The minimum wage and Earned Income Tax Credit are frequently presented as substitutes, or even in competition with one another, because they offer distinct approaches toward improving living standards for low-income workers and their families. Jeannette Wicks-Lim and Robert Pollin put forth an alternative view: that these policies can work in complementary ways, generating greater benefits for low-income workers when they operate in tandem at a high level. Wicks-Lim and Pollin reach this conclusion through an in-depth examination of state-level EITC and minimum wage policies.

>> Download “Making Work Pay: Combining the Benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Minimum Wage”

Carlo Panico and Francesco Purificato argue that flaws in the organization of European institutions affected the economic performance of the euro countries before 2007, and then exacerbated the conflicts among nations and between them and the European authorities. These conflicts contributed to speculative attacks against government debts and exposed the peculiar conditions under which central banking is carried out in Europe. The authors conclude that this institutional organization must be reformed to allow it to effectively protect Europe’s economies and citizens from the instability of the international financial markets.

>> Download “The Role of Institutional and Political Factors in the European Debt Crisis"

Ilene Grabel explores how, in the wake of the crisis, global financial architecture is evolving in ways that may contribute to innovation and diversity in financial governance. She discusses examples of regional, sub-regional, bilateral, and national financial institutions that are demonstrating new-found strength and self-confidence, and which are far less U.S.- and IMF-centric than has been the norm over the past several decades. At the same time, policymakers in some developing countries are demonstrating growing economic assertiveness. Together, these trends may lead toward more equitable dispersal of power across the global financial system.

> Download "Financial Architectures and Development: Resilience, Policy Space, and Human Development in the Global South"

As part of efforts to reduce urban emissions, major cities and states, including New York City, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and California, are now requiring building owners and operators to measure and disclose building energy performance. Such policies are expected to expand significantly in the coming years. In this study, produced with the Institute for Market Transformation, Heidi Garrett-Peltier analyzes the broader impact of these policies. Garrett-Peltier finds that they have the potential to create more than 23,000 new jobs in 2015 and more than 59,000 in 2020, along with significant savings in costs and energy consumption.

>> Download “Analysis of Job Creation and Energy Cost Savings from Building Energy Rating and Disclosure Policy”

In this study, commissioned by the Center for American Progress, Jeffrey Thompson and Heidi Garrett-Peltier consider cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as Food Stamps) that threaten to be included in a federal austerity budget. They find that not only would significant cuts put millions of families at risk of hunger, but large numbers of jobs would be lost, particularly in the grocery sector and other food-related businesses.

>> Download the full report, "The Economic Consequences of Cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program"
>> Download the report summary

In recent years, some states have responded to the collapse in tax revenue following the Great Recession by turning to tax increases targeted at high-income households. The revenue from such taxes can help sustain public spending on vital public services. Jeffrey Thompson looks at decades of evidence and clearly finds that such income taxes effectively raise substantial revenue, without risk of harm to the state’s economy. He argues that wealthy households have reaped vast benefits from state and federal tax codes for decades now, and to look to them now for much-needed revenue is sound policy.

>> Download "Raising Revenue from High-Income Households: Should States Continue to Place the Lowest Tax Rates on Those with the Highest Incomes?"
>> Download the five-page Research Brief