The people of South Africa, and the African National Congress-led government, have made extraordinary social and economic advances since ending apartheid and beginning the transition to democracy in 1994. But the country still faces severe problems of mass unemployment, underemployment and...

In December 2010, the FAO food price index surpassed its previous peak of June 2008, and prices have been maintained at this high level through September 2011 (i.e. as of this writing). This pattern in food prices is creating justified fears of a renewal or intensification of the global food...

"Expanding Decent Employment in Kenya: The Role of Monetary Policy, Inflation Control and the Exchange Rate” is the first installment of the forthcoming full-scale study, An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for Kenya by Robert Pollin and James Heintz of PERI and Mwangi Githinji of the...

The financial crisis reveals a need for a public credit rating agency that is not in the pay of issuers, according to M. Ahmed Diomande, James Heintz, and Robert Pollin.

This paper provides some empirical evidence on issues raised by the global antisweatshop movement. We first consider the relationship between wage and employment growth, finding no consistent trade-off between them. We then measure the share of labour costs in the production of garments in the...

This report considers a proposal to reinstate the New York stock transfer tax (STT)that was phased out between 1979 and 1981. The proposal under consideration would reinstate the tax at half the rate that prevailed at the time of its repeal. The revenues from such a tax, at around $3.5 billion...