A paper by faculty member Deepankar Basu and graduate student Kartik Misra on the 2014 General Elections in India was referred to in the article “Youth and the Political Economy of Dissent,” published recently in Mint on Sunday/Economics Express. Read the article.
James K. Boyce, Klara Zwickl, and Michael Ash co-authored the article “Measuring_Environmental_Inequality,” which was recently published in Ecological Economics.
Alternative measures of environmental inequality in the 50 U.S. states are presented vis-à-vis exposure to industrial air pollution.
Gerald Epstein discusses the stance of Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, on presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to break up big banks. (Real News Network, 3/1/16)
From Dollars & Sense Blog, 2/24/16:
Black Students Matter: Why Sanders Is Winning Young Voters
By Gerald Friedman and Mark Paul
Horace Mann and John Dewey understood that universal public education is essential for a functioning democracy. Their successors built public university systems open to all to promote democracy and an efficient and fair economy. But this vision has been forgotten, and crushing fees and tuition now close public higher education to far too many. African Americans, especially, suffer because centuries of slavery and discrimination have denied them the family wealth to send children to college. We risk losing another generation to poverty by denying young people the education to compete for the productive and high paying jobs in a rapidly changing, high tech economy. Read more…..
Robert N. Pollin, Distinguished Professor in economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, says if Hillary Clinton is relying on her husband, President Bill Clinton, for economic advice, that’s bad news for ordinary Americans. He argues that the Clinton administration policies favored the wealthy and Wall Street investors and made life more difficult for working people. (The Nation, 1/26/16)
James K. Boyce, economics and the Political Economy Research Institute, discusses recent news that global CO2 emissions have declined at the same time that the global economy has grown. He says it has long been accepted that rising incomes and declining CO2 could not happen at the same time, but now clearly that’s not true. Boyce says it’s good news that reducing CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t automatically restrict growth in the economy. (The Real News Network, 12/14/15)
A story about how National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of nurses, is criticizing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign for attacking rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on his health care for all proposal. The plan was criticized by the Wall Street Journal, but Gerald Friedman, economics, who helped develop the plan and was cited by the Journal as a critic, says the reporting included only the costs and not the financial benefits of a single-payer health care system. (Marketplace [NPR], The Street, 11/18/15)
From James Boyce’s statement “Capital Flight from Africa: What is to be Done?” to the Joint Session of the UN General Assembly and the Economic & Social Council:
Capital flight and illicit financial flows
The terms ‘capital flight’ and ‘illicit financial flows’ sometimes are used interchangeably,
but they are distinct concepts. Capital flight is usually defined as unrecorded capital
outflows and measured as the missing residual in the balance of payments, after
corrections for underreported external borrowing and trade misinvoicing. All capital
flight is illicit, but not all illicit financial flows are capital flight. Capital flight is illicit by
virtue of illegal acquisition, illegal transfer, illegal holding abroad, or some combination
of the three. Read more: Boyce statement – UNGA-ECOSOC meeting – 23 Oct 2015 – final