the university to access. Click on the following link to view: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2011/jun/econtips

Please take advantage of this enhanced opportunity for department exposure. Continue to send story ideas, current research, and related activities to ksenty@iastate.edu or ferlazzo@iastate.edu.

ISU Extension recently released a video on cooperatives, featuring interviews with Professor Ron Deiter and several students in the Ag Business program. Deiter teaches a course on cooperatives, Econ 332, which the video draws from. Click on the following link to view the video: http://video.extension.iastate.edu/2011/06/10/cooperatives/

A faltering economy and record high deficits don't come as good news to anyone. However, Professor Dan Otto found that current economic conditions created the perfect backdrop for fertile discussions in his Public Finance and Public Policy class this past semester.