North America

A discussion featuring Kenneth Smith, Head of the Trade and NAFTA Office of the Ministry of the Economy of Mexico, and Jay Pelosky, Principal of Pelosky Global Strategies.

In this comment, we explain our objections to the SEC’s current formulation of the Pay Ratio Disclosure Rule on each of three grounds: the erroneous estimation of CEO pay; the unclear specification of the “median” worker; and the risk of normalizing a pay ratio that is far too high. Then we present the latest data on the remuneration of the 500 highest-paid CEOs in the United States, demonstrating the way in which the SEC’s measure of CEO pay that enters into the CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio tends to systematically underestimate actual executive pay.

The “War on Poverty,” and the impact of public policy

A trade war would undoubtedly hurt both sides. But there is reason to believe that the US has more to lose. If nothing else, the Chinese seem to know precisely which weapons they have available to them. China could stop purchasing US aircraft, impose an embargo.

Mallaby’s research shows that Greenspan knew more about the looming perils than people realize.

Stanford economic historian Professor Gavin Wright, addressing the Institute’s conference on the economics of race, argues that the conditions facing the children of the great migration from the South are very different to the conditions for the children of those who stayed behind. 

Professor Tchen explores the many layers of “otherness” at work in America’s political economy

Slight increases in national-average earnings for older workers mask long-run stagnation and decline in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – states that unexpectedly voted for Donal Trump

Columbia professor Dan O’Flaherty explains how an awareness of racial trauma developed from growing up in Newark inspired him to write and teach on the economics of race.

Hoping to learn from other countries’ experiences in organizing finance for agriculture, more than 150 Americans were sent abroad in the summer of 1913 to investigate the minutiae of farm-credit systems in and around Europe.

In this Q-and-A, historian and National Book Award finalist Heather Ann Thompson argues that draconian police tactics in black Detroit neighborhoods had as much to do with the city’s decimation as white flight and lost jobs.

Scholar sees Institute for New Economic Thinking conference as an important opportunity to discuss issues of race and economics, and of Detroit’s past and future 

Historian Prof. Thomas Sugrue offers a critique of the conventional wisdom that roots the city’s fate in the racial tension of the tumultuous ‘60s and the decline of the auto industry.

The 2008 financial meltdown wiped out what was left of the savings of millions of American families, but Professor Edward Wolff says decades of income inequality had set the stage for the collapse of their household wealth.

The US stands out as an outlier: the US spends far more on health than any other country, yet the life expectancy of the American population is not longer but actually shorter than in other countries that spend far less.