To read or listen to interview by NPR’s David Greene and social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam with Ina Ganguli……
Month: August 2015
The income share of the top one percent of the population in the United States has increased from a little over nine percent of national income in the 1970s to 22.46 percent in 2012 – a 144 percent increase. What is driving this astronomic growth in incomes for some? Is it possibly the result of non-meritorious forces? If so, how has this incredibly unequal development coexisted, and indeed worsened, in a political system based on equality? Read more…..
Gerry Friedman’s paper “American Labor and American Law: Exceptionalism and its Politics in the Decline of the American Labor Movement” was recently (July 16) featured by the Economic Sociology and Political Economy online academic community.
Read article here….
The ES/PE community’s goal is to disseminate the insights of socio-political research of the economy to the public and academics; and to serve as a platform on which their members (more than 32,000 researchers, students, practitioners and activists from 110 countries) share relevant information, exchange ideas and create collaborations.
Gerald A. Epstein, economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, writes a column about inflation targeting, a central-bank policy that is pushed on developing countries, and what is wrong with it. (Nakedcapitalism.com, 7/17/15)
Leonce Ndikumana, economics, says the root of the dispute between developing countries such as those in Africa, and the developed world over development aid is that the aid has strings attached. He says, “When we talk about tied aid, it’s about getting access to the markets for national corporations. Governments in donor countries have the responsibility to give more freedom to African countries to actually negotiate with the corporations without too much political pressure.” (Yahoo Finance UK, Mail & Guardian Africa, 7/15/15; The Jakarta Post, 7/14/15)
Ina Ganguli, economics, is interviewed about how people tend to be attracted to the first item on a list. She cites the example of a weekly list of academic research papers that she and her colleagues studied. They found that the first papers on the list were read more often than those further down the list and those papers were used more often in research. (Morning Edition [NPR], 7/15/15)
Read Professor Emerita Nancy Folbre’s blog Care Talk which includes:
– A brief discussion of childcare as an issue in the upcoming presidential campaign, Elect for Care.
– A celebratory summary of recent victories in union bargaining among home care workers, Bargaining Up to $15.
A columnist writing about how Guam’s laws have to be adjusted to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision legalizing same-sex marriage says one key change needs to be a nondiscrimination in the job market clause. He cites a study by M.V. Lee Badgett, economics and director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration, that found between one-quarter to two-thirds of lesbian, gay and bisexual people have lost jobs or been denied promotions because of their sexual orientation. (Pacific Daily News, 7/5/15)
Robert Pollin, Distinguished Professor in Economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, is interviewed about how he believes expanding the green economy in Europe will boost the overall economy and provide job growth while making the environment cleaner and healthier. He recently proposed such a program to the new ruling party in Spain. (The Real News Network, 7/5/15)