Brookings Today, 9/11/14

A roundup of some of the content published today by Brookings.

• Brookings scholars react to Obama’s speech on ISIS. President Obama addressed the nation on Wednesday night to outline his plan for combating the growing threat posed by ISIS (also known as the Islamic State and ISIL). Brookings scholars had an email conversation sharing their reactions to the speech. You can find all Brookings’s commentary on Obama’s speech and the ISIS threat on brookings-edu-2023.go-vip.net/ISISThreat.

• New research at this week’s Brookings Panel on Economic Activity (BPEA). This afternoon Brookings Economic Studies published six new papers by leading academic and government economists in the Fall 2014 edition of BPEA. The six papers explore the factors behind geographic variations in health care spending, the early impact of the Affordable Care Act state-by-state, the decline in the labor force participation rate, and more.

• Findings from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Services Survey (QSS). Louise Sheiner examines new data on health spending from today’s QSS and finds that that health spending continues to rise at a subdued pace.

Charmaine Crutchfield contributed to this post.