The 2015 Paris Agreement adopted the goal of limiting the rise in global mean temperature to 1.5 – 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. In this paper forthcoming in Ecological Economics, PERI economist James Boyce argues that carbon pricing can play a key role in meeting this objective, either through a cap-and-permit system or a carbon tax indexed to a fixed emission-reduction trajectory.  But carbon pricing can have significant regressive distributional impacts, raising energy prices disproportionately on lower-income people. Boyce shows how these distributional impacts can be addressed by universal dividends funded by carbon revenues. 

Since liberalization, urban migration in India has increased in quantity, but also changed in quality, with permanent marriage migration and temporary, circular employment migration rising, even as permanent economic migration remains stagnant. In this new paper, Smriti  Rao and Vamsi Vakulabharanam understand internal migration in India to be a re-ordering of productive and reproductive labor that signifies a deep transformation of society. This transformation is a response to the combination of agrarian, employment, and social reproduction crises.  The migration patterns support capital accumulation, but create major burdens for a majority of Indians, who are seeking stable, rooted livelihoods.

How much would it cost employers to offer paid sick leave to their employees and how does this compare to typical industry expenses in the U.S. economy? Such mandates would help provide paid sick leave to the 32 percent of private industry workers who are currently uncovered.  Amanda Page-Hoongrajok finds that the costs are consistently low across various sectors of the U.S. economy, averaging no more than 0.5 percent of total operating expenses. Further, the benefits of reduced turnover are themselves likely to cover almost all of the paid sick leave cost increases.