Kyle Feinstein, Stanford University -- Olympic host cities incur tremendous costs to welcome thousands of athletes from across the globe. Since the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, economists have debated whether the costs outweigh the benefits for potential host cities and how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) can institute reforms to make hosting a more appealing opportunity.
Anand Krishnan, Stanford University -- The quality of American orchestras is in rapid decline. Many professional orchestras have been forced into semi-professional status, with over 80% of the roughly 2,000 orchestras in the US now having an operating budget of under $300,000. The latest example of this phenomenon was seen in San Antonio, the nation’s 7th largest city, where an orchestra that regularly welcomed the great violinist Jascha Heifetz was forced to ask its musicians to accept wages under the national poverty line. The federal government must use the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to better support American orchestras—only then will they be able to replicate the parity that they held with their European counterparts in the late 20th century.
