Labor

Artificial intelligence promises to make our lives easier. But is the cost losing some of our humanity?

Economist Marie Mora discusses the deep economic crisis that has afflicted Puerto Rico for years

With journalism moving from a stable to a precarious profession, digital media workers have become some of the most organized in the startup world

One of America’s leading socialists discusses how a collectively owned economy would be structured, the limits of the welfare state, and what Keynes understood that Marx didn’t

Artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be a job killer—if we use it right

When workers are classified as independent contractors instead of employees, they fall into a hole not covered by many labor protections

As automation takes on more routine tasks, work will become more about creativity, ethics, and empathy

US counties with prison labor often have lower wage and employment growth

As technology and deregulation continue to shape the labor market, maintaining strong worker protections is as important as ever

Decades before it caught on with other economists, Sadie Alexander was the first economist to recommend a government jobs guarantee in the US

For years, governments in India and much of the developing world have followed the advice of a paper arguing that labor regulations actually hurt workers. The problem? The research was wrong.

Chaired by Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Spence, INET has assembled a global team of leaders and scholars calling for new thinking & new rules for the world economy

The Rise of China and the Future of WorkArtificial intelligence could replace routine jobs but allow us to “pursue dreams”

William Lazonick has shown how the doctrine of “shareholder value” has hurt wages in the United States. But in Latin America, where family corporations dominate, the story is more complicated.

Economists who dismiss inequality as a problem secondary to poverty miss the point: Inequality is part of what drives poverty

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to replace routine jobs, says Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. But done right, that process could allow us to “pursue dreams, spend time with our loved ones and find out why we exist as humans”

“We don’t look after each other at all,” says Jeffrey Sachs on America today

Getting published in a top five economics journal is a near-requirement for tenure. But it’s a poor measure of research quality within a system that punishes creativity.

In Europe and the United States, stock-based compensation discourages long-term corporate sustainability

When a small group of companies can dominate a labor market, wages—and workers—suffer

To understand labor productivity—and growing inequality—you have to look at the “dual economy”

A new report examines the path to global social progress. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers

13 million people looking for living wage work is not a “full employment” economy

Gay men earn 20% less than straight men, but gay women earn up to 20% more than straight women. Why?

When politics is defined in terms of “populism” vs. “the mainstream,” the possibility for real economic reform is diminished.

Edoardo Nesi’s new book tracks the destructive march of globalization and neoliberal capitalism through his own life and the places, like Italy, that lie broken in its wake.

Reflections on the Radical Vision of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Major Speech

In the face of  laissez-faire capitalism at home and resurgent nationalism across the globe, INET offers an innovative look at the causes of—and solutions for—the problems that ail a fissuring world economy.

By pushing workers into precarious, part-time work, “Third Way” governments of the past 20 years helped to create the disturbing economic trend that’s vexing orthodox economists

Workers, innovation, and productivity all suffer when corporations spend their new U.S. tax breaks on stock buybacks.

Ed Pavlić discusses the role of music in communicating suffering and resistance in the African-American experience

Contrary to the neoclassical model’s assumptions, shifts in aggregate demand have persistent effects on GDP

Economist Morton Schapiro, president of Northwestern University, and his colleague, literary critic and Slavic studies scholar Saul Morson, argue that—contrary to popular belief—studying the humanities is the key to not getting outsourced.

Untangling the Facts about Immigration in the World Economy.

The prevailing wisdom that aggregate demand ‘shocks’ determine short-run cyclical fluctuations around a supply-determined equilibrium growth rate and an associated equilibrium unemployment rate (or NAIRU) has been called into question by various streams of literature in the last decades. Specifically, a recently revived literature on hysteresis finds significant persistence in the effects of recessions and negative aggregate demand shocks (Blanchard et al. 2015; Martin et al. 2015).

Can a Policy of Guaranteed Basic Income Return Mature Market Economies to les Trente Glorieuses?

Building symbiotic public-private partnerships

What can policy do to remedy the spread of dual economies in the developed world?

Growing income inequality is threatening the American middle class, and the middle class is vanishing before our eyes. We are still one country, but the stretch of incomes is fraying the unity of our nation.

The Precariat under Rentier Capitalism Guy Standing We are in the midst of a Global Transformation, analogous to Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation described in his seminal 1944 book. Whereas Polanyi’s Transformation was about constructing national market systems, today’s is about the painful construction of a global market system. To use Polanyi’s term, the ‘dis-embedded’ phase has been dominated by an ideology of market liberalisation, commodification and privatisation, orchestrated by financial interests, as in his model. The similarities also extend to today’s fundamental challenge, how to construct a ‘re-embedded’ phase, with new systems of regulation, distribution and social protection.

With unemployment reaching very low levels in major economies, despite low – and slowly rising – inflation, it’s time for central banks to rethink their reliance on the so-called natural rate. No numerical target for this rate can serve as an anchor for monetary policy.

“Dual Economy” models were developed to explain growth in the developing world. Now they appear necessary to comprehend the high income trap that afflicts the world’s most developed economies.

A new book by economist Peter Temin finds that the U.S. is no longer one country, but dividing into two separate economic and political worlds

The health crisis afflicting working-class Americans recalls similar symptoms in Russia following the collapse of communism

Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies.

Taxing the use of robotics may or may not be the answer, but the question remains how to compensate for the growing inequality created by our changing economies

Pursuing equality while growing the economy requires reframing social spending as a form of investment.

To mark International Women’s Day, Neva Goodwin argues that the crisis of income insecurity and longstanding gender inequality require a form of universal basic income that recognizes and rewards the value of household labor

New findings show that hourly wage-rates in China are higher than in middle-income countries and are approaching the levels of Greece and Portugal

Institute Senior Economist Pia Malaney sees the election of Donald Trump as a message from the Rust Belt signaling a systemic failure in US political economy 

Beatrice Cherrier remembers Tony Atkinson’s influential intellectual, educational and institutional contribution to the field of public economics

Professor Temin sees the US economy as bifurcated along lines analogous to the situation described in developing world economies by W. Arthur Lewis.

Viewed in historical context, the weak recovery from the 2008 crisis has been slow and painful, but a sub-5% unemployment rate and healthy job and wage growth will be among the most important legacies Obama leaves to the next president

Evidence thus far questions the assumption that robotics are eliminating jobs. INET Senior Vice President for Programs Rick McGahey says the UBI debate should focus on the long-term weakening of labor’s bargaining power

Research funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking has revealed that the SEC reports executive compensation using a formula that routinely undercounts it

Institute for New Economic Thinking-backed research into inequality explores how taxes and government policy have contributed to deepening economic inequality   

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies allowed the United States to avoid the perils of right-wing populism that plunged Europe into war in the 1930s — Europe should learn from his example

How orthodox economics paved the way for the political shocks of 2016

By suppressing important questions in favor of being cheerleaders for globalization, economists failed to influence the public conversation

In an Al Jazeera documentary “In Search of the Great American Job”, Institute scholar William Lazonick offers some arch insights into the relationship between financialization — particularly the “shareholder value” ideology in corporations, which drives the transfer of profits to shareholders through stock buybacks — and job creation and inequality.

Social safety nets don’t always need to come with a dark side

An Institute for New Economic Thinking Working Paper by William Lazonick and Matt Hopkins reveals that much reporting on executive pay relies on systems of measurement that underreport real compensation

The World Bank and IMF say developing economies can’t afford to have strong labor laws. Actually, they can’t afford not to.

Adair Turner, Chair of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Lecture at School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC April 10th 2018

It’s time to connect political violence with economic violence.

Wage suppression—not monopoly power—is fueling corporate profits and the growing gap between rich and poor

“Meso” level analysis of 16 producing sectors sheds light on broad forces shaping growth of employment and profits. 

For the BRICS countries to not just grow their economies but also raise the standard of living of their people, inclusive growth that prioritizes poverty reduction is a must

The vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years later, and the relevance of his economic ideas today

Behind towering figures like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. were the taxi dispatchers, pharmacists, grocers, and other small business owners who were instrumental in making civil rights a reality.

The corporate titans of yore once offered a sizable wage premium over smaller employers—but not anymore. What happened?

In their op-ed in the Washington Post, INET grantee William Lazonick and Rick Wartzman show how companies are spending their tax savings on investors, not workers.

Inequality isn’t driven by taxes—it’s driven by the power of capital in relation to workers

From the Rust Belt to Rural America, Economic and Social Distress Helped Shape the 2016 US Presidential Election Outcome

As the old lines continue to blur, what does inequality mean in the modern global economy? And, how does the economy need to evolve to address these changes?

As the old lines continue to shift, what does inequality mean in the modern global economy? And, how does the economy need to evolve to address these changes?

Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Spence and a global team of leading thinkers are calling for new thinking & new rules for the world economy

Xavier Gabaix argues that public policies should prioritize alleviating deprivation at the bottom over narrowing the rich-poor gap 

Why we should worry about job quality, not quantity—or robot overlords

Greater efficiency, lower costs, and universal coverage make it the sustainable option, say some top economists

Professor Ghilarducci describes the roadblocks to securing retirement and retirement plans beyond the 401k.

Demand, Secular Stagnation and the Vanishing Middle-Class

Professor Dutt discusses how group identity is key to addressing inequality and how inequality can disrupt group identity.

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

Despite dismissive comments by the U.S. Treasury Secretary, facing the challenge posed by robotics replacing human labor raises key public policy questions 

Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies. That is not to say that they don’t exist. They are created when employers or government agencies tamper with the natural functioning of the wage mechanism.

Following a thought-provoking panel discussion at the AEA, James Heckman and Rob Johnson discuss peer-reviewed journals and a professional incentive structure that constricts the idea space and reinforces tired orthodoxies in economics.

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. 

Research by INET-affiliated scholars shows the US lags far behind its peers on inclusive growth, suggesting inequality is not an inevitable consequence of globalization and technology

Smick argues that distortions of capitalism have fed populist rebellion, and that reviving a capitalism that offers opportunity for average people to increase their earnings is an urgent priority if America’s political economy is to be stabilized.

Notes from the Institute’s Director of Research on some significant papers and contributions produced in 2016 under the INET rubric 

Campaign promises aside, the policies favored by President-elect Donal Trump are likely to bring more pain than gain to  working-class Americans 

The Institute for New Economic Thinking’s recent Detroit event on race and economics noted both the structural impediments faced by African-Americans, and the impressive gains made in some communities despite those headwinds

New research by Nobel Laureate and Institute for New Economic Thinking Advisory Board member James Heckman finds strong economic gains from birth-to-five education programs 

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

Nobel laureate argues that the party’s adherence to neoliberal orthodoxy has hurt its prospects

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.

Mission-oriented public investment is vital to spur a revival of private-sector investment

How economics underperforms in diversity, and some potential remedies