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For research on the macroeconomic impacts of a transition to a clean-energy economy, please go to the Green Economics page.

In this study, produced in collaboration with the Institute for Policy Studies, Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier update their 2007 analysis of the relative employment impacts of public investment in military versus other priorities, expanding their analysis to include clean energy investments and induced job creation. The authors compare the effects of a $1 billion investment in the military with the same investment in clean energy, health care, education, or individual tax cuts. They show that non-military investments create many more jobs across all pay ranges. With a large share of the federal budget at stake, Pollin and Garrett-Peltier make a strong case that non-military spending priorities can create significantly greater opportunities for decent employment throughout the U.S. economy than spending the same amount of funds with the military.

>> Download "The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: An Updated Analysis"

Gerald Epstein, Co-Director of PERI, and Jane D'Arista have formed the Economists' Committee for Stable, Accountable, Fair and Efficient Financial Reform. SAFER will serve as a focal point, clearinghouse and coordinating mechanism for progressive economists and analysts to present their views on financial re-regulation and reform; to reach, to the degree possible, a consensus on the key issues relating to regulation and reform; and to incorporate their perspective into the public debate . By bringing these analysts together to speak in a concerted voice, SAFER will be able to broaden the perspective on financial regulation and reform, and enhance the voice of progressive economists in the public debate.

>> Go to the SAFER website

June 2009 -- In this article published in The Economist’s Voice, Robert Pollin, James Heintz, and M. Ahmed Diomande of the New York State Senate Finance Committee  argue that the private ratings agencies —Moody’s, Standard & Poors, and Fitch—operate within a perverse incentive system. These agencies are hired by the very companies they purport to evaluate without bias, and financial companies tend to hire ratings agencies which  they deem likely to rate their instruments highly. The authors recommend a simple correction: a public ratings agency (which reserves the category of “not ratable” for any instrument they deem too complex to accurately assess) staffed by civil servants whose performance is evaluated on the basis of the correlation between their ratings and actual market performance over time.

>> Download "Why U.S. Financial Markets Need a Public Credit Rating Agency"

January 2009 -- With the deterioration of economic conditions in recent months, public investment is back on the policy agenda, as a job-creation program linked to the need to revitalize the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. This report examines the employment impacts of an expanded infrastructure investment program and what it would take to create millions of jobs. It assesses the long-run impacts of such a program on productivity and economic growth, and offers brief observations on U.S. competitiveness and environmental sustainability that emerge from the findings. 

>> Download "How Infrastructure Investments Support the U.S. Economy"