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PERI in the News

PERI economists on the economic stimulus and recovery

>> "Did Bernanke Save the World?" (a video interview with Robert Pollin on Real News Network, August 28, 2009)
>> "Same old sheriff on Wall Street" (a video interview with Robert Pollin on Real News Network, June 24, 2009)
>> "Green Stimulus" (an interview with Robert Pollin in Multinational Monitor, May 2009)
>> "Standard of Living Must Be Raised" Roll Call (May 18, 2009)
>> "Does loss of Triple-A rating matter?" (NPR's Marketplace, March 13, 2009)
>> "UMass economists compute costs of public works jobs" (Boston Globe, January 25, 2009)
>> "Shovel ready' projects aim to get money working fast" (Boston Globe, January 20, 2009)
>> "Nationalize the Banks" (The Progressive, February 11, 2009)
>> "IMF slow to embrace 'no-brainer' move that would boost U.S. exports" (Financial Week, February 4, 2009)

PERI's 'Green' Economics Research in the Media

The release of a series of studies on the economic impact of a transition to a clean-energy economy has met with widespread interest in the national and regional media. Read a sampling of the national coverage below:

Robert Pollin on GRITtv (February 5, 2009)

>> The Economist (August 13, 2009)
>> Huffington Post (September 15, 2008; September 23, 2008; January 5, 2009, February 3, 2009, February 12, 2009)
>> National Public Radio (December 8, 2008, February 10, 2009)
>> In These Times (February 9, 2009)
>> Grist (September 10, 2008, September 23, 2008, September 29, 2008, October 13, 2008, November 8, 2008, February 9, 2009)
>> Washington Independent (January 21, 2009)
>> Valley Advocate (January 15, 2009)
>> U.S. News & World Report (October 9, 2008, January 12, 2009)
>> The New York Times (September 10, 2008, December 6, 2008, January 9, 2009, August 14, 2009)
>> Bloomberg News (December 2, 2008)
>> Associated Press (November 25, 2008)
>> EarthBeat Radio (November 25, 2008)
>> The Australian (November 7, 2008)
>> The Boston Globe (October 21, 2008)
>> Forbes (October 1, 2008)
>> The Nation (September 25, 2008)
>> ScrippsNews Service (September 10, 2008)
>> Reuters News Service (September 9, 2008)

PERI on the Financial Crisis

October 17, 2008

Read articles by and interviews with PERI experts on the causes of, and future of, the current financial crisis:

> Obama's Toughest Job: Keeping Workers Working (MarketWatch, December 26, 2008)
> The Current Crisis and Obama's Clintonomics Team (Real News Network, December 25, 2008)
> A Trap in Obama's Spending Plan (New York Times, December 20, 2008)
> The End of Friedmanite Economics: An Interview with Robert Pollin (CounterPunch, October 16, 2008)
> U.S. Bolsters Banking System (Boston Globe, October 14, 2008)
> Ending Casino Capitalism (The Nation, October 13, 2008)
> Recession? Depression? How Deep, How Far and What Can Be Done? (AlterNet, October 11, 2008)
> Next Time, Tax 'Em (The Huffington Post, October 10, 2008)
> Roundtable discussion of Univerity of Masschusetts, Amherst economists
(October 2, 2008)
> Bailout Vote Puts Defazio In National Spotlight (Oregon Public Broadcasting, October 1, 2008)
> Interview with Robert Pollin on Radio New Zealand (October 1, 2008, mp3 file)
> Interview with Robert Pollin on Nevada Public radio (September 29, 2008, mp3 file)
> Ask the Experts: Four Questions about the Bailout (Facing South, September 26, 2008)
> The Great Switch: Banks Rob People by James Crotty (Truthout, September 24, 2008)

PERI's Toxic 100 Index, which identifies the top U.S. air polluters among the world's largest corporations, has recently been updated and refined to include foreign-owned corporations. This index is widely used by activist shareholders, socially-conscious investment firms, researchers, and individuals wanting to make informed, ethical, financial decisions. Follow the links below to see samples of how the Toxic 100 have been received in the online and traditional media:

>> "How Green Is Your Gasoline" (Fox News, June 18, 2009)
>> "No More Freebies at EPA" (The Boston Globe, March 24, 2009)
>> USA Today report on school air quality
>> Truthout
>> Corporate Watchdog Radio
>> SEC Edgar online
>> The Elni Reivew (Journal of the Environmental Law Network International)
>> SocialFunds
>> Toronto Daily News
>> The Daily Hampshire Gazette
>> SRI Notes
>> Sustainable Life Media
>> Environmental Leader
>> Michigan Messenger
>> The Environment Report
>> Dirt Digger's Digest
>> Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

April 2009 -- Read the media coverage of Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America's Industries and Companies to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods:

>> Listen to James Boyce on Sea Change radio
>> Lexington Herald-Leader
>> Baton Rouge Advocate
>> Birmingham News
>> Louisville Courier-Journal
>> Detroit News
>> GreenWire (password required)
>> Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
>> Chicago Tribune
>> Kaiser Family Foundation
>> Springfield Institute
>> Charleston Post and Courier
>> Gary Post-Tribune

“Job Opportunities for the Green Economy” strikes a chord in the regional media

June 4, 2008

The release of PERI’s report “Job Opportunities for the Green Economy,” received widespread attention in the media, and continues to reverberate throughout the internet. Coverage was particularly intense in regions with a high concentration of manufacturing jobs. Less than one week after its release, the report has been coverage in almost fifty media outlets.
 
> Listen to the press conference at which “Job Opportunities for the Green Economy” was released

Read media coverage in:
> Grist.com
> Apollo Alliance blog
> Miami Herald
> Tallahassee Democrat
> Cincinnati Inquirer
> Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
> Knoxville News-Sentinel
> Duluth News Tribune

Cap-and-dividend policy options enter the debate

June 9, 2008

In the context of the Congressional debate over cap-and-trade policies, the media is exploring broader options, including the cap-and-dividend policy first explored in this PERI Working Paper.

> Cap and Dividend website (January 28, 2009)
>  U.S. News & World Report (June 2, 2008)
> The Economist (June 5, 2008)
> The New York Times’ dot.earth blog (June 6, 2008) and here (June 7, 2008)
> Grist.org (February 7, 2008)

"The Wages of Peace" in The Nation

March 2008

"There is no longer any doubt that the Iraq War is a moral and strategic disaster for the United States. But what has not yet been fully recognized is that it has also been an economic disaster. To date, the government has spent more than $522 billion on the war, with another $70 billion already allocated for 2008," wrote Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier in the March 13, 2008 edition of The Nation. What might we have done, instead of waging war, with those resources? Must the economy be bolstered with military spending, or might we be better off spending that money on teachers, healthcare, energy conservation measures, or improving mass transportation? Pollin and Garrett-Peltier explore the impacts of these alternatives on employment and our economy in general.

>> Read "The Wages of Peace" in The Nation

The Economic Policies of the Candidates in Dollars & Sense

March 13, 2008

In this month's Dollars & Sense, Robert Pollin examines the expressed and impled economic policies of the three remaining presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. Pollin looks at the explicit policies mentioned in their campaign speeches and considers who they are using as economic advisors--those individuals who are most like to formulate policy in their candidate's administration.

>> Read "It's Still the Economy, Stupid" in Dollars & Sense

Cap-and-Dividend in the New York Times

January 2, 2008

In this two-part article in the New York Times' 'Dot Earth' blog, Peter Barnes is interviewed by Andrew Revkin about how a cap-and-dividend policy for carbon permits would work. Barnes' policy is based on the research presented in James Boyce and Matthew Riddle's Working Paper, "Cap and Dividend: How to Curb Global Warming while Protecting the Incomes of American Families."

>> Read the interview with Barnes on the New York Times website
>> Download "Cap and Dividend: How to Curb Global Warming while Protecting the Incomes of American Families"

James Boyce interviewed on Natural Assets

December 10, 2007

How can we ensure that natural assets are distributed equitably across groups? And how can the distribution of natural assets affect poverty and social equity? In this interview with C.S. Soong on his radio show, "Against the Grain," James Boyce discusses natural assets and his book of the same name.

>> Download the mp3 or podcast of "Against the Grain"

PERI's work on macroeconomic policy in Africa in the African press

November 26, 2007

Robert Pollin, James Heintz, and Mwangi wa Githinji recently travelled to Kenya to release PERI's full-length study, "An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for Africa" to policymakers, media, and the public. The report was sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme. The Kenya press took note of the release; below is a sample of the coverage.

>> Read "Working, but still living in poverty" in Business Daily Africa
>> Read Robert Pollin's article on expanding decent employment in Kenya in Business Daily
>> "Kenya: 50 Percent of Working Kenyans Poor, Says Study" in The Daily Nation
>> Download "An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for Kenya"

A few weeks earlier, James K. Boyce, director of PERI's program on development, peacebuilding, and the environment, and Leonce Ndikumana, director of PERI's African economies project, presented a keynote address on the linkages between capital flight and external borrowing to a senior policy seminar on capital flight from sub-Saharan Africa in Pretoria, South Africa. The seminar was hosted by the South African Reserve Bank h, in conjunction with the Association of African Central Bank Governors, the African Development Bank, the Bank of England, the Belgium Development Cooperation Agency and the World Bank. Their paper for the meeting documents that in recent decades Africa has been a "net creditor" to the rest of the world: the continent's private external assets exceed its public external debts.

>> Read "Corruption Rises as Africa Gains from Oil" (Reuters)
>> Download "Africa's Debt: Who Owes Whom?"

James Boyce on "Against the Grain"

September 4, 2007

James Boyce, Director of PERI's Development, Peacebuilding & the Environment Program, spoke with C.S. Soong on Pacifica Radio's "Against the Grain" on the relationship between income disparity and environmental degradation.

>> Download the audio file (this is 48M file, so it might take some time)
>> Download James Boyce's Working Paper, "Is Inequality Bad for the Environment?"
>> Go to the "Against the Grain" home page

Robert Pollin on microcredit in "Foreign Policy in Focus"

June 21, 2007

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Mohammad Yunus, for founding the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1976, and leading a worldwide movement to provide credit in small amounts and other financial services to poor people and communities. But, within a larger context of predominant neoliberal economic policies throughout the developing world, can microcredit stand on its own as an effective tool for fighting global poverty? PERI Co-Director Robert Pollin addresses this issue in a new article for Foreign Policy in Focus. Pollin also debates Sam Daley-Harris, Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign, on the effectiveness of microcredit as a poverty-fighting tool.

>> Read Robert Pollin's “Microcredit:  False Hopes and Real Possibilities”
>> Read the debate between Sam Daley-Harris and Robert Pollin on microcredit

Robert Pollin interviewed about microcredit on "Against the Grain"

July 3, 2007

Listen to Robert Pollin elaborate on the pros and cons of microcredit as a poverty-fighting tool, in this interview with C.S. Soong on Pacifica Radio's "Against the Grain."

>> Download the audio file (this is a 49M file, so it might take some time)
>> Read Robert Pollin's article and debate with Sam Daley-Harris in Foreign Policy in Focus
>> Go to the "Against the Grain" home page

The Sky Trust in Newsweek Online

Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, in his online column, promotes the idea of a 'Sky Trust.' This concept, developed in two PERI working papers combines practical emmissions reductions policy with the fundamental idea of a shared public 'commons.' Read the Newsweek column here, or read the original working papers:

>> "Pie In the Sky? The Battle for Atmospheric Scarcity Rents" by Peter Barnes and Marc Breslow
>> "A Chinese Sky Trust? Distributional Impacts of Carbon charges and Revenue Recycling in China," by Mark Brenner, Matthew Riddle, and James Boyce
>> Read more about The Sky Trust at the Sky Trust network website

Robert Pollin on the Minimum Wage in the L.A. Times

January 14, 2007

As the U.S. Congress debates the first increase in the federal minimum wage in ten years, Robert Pollin explains in the L.A. Times that the $7.25 wage under consideration merely puts working Americans almost exactly where they were in 1997 (after adjusting for inflation through 2009, when the wage hike would be implemented). This is not only a lack of real progress, but it flies in the face of dramatic increases in productivity.
Pollin goes on to explain how minimum wages can be gradually raised to approach living wages, as has been done successfully in Santa Fe, and without damage to small businesses and the local economy.

>> Read the full op-ed
>> Read more about PERI's work on minimum and living wages

Ripple Effects in Business Week

In preparation for a likely national minimum wge increase, the November 27 Business Week looks at "ripple effects"-- the increased wages seen by workers higher up the wage ladder, in response to a minimum wage hike. The article refers to PERI economist Jeannet Wicks-Lim's research on ripple effects, and is based in part on extensive conversations with her. Wicks-Lim's research is available as a PERI working paper and as an article in Dollars & Sense magazine.

>>"More Ammo For A Higher Minimum" in Business Week
>>Mandated Wage Floors and the Wage Structure (WP 116)
>>Dollars & Sense, May/June 2006

South Africa's media covers PERI's Alternative Economic Program

PERI's Robert Pollin, Leonce Ndikumana, and James Heintz are spending much of October travelling in South Africa and Kenya, talking with policy makers, NGO officials, and bankers about alternative, pro-poor economic plans for their countries. The South African media is paying attention, and recent coverage has a number of articles in South Africa's Business Day and an op ed in the Mail & Guardian, South Africa's largest newspaper, among others.

>> Review of An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa in Business Day
>> Op ed in the Mail & Guardian
>> "Unemployment level could worsen by 2014" on SABC News
>> "Researchers Urge Bold Employment Plan" in Business Report
>> Coverage of debate at  the Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies / University of Cape Town Development Policy Research Unit conference in Business Report
>> "Rates 'Must Be Lower for Economy to Grow'" in Business Day (also published on AllAfrica.com, in the Sunday Times, and on iafrica.com)
>> "UN Calls for Subsidised Job Creation" in Business Day
>> Interview with Robert Pollin in Business Day
>> "Labour Laws are 'Not that Rigid'" in the Daily Dispatch (also published in the Sowetan)

>> Read more about An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa