Beacon Hill Institute

The Beacon Hill Institute is an associate member of the State Policy Network, a coalition of free-market state-level policy organizations. ³

Activity

The Beacon Hill Institute was established in 1991 as the research arm of the Department of Economics at Suffolk University and became an independent nonprofit in 2017. ² The Beacon Hill Institute is a nonpartisan think tank that conducts local, state, and national economic public policy research. ¹ BHI uses its economic and statistical models for local and state tax policy analysis, then makes policy recommendations based on that analysis. ²

The Beacon Hill Institute developed STAMP, a computer program designed to perform tax policy simulations. The STAMP program allows researchers to analyze the effects of hypothetical tax policy changes on a given state’s economy. BHI uses STAMP for its own policy analysis and builds custom STAMP models for other research institutes and entities researching state tax policy. ⁴

The Beacon Hill Institute publishes annual tax revenue estimates for Massachusetts, which it offers to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance and the Joint Ways and Means Committee. In the report, BHI makes predictions for the coming year’s state tax revenue; summarizes the state of the U.S. economy, including the unemployment rate, the GDP, and the state of equity markets; and offers a summary of the Massachusetts economy, including its economic growth rate, state output, and retail sales. ⁵

In 2021, the BHI published its findings on the proposed Clean Energy and Climate Plan (CECP), which specifies carbon dioxide emissions reductions targets in order to achieve net-zero emissions in Massachusetts by 2050. BHI claims that instead of a zero-carbon goal, a carbon tax should be adopted in the U.S. and other countries in order to substantially reduce global carbon emissions. BHI further claims that a zero-carbon goal in Massachusetts would increase household energy costs without substantially impacting climate change. ⁶

In 2020, BHI conducted a study of the costs associated with Massachusetts joining the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a left-of-center environmentalist coalition of states. BHI’s model claims that the costs associated with TCI would be significantly higher than initially reported. BHI’s model also shows that in order to reach TCI’s goal of a 25% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, gas prices would increase 26 cents per gallon, diesel prices would increase 52 cents per gallon, and nearly 10,000 private sector jobs would disappear. This study was commissioned by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, a right-of-center nonprofit organization. ⁷

Funding

The Beacon Hill Institute is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations. While BHI does not disclose its donors, tax filings show donations from the Roe Foundation, which contributed between 2001 and 2015;⁸ Donors Capital Fund, which contributed between 2007 and 2009;⁹ and the State Policy Network, which contributed between 2007 and 2011. ¹⁰

People

David Tuerck is the president and former executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute. Tuerck formerly worked as the director of the Center for Research and Advertising at the American Enterprise Institute. ¹¹

Michael Williams sits as treasurer of the BHI board. Williams formerly served on the advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and as staff counsel for Citizens for the Preservation of Constitutional Rights. ¹²