Student Debt
Bernie Sanders: The College for All Act
Demos & IASP: Less Debt, More Equity
CRL: Borrowers of Color & the Student Debt Crisis
Global Inequality
Roosevelt – The Student Debt Crisis, Labor Market Credentialization, and Racial Inequality
future-of-the-IMF-special-drawing-right-SDR-ocampo
During The Real News Network interview,, Jeannette Wicks-Lim and Peter Arno discuss how the Earned Income Tax Credit in New York improves healthcare for entire communities. (August 29, 2017)
Joan Hoffman has written “Sustainability and inequality: confronting the debate” in the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice Along Product Life Cycles: Importance, Renewable Energy Examples, And Policy Complexities in Local Environment. (August 29,2017)
Richard D. Wolff and Michael Hudson discuss the concept of “Junk Economics” on the URPE blog. (August 29,2017)
Matias Vernengo has written On Venezuela, Democracy, Violence and Neoliberalism on the Naked Keynesianism blog. (August 29, 2017)
Michael Zwieg writes on White Working-Class Voters and the Future of Progressive Politics on the URPE blog. (June 1, 2017)
Alejandro Ruess writes Reform or Revolution, part 3 of European Social Democracy and the Roots of the Eurozone Crisis on Dollars & Sense. (June 1, 2017)
On the URPE blog, Scott Carter writes about the online posting of the complete notes on Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. (June 1, 2017)
Dean Baker writes Intellectual Property is Real Money on Jacobin. (June 1, 2017)
John Miller writes on The Economics of Backlash on the Dollars & Sense blog. (May 15, 2017)
Take This Job and Guarantee It! Mark Paul explains the job guarantee on Future Left. (May 15, 2017)
Dean Baker writes The Need for Job Killing Robots in Pension Fund Management on his CEPR Beat the Press blog.
Richard Wolff talked with acTVism Munich on What is the state of Economic Education today? (May 15, 2017)
Jayati Ghosh has written Globalization and the End of the Labor Aristocracy on the Dollars & Sense blog. (May 15, 2017)
Patrick Bond has written WEF-Africa hosts a turf battle between Zuma and ‘white monopoly capital‘ in Pambazuka News. (May 15, 2017)
The April Newsletter of the Binzagr Institute has been published including new vlogs in Spanish and English in the Economic Common Sense vlog series and Fadhel Kaboub’s discussion of structural inequality on Real Progressives. (May 15, 2017)
John Weeks has written Understanding Brexit on the Dollars & Sense blog. (May 15, 2017)
On April 24, URPE member John Weeks, retired from SOAS University of London, gave testimony on the economic cost of Brexit to the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union of the Deutsche Bundestag. He was invited as an expert witness by the Left Party (Die Linke) based on a study he had co-authored on reform of the European Union. His main points were that while the economic costs have been exaggerated, the social consequences, especially loss of EU protection of the environment, consumer rights, employment rights and civil rights, will be extremely detrimental to British citizens, with the possible independence of Scotland a massive shock to the political system. See the summary of testimony (in German, right click to translate. (April 26, 2017)
Patrick Bond has written WEF-Africa hosts a turf battle between Zuma and ‘white monopoly capital‘ in Pambazuka News. (May 15, 2017)
The April Newsletter of the Binzagr Institute has been published including new vlogs in Spanish and English in the Economic Common Sense series and Fadhel Kaboub’s discussion of structural inequality on Real Progressives. (May 15, 2017)
John Weeks has written Understanding Brexit on the Dollars & Sense blog. (May 15, 2017)
David Barkin has writtten Food Sovereignty: A Strategy for Environmental Justice, a Binzagr Institute working paper. (April 17, 2017)
See A Turbulent Capitalist Economy: The vision of Anwar Shaikh on the Institute for New Economic Thinking website. (April 12, 2017)
See Matías Vernengo on Latin America’s Crisis: End of the Commodity Super-Cycle, or Return of Neoliberalism on the URPE blog. (March 29, 2017)
Patrick Bond has written In South Africa, enter stage left: Jacob Zuma’s “Radical Economic Transformation alternative factoids in Pambazuka News. (March 29, 2017)
See Dean Baker discuss How the Fed inflation target is keeping wages low and people out of jobs on the Real News Network. (March 29, 2017)
See Richard Wolff”s Economic Update: US Housing Crisis on the URPE blog. (March 29, 2017)
See Richard Wolff’s video Nationalism and Scapegoating Foreigners on the URPE blog. (February 20, 2017)
Alejandro Ruess interviews Gerald Epstein on The Political Economy of Trumponomics on the URPE blog. See the original article on which the interview was based. (February 20, 2017)
The current issue of the URPE Newsletter is out wiith featured articles: Al Campbell:: Fidel and Socialism, Andrew Torre: Fascism: A Dated Paradigm for Capitalist Control, and John Weeks: Trump’s Victory Represents the Fulfilment of Neoliberalism, Not its Failure (February 8, 2017)
Richard Rosen writes A Socialist Economy for the 21st Century, a Next System Project report. (January 3, 2017)
Sasha Breger Bush writes Trump and National Neoliberalism on the Dollars & Sense blog. (January 3, 2017)
Laura Merling and Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research write The Housing Bubble: Is it back? (November 30, 2016)
John Weeks writes By the numbers: Barak Obama’s contribution to the decline of U.S. democracy on openDemocracy. (November 30, 2016)
Frank Ackerman writes Green State America: How to keep America’s climate promises on Dollars and Sense. (November 30, 2016)
J.W. Mason writes Socialize Finance: We already live in a planned economy. Why not make it a democratic one? on Jacobin. (November 30, 2016)
Gerald Friedman’s Nativism As American as (Rotten) Apple Pie appears on the Dollars and Sense blog. (November 15, 2016)
John Weeks writes Trump’s victory represents the fulfillment of neoliberalism, not its failure on Open Democracy. (November 15, 2016)
Patrick Bond has written Trump’s isolationism: Threats and opportunities for Africa on Pambazuka News. (November 11, 2016)
Dean Baker has written Mainstream economics wrecks world economy and now NYT worries about damage from populism on the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Beat the Press blog. (November 11, 2016)
On the URPE blog: October Hunger Notes: the conflict between corporate agriculture and campesinos, Syrian families and war, and more by Lane Vanderslice (November 11, 2016)
Arthur MacEwan has written Will Artificial Intelligence Mean Massive Job Loss on the Dollars & Sense blog. (November 11, 2016)
David Barkin has written Food Sovereignty – A Strategy for Environmental Justice for the on-line World Economic Association Conference on Food and Justice. (November 8, 2016)
John Weeks and Anwar Shaikh discuss The global rise of inequality on The Week’s Update radio show. (November 2, 2016)
J. W. Mason has written Functional finance vs. conventional finance: What’s really at stake? for the Washington Center on Equitable Growth’s blog. (November 2, 2016)
Dean Baker has written The old debt and entitlement charade on Truthout. (November 2, 2016)
Mark Weisbrot has written Venezuela’s Economic Crisis: Does It Mean That the Left Has Failed? in Truthout. (October 24, 2016)
Alejandro Ruess writes on European Social Democracy and the Roots of the Eurozone Crisis on the Dollars & Sense blog, (October 24, 2016)
Hunger Notes for August and September by Lane Vanderslice provides comments and links to important and interesting stories about hunger and poverty, including fewer people poor and hungry in the United States, the Bayer-Monsanto merger, and how the leaders of South Sudan robbed the country. (October 4, 2016)
On the URPE blog, David Fields has posts on cuts at the UMass-Amherst Labor Center, and possible elimination of the Center itself. See UMass-Amherst preparing to abolish Labor Center and UMass admins deny “attack” on Labor Center. (September 13, 2016)
David Fields provides information on the faculty lockout at LIU Brooklyn. (September 13, 2016)
Mark Weisbrot has written Brazil’s Political and Economic Crisis Threatens Its Democracy on The Hill.com.
Gerald Epstein and Juan Antonio Montecino have written Overcharged: The High Cost of Finance. Big Finance’s destructive practices and the overcharging of customers will have cost the U.S. economy between $12.9 and $22.7 trillion by 2023. This report estimates these costs by analyzing three components: 1) rents, or excess profits; 2) mis-allocation costs and 3) the costs of the 2008 financial crisis. (August 31, 2016)
In The American Prospect article A Just Transition for U.S Fossil Fuel Industry Workers, Robert Pollin and Brian Callaci develop a Just Transition framework for workers and communities now dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Their proposal focuses on income and pension-fund support for workers as well as transition assistance for what are now fossil-fuel dependent communities. They estimate the overall cost of the program at a relatively modest $600 million per year. (August 31, 2016)
Alejandro Reuss has written part 1 of The Eurozone Crisis: Monetary Union and Fiscal Disunion in the Triple Crisis blog. (August 17, 2016)
See Scott Carter’s new blog Heretical Sraffa: Furtive Thoughts on Economics and Economic Theory. (August 17, 2016)
Dean Baker has written The Risk of Imagining Capitalism To Be Unfettered in his Beat the Press blog on the failings of economic reporting. (August 17, 2016)
John Weeks has written Labour Party Leadership: Fight for Policies, Not Souls in the Dollars & Sense blog. (August 17, 2016)
Dean Baker has written Homeownership drop is bad news, but not for the reason you think in the New York Times. (August 5, 2016)
Scott Carter has written U.S. Constitution 101, a refresher in the Tulsa World. (August 5, 2016)
Dean Baker has written Secret on Orphan Drugs: The government could pay the other half of the price also on his Beat the Press blog, a commentary on economic reporting. (August 5, 2016)
The Iraqi Marshes: Beauty and Civilization in Danger (English Version) from Michael Zweig on Vimeo.
The vast and historic marshlands in southeastern Iraq, home to Sumerian culture and history for over 5,000 years, have been under threat from deliberate destruction by Saddam Hussein, and more recently by water diversion from the Tigris River. Filmmaker Jonathan Levin and Michael Zweig made The Iraqi Marshes: Beauty and Civilization in Danger (English Version) to help protect these invaluable wetlands after visiting them in October 2012. UNESCO, responding to petitions from Iraqi civil society organizations and their international allies, in July 2016 named the Marshes a World Heritage Site. Read a report from The Guardian by clicking here. The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to have been able to document an important part of this campaign. (July 25, 2016)
Mark Kleindinst has written Corporate Walkover in Progress: The Case of the Southern Company’s “Clean Coal” Plant in Mississippi. The project to create an experimental “clean coal” plant in Mississippi is funded by electric utility customers in the poorest state in the United States. The incentives for the project come from the industry capturing the Public Service Commission of Mississippi. The controversial incentives stipulate that the Southern Company can earn a return on money spent to create electrical infrastructure, even if the experimental plant never produces any electricity. The Southern Company’s Kemper County Mississippi “Radcliffe” Plant, originally estimated to cost about $1.2 billion, is approaching $6 billion dollars, is still not operational, and may never be a profitable facility. Despite this, over 180,000 of America’s poorest citizens are expected to foot the bill.
David Kotz has written A Tough Time for Conventional Wisdom on Common Dreams. (July 12, 2016)
John Weeks has written Understanding the Corbyn Phenomenon on the Dollars and Sense blog. (July 12, 2016)
Andy Battle has written A Message to CUNY Adjuncts, Part-timers and other Exploited Faculty on the Occasion of the Proposed Contract on CUNY Struggle. (July 12, 2016)
See Brian Tokar’s talk on Climate extremes at the Left Forum on our URPE YouTube page.
Richard D. Wolfe has written Economic Theorists: The High Priests of Capitalism on Truthout. (July 5, 2016)
Patrick Bond has written The flight of corporate profits poses biggest threat to South Africa’s economy in a recent issue of Pambazuka News. (July 5, 2016)
Ismael Hossein-zadeh has written Marx on Financial Bubbles: Much Keener Insights Than Contemporary Economists on Counterpunch. (July 5, 2016)
Jennifer Wicks-Lim has written It Pays to be White on the Dollars & Sense blog, (June 27, 2016)
Robin Hahnel has written Brexit:: Establishment Freakout on Counterpunch. (June 27, 2016)
Paddy Quick has written Donald Trump and Micro- vs. Macro- Economics on the URPE Blog. (June 27, 2016)
Arthur MacEwan has written Do Trade Agreements Forstall Progessive Policy? in the May/June issue of Dollars and Sense. (June 16, 2016)
Argeo T. Quiñones-Pérez and Ian J. Seda-Irizarry have written Politics, Primaries and Crisis in Puerto Rico for Telesur. A more detailed discussion of the crisis by the same authors is available in their paper Wealth Extraction, Governmental Servitude, and Social Disintegration in Colonial Puerto Rico. (June 15, 2015)
Paddy Quick has written on Brexit on the URPE Blog. (June 15, 2015)
Heather Boushey and Bridget Ansel from the Washington Center For Equitable Growth have written Overworked America: The Economic Causes and Consequences of Long Work Hours. (May 25, 2016)
Brazilian Coup and U.S. Misinformation by Matias Vernengo appears on his Naked Keynesianism blog. (May 25, 2016)
The latest issue of the URPE Newsletter includes:
- Paddy Quick- Trump, Racism, and the Future of the Left
- Andrew Torre- The Divisive Public/Private Dichotomy
- Brian Serafini- Precarious Work: Domination and Resistance in the U.S., China, and the World
- Gerald Friedman and Robin Hanel supporting A Better Oregon
- RRPE Editorial Board Elections (May 19, 2016)
Jonathan Levin and Michael Zweig have produced a short film Light from Darkness on the new Iraqi labor law. See the power of international labor solidarity and a united Iraqi labor movement as they win passage of an historic labor law in the Iraqi parliament. It is a true victory in the most difficult circumstances, in Iraq and for working people everywhere. See the video here. (May 3, 2016)
URPE newsletter articles will now be available online as single articles, to make online access easier. Articles in the recent issue of the URPE newsletter:
Gary Dymski and Marshall Feldman, Reestablishing a Relationship Between Heterodox Economics and Critical Urban and Economic Geography Mainstream economics has been widely criticized for failing to predict and adequately explain the current economic crisis. In contrast, two other branches of knowledge distinguished themselves by anticipating and even predicting the crisis and by providing substantial insights into the processes underlying it. One is based in critical variants of heterodox economics. The other was the overlapping areas of critical urban studies and economic geography. Yet a remarkable gulf separates relevant heterodox economics and these subfields of human geography.
Geoffrey McCormack, Why Is China Letting the Yuan Fail? There’s been a lot of speculation about China’s recent currency moves, but it’s business as usual for global capitalism.
Ismael Hossein- Zedah, Who Owns the Federal Reserve Bank and Why is it Shrouded in Mysteries? The Federal Reserve Bank (or simply the Fed), is shrouded in a number of myths and mysteries. These include its name, its ownership, its purported independence form external influences, and its presumed commitment to market stability, economic growth and public interest. (May 4, 2016)
Paresth Chattopadhyay, Socialism is Communism in Marx, A note
Richard Wolff analyzed the American economy from a Marxist perspective on Smart Talk with Andrew Mazzone. Prof. Wolff advocates for workers self-directed enterprises (WSDEs) as a key part of moving forward from the current model of capitalism to a new and better economy, citing evidence of new corporations around the world. (May 3, 2016)