Faculty Member In:
Department of Economics
Expertise:
Demographics
Early Childhood Education
Economics
Impact of Public Policy on Families
Opinion Surveys
Pre-School/After-School Programs
Social Policy
Welfare Policy
| Biography | Research | Contact Information |
Elizabeth Powers is an associate professor of Economics and a faculty member in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. Prior to joining the University of Illinois in 1996, Dr. Powers was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and a junior staff economist with President George H.W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Economics from Vassar College.
Dr. Powers has undertaken extensive public services activities in the area of human services in her time at IGPA. Her arrival at IGPA coincided with welfare reform and led to numerous public education efforts and policy briefings on that topic. She is an expert on reimbursement policies for private human service providers and directed a major study of the reimbursement rate system for providers of services to the developmentally disabled pursuant to a direct appropriation from the Illinois General Assembly. She currently serves on the work group on rate setting and performance accountability, advisory to Governor Quinn’s Human Services Commission, and recently participated in the Donors Forum’s Public/Nonprofit Partnership Initiative that developed principles for state contracting with private human service providers.
