This study, commissioned by the Center for American Progress, examines  broader economic considerations—jobs, incomes, and economic growth—through the lens of two government initiatives this year by the Obama administration and Congress. The first is the set of clean-energy provisions...

This paper outlines the elements of a development-targeted economic framework aimed at creating decent employment opportunities as a strategy for realizing core human development goals in Africa. Four policy areas form the core of the paper: monetary policy and inflation, exchange rate policy,...

Over recent decades, there has been the substantial rise in the proportion of people engaged in what is termed informal employment, generating a broad trend toward “informalization” of labor market conditions in developing countries, even when economic growth is proceeding. We consider the...

The vast majority of Americans work for a living. The track record of different states varies widely when it comes to providing decent opportunities for working people. The Work Environment Index (WEI) captures these differences and provides a basis for evaluating how well each state does in...

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...