Robert Pollin launches new blog — Back To Full Employment

Contributors

Gar Alperovitz: Gar is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland. He has made important research contributions in a range of political economy areas. Most recently, one of his main areas of focus has been how to create alternatives to capitalism out of the framework of the current situation. This work is incorporated into his current book America Beyond Capitalism. 

Michael Ash: Michael is Professor of Economics and Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Michael works on labor economics, health economics, the environment and inequality, and the economics of education. He has also been a leader of the faculty union at UMass Amherst.

Jon Bloom: Jon has been the Executive Director of the Workers Defense League in New York City for over two decades. The Workers Defense League was founded in 1936 by Norman Thomas and friends, and has been committed to fighting for the legal rights of workers ever since. 

James Boyce: Jim is Professor of Economics and Director of the Program on Development, Peacebuilding, and the Environment at the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Jim recently co-authored with Leonce Ndikumana (see below), Africa’s Odious Debt: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent. Jim was also a principal author of a new “Cap-and-Dividend” policy approach to regulating greenhouse gas emissions, which produces an egalitarian alternative to traditional “Cap-and-Trade” measures.

Jane D’Arista: Jane is a Research Fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute, and has previously taught at Boston University, University of Utah and the New School for Social Research. She also served as a staff economist for the Banking and Commerce Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jane has published widely on financial market policy and other macroeconomic questions, including her classic two-volume work The Evolution of U.S. Finance. With Jerry Epstein (see below) Jane is co-founder of SAFER: A Committee of Economists and other Experts for Stable, Accountable, Fair and Efficient Financial Reform. In addition, Jane is also a published poet.

Rose Ann DeMoro: Rose Ann is Executive Director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. The Union has long been a powerful advocate in behalf of both direct care registered nurses and patient care protections. Rose Ann and the Nurses Union have also been strong advocates for a “Medicare for All” –type health care system in the United States. Most recently, they have led a global campaign in support of a Robin Hood Tax, a small transaction tax that would be levied on all financial transactions. The revenue from such a tax would then be directed to supporting education, health care, poverty reduction, and green economy investments.

Gerald Epstein: Jerry is Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Jerry and Jane D’Arista also founded SAFER: A Committee of Economists and other Experts for Stable, Accountable, Fair and Efficient Financial Reform. Jerry’s research work includes the edited volumes Beyond Inflation Targeting and Financialization and the World Economy. He is also a longtime active member of the Center for Popular Economics.

David Foster: Dave is the Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. From 1989-2006, Dave served as Director of the United Steelworkers District 11, a thirteen-state region spanning from Minnesota to Washington State and Alaska. For the past 20 years, Dave has been among the labor movement’s leading environmental advocates. 

Heidi Garrett-Peltier: Heidi is Assistant Research Professor at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Heidi has conducted highly innovative empirical research on the economics of building a clean energy economy, initially within the United States and more recently over the global economy as well. Heidi has also been a longtime activist with the Center for Popular Economics and writes a regular column for Dollars & Sense.

Teresa Ghilarducci: Teresa is the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research and Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. Her most recent book is When I’m 64: The Plot against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them. Her current research project is “Beyond the 401(k): Guaranteeing Retirement Security.” From 1997-2002, Teresa was a Trustee for the Public Employee Retirement Fund in Indiana. See also served on the Federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Advisory Board from 1996 to 2001.

Jayati Ghosh: Jayati is Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi, India. Her specialties include globalization, international finance, employment patterns in developing countries, macroeconomic policy, and issues related to gender and development. She writes regular columns for Frontline in India, The Guardian in the U.K., and many other publications. She is Executive Secretary of the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS), a network of economists critical of the mainstream economic paradigm of neo-liberalism. She played a key role in creating a Guaranteed Employment Program throughout India. 

Helen Ginsburg: Helen is Professor Emerita of Economics, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. She is co-chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare and Equity and is a co-founder of the National Jobs for All Coalition. Helen’s books include Full Employment and Public Policy: the United States and Sweden.

James Heintz: James is Research Professor at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His work ranges widely on issue of employment in both the advanced economies and developing world; poverty reduction; financial markets; public sector investments; and macroeconomic policy. He is currently serving as an advisor to the United Nations Development Programme on their annual Human Development Report. He previously served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy on the question of green economy investments and job creation.

David Howell: David is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy and directs the Doctoral Program in Public and Urban Policy at The New School. He is an affiliated member of the New School’s economics department, a Faculty Research Fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (The New School), and a Research Scholar at the Political Economy Research Institute (UMass Amherst). His books include the edited volume Fighting Unemployment: The Limits of Free Market Orthodoxy. He was also the lead author on the landmark 2007 paper “Are Protective Labor Market Institutions at the Root of Unemployment?” which overturned a generation of orthodox research on the causes of mass unemployment in Europe.

Charles Idelson: Charles is Communications Director of the 180,000 member National Nurses United, the largest U.S. union and professional association of registered nurses. He holds a B.A. in Sociology from Sonoma State University and M.A. in History from San Francisco State University.

Madeline Janis: Madeline is co-founder and National Policy Director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE). She had previously served as Executive Director of LAANE. LAANE has long worked as an influential leader in the effort to build a new economy based on good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment. Among other achievements, Madeline led LAANE’s historic campaign to pass the Los Angeles living wage ordinance, which then became a model throughout the country. From 2002 – 12, she served as a Commissioner on the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

Stephanie Luce: Stephanie is an Associate Professor of Labor Studies at the Murphy Institute, City University of New York. She has authored or co-authored three books on living wage campaigns in the United States, including Fighting for a Living Wages (2004). She has also conducted extensive research on the impact of globalization on jobs and workers. She has served on the staff of Congressional Committee on Agricultural Workers, directed research projects for U.S. unions, and participated in a wide range of other scholarship useful to activists, community-based organizations and the labor movement.

Richard McGahey: Rick is a Professor of Professional Practice in the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research. He was previously Director of Impact Assessment at the Ford Foundation. Prior to working at the Ford Foundation, Rick had served, among other positions, as Assistant Secretary for Policy and later for Pensions and Welfare Benefits at the U.S. Department of Labor. He has also served as Executive Director of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and as Economic Policy Advisor for Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Léonce Ndikumana: Léonce is the Andrew Glyn Professor in the Department of Economics and Director of the Africa Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also presently serving on the United Nations Committee for Development Policy. From 2008 – 10, he was Director of the Department of Development Economics Research at the African Development Bank, and from 2006-08 served as Chief of Macroeconomic Policy Analysis with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). His recent research includes the highly-influential book Africa’s Odious Debt: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent, co-authored with Jim Boyce.

Özlem Onaran: Özlem is Professor of Economics at the University of Greenwich, U.K. She regularly publishes research studies on globalization, income distribution, employment, business investment, and financial crises in publications such as the Cambridge Journal of Economics,World Development, Eastern European Economics, and Labour. She recently co-authored a major study for the International Labour Organization on the relative importance of decent wages versus high profits as an engine of economic growth in several countries throughout the world.

Özgür Orhangazi: Özgur is Associate Professor of Economics and Coordinator of the Doctoral Program in Finance and Banking at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey. He previously taught economics at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois. Özgur’s research includes the 2008 bookGlobalization and the U.S. Economy and the 2007 article “Wall Street versus the Labor Movement.” He has also published research on financial instability and alternative economic policies for both Turkey and Venezuela. While a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Özgur also conducted research on living wage campaigns in the United States.

Malcolm Sawyer: Malcolm is Professor of Economics at the Leeds University Business School in the U.K., and Managing Editor of the International Review of Applied Economics. He is also a member of the New Economy Network run by The Guardian newspaper. He was recently selected by the European Commission to direct a five-year, Europe-wide research study, with 15 partner institutions, on “Financialization, Economy, Society, and Sustainable Development,” (FESSUD). Malcolm has authored 11 books including Macroeconomics in Question (1982) and edited over 25 books including 21st Century Keynesian Economics (2010).

Jim Stanford: Jim has worked since 1994 as an economist with the Canadian Auto Workers. His books include Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism (2008), andPaper Boom: Why Real Prosperity Requires a New Approach to Canada’s Economy, (1999). He also writes a regular economics column for the Globe and Mail, is a frequent contributor to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and is a regular guest on the CBC’s The National. Jim’s motto is: “Economics is too important to be left to economists.”

Engelbert Stockhammer: Engelbert is Professor of Economics at the School of Economics, Kingston University, U.K. His research areas included macroeconomics, applied econometrics, financial systems, and heterodox economics. His research work includes the books Unemployment in Europe (2004), and the edited 2011 volume, A Modern Guide to Keynesian Macroeconomics and Economic Policies. Engelbert is also a member of the coordination committee of the Research Network on Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policy.

Matias Vernengo: Matias is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Utah, and a Research Manager at the Central Bank of Argentina. He has served as a consultant to the International Labour Organization (ILO) on Brazilian labor markets, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the macroeconomics of poverty reduction, and monetary policies for HIV/AIDS aid-receiving countries for the UNDP Poverty Center. Matias is also serving as a founding co-editor of the Review of Keynesian Economics.

Thomas Weisskopf: Tom is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His wide-ranging research contributions include work on Third World development and First World imperialism; Neo-Marxian macroeconomics and social structures of accumulation analysis; democratic market socialism; and affirmative action. His books include After the Wasteland: A Democratic Economics for the Year 2000 (1990); and Affirmative Action in the U.S. and India (2004).

Jeannette Wicks-Lim: Jeannette is Assistant Research Professor at the Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research areas include conditions for low-wage workers in the United States and policies to promote equality and poverty reduction through employment-based measures. Jeannette is co-author of A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (2008), and co-editor ofCapitalism on Trial: Explorations in the Tradition of Thomas E. Weisskopf (forthcoming). Jeannette also writes a regular column for Dollars & Sense.

Back to Full Employment
Robert Pollin | Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
(h/t Matthias Vernengo)