Hal Wolman

Hal Wolman was the founding Director of the George Washington Institute of Public Policy (GWIPP) and served in that capacity from 2000-2012. He is an emeritus professor in the Department of Political Science at the George Washington University and a Research Professor in the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Dr. Wolman is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Dr. Wolman's fields of interest include urban and metropolitan policy and politics, local and regional economic development, state and local fiscal policy, and comparative and cross-national urban policy and politics. Much of his work is interdisciplinary, drawing upon the fields of political science, policy analysis, and economics. Prior to retiring as a faculty member in the Department of Political Science and the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, he taught courses on Urban Problems and Policy Analysis, Urban Politics, and Politics and the Policy Process.

Dr. Wolman holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a Master's in Urban Planning from M.I.T. Prior to coming to GW in 2000, Dr. Wolman was Director of the Policy Sciences graduate program at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County from 1997-2000. Before that, he was a professor of Political Science and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. He also served as a Research Associate for the Urban Institute's Public Finance Program from 1978-1984.

Dr. Wolman also has experience in the world of public affairs and policy making, both as staff director of the House Subcommittee on the Cities and as a legislative assistant to Senator Adlai E. Stevenson. He was also Director of Research for the White House conference on Balanced Growth and Economic Development. He recently served as the staff consultant to the National Research Council's Committee on the Future of American Cities.

Dr. Wolman has authored and edited books include Urban and Regional Policy and Its Effects (Brookings Institution, 2008) Governance and Opportunity in Metropolitan Areas (National Academy Press, 1999), Theories of Urban Politics (Sage Publications, 1995), Urban Politics and Policy: A Comparative Approach (Basil Blackwell, 1992), and Comparing Housing Systems: Housing Performance and Housing Policy in the U.S. and Britain (Oxford University Press, 1992). Other research and publications explore regional economic resilience, the effect of national government fiscal policies on cities during the great recession, the determinants of urban and regional economic growth, national urban policy, comparative urban policy and politics, local governments and fiscal autonomy, policy transfer among governments, the effect of population change on urban representation in Congress, city-suburban disparities in income and their causes, the relationship of cities to suburbs, the effect of mayoral change on public policy, and changing intergovernmental relations; as well as specific problems and policies in the areas of urban economic development, urban fiscal problems, housing and community development, urban labor markets, welfare, and transportation.