The Greenhouse 100 index is the first ranking of U.S. industrial polluters on the basis of emissions of gases responsible for climate change. Topping the list are three power companies: American Electric Power, Duke Energy, and Southern Company. Each emits over 100 million tons of carbon dioxide annually; together they are responsible for more than five percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Project Directors James Boyce and Michael Ash calculated the percentages of low-income and minority populations living within ten miles of each facility. These indicate the extent to which the toxic co-pollutants that are produced along with greenhouse gases disproportionately impact these groups.

>> Go to the Greenhouse 100 Index

With the Toxic 100 Water Polluters Index, James Boyce and Michael Ash offer the first systematic listing of top water polluters in the United States. The Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, the Ferro Corporation, American Electric Power, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Southern Company top the list of polluters. The accompanying report, "A Toxic Flood,” looks at what the worst polluters are dumping and who is most affected. The index is based on releases of hundreds of chemicals from industrial facilities across the U.S., and takes into account not only the quantity of chemicals released, but also their toxicity.

>> Go to the Toxic 100 Water Polluters homepage
>> Download "A Toxic Flood: The United States Needs Stronger Regulations to Protect Public Health From Industrial Water Pollution"

Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin examine Reinhart and Rogoff’s research on the relationship between public debt and GDP growth for advanced economies in the post World War II period. Reinhart and Rogoff argue that the rate of economic growth for these countries has consistently declined precipitously once the level of government debt exceeds 90 percent of the country’s GDP. In recent years, Reinhart and Rogoff’s results have been highly influential as support for austerity policies in both Europe and the United States. Herndon, Ash and Pollin find that a series of data errors and unsupportable statistical techniques led to an inaccurate representation of the actual relationship between public debt levels and GDP growth. They  find that when properly calculated, average GDP growth for advanced economies at public debt-to-GDP ratios over 90 percent is not dramatically different than when debt-to-GDP ratios are lower.  

>> "Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff"

>> "Debt and Growth: A Response to Reinhart and Rogoff" in The New York Times, April 29, 2013

>> Supplemental Technical Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff's "Growth in a Time of Debt"

>> Robert Pollin and Michael Ash's op ed in the Financial Times

Robert Pollin asks: Are austerity hawks correct that there is simply no alternative to their agenda? Focusing on the U.S., Pollin shows that the hawks’ claims about large deficits causing high inflation and interest rates have been consistently wrong for four years. Moreover, the U.S. is nowhere near experiencing a fiscal crisis in the commonsense definition of the term, which is to say, the government is facing difficulties in meeting its commitments to creditors. Pollin argues that many austerity hawks view this period as an opportunity to eviscerate the public sector, labor unions, and basic social protections, and he sketches some ideas capable of countering that agenda.

>> Download “Austerity Economics and the Struggle for the Soul of U.S. Capitalism”

Ilene Grabel examines five factors that explain the shifting position of capital controls in international monetary policy debates during the current crisis. These include: the rise of increasingly autonomous developing states; the increasing assertiveness of policymakers in these states; a pragmatic adjustment by the IMF to an altered global economy in which its influence has been restricted; the intensification of the need for capital controls by countries that faced implosion and also by those that fared “too well” during the current crisis; and changes in the ideas of academic economists and among IMF staff.

>> Download “The Rebranding of Capital Controls in an Era of Productive Incoherence”

James Heintz addresses the lack of attention that has been paid to gender in the policy frameworks, summits, and declarations of the G20. He finds that the G20 has not seriously considered the fact that sources of gender inequality interact with changes in the economic environment to produce distinct outcomes for women and men. He concludes that gender bias must be identified within the G20’s approach to economic governance if their commitment to inclusive growth is to be realized, and makes five concrete recommendations that would represent significant steps towards this goal.

>> Download "Missing Women: The G20, Gender Equality and Global Economic Governance"

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, many observers have concluded that the U.S. financial system has grown to excessive size relative to the economy’s non-financial sectors. Gerald Epstein and James Crotty explore ways to conceptualize the U.S. financial sector’s appropriate size and quality. They then look at the efficiency of the financial sector in financing real economic activity and the social purpose of financial innovation. They conclude from this preliminary research that “the financial sector may need to be only one-half to one-quarter as large as it is currently to serve the existing needs of the real sector.”

>> Download “How Big Is Too Big? On the Social Efficiency of the Financial Sector in the United States”