For decades, personal bankruptcies increased in the U.S., either reflecting growing economic distress of families or a declining stigma associated with filing for bankruptcy. In a nod to the latter argument, the U.S. Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Prevention Act of...

In the current economic crisis, left and progressive political economics has enjoyed renewed attention and credibility, both inside and outside of academia. In this paper, Merlin Chowkwanyun surveys recent contributions to this literature by Robert Brenner, David Harvey, and Robert Pollin,...

This working paper examines how U.S. migration management techniques affect the flow of undocumented migrants from Mexico and Mexican migrants’ degree of socio-economic reorientation. The findings support the hypothesis that stricter U.S. border enforcement increases migrants’ detachment...

The authors review from a critical perspective the ‘patrimonial capitalism’ approach, as well as its analysis of wage-labor transformations in developed economies during the last thirty years. For this purpose, they take the economies of France and the United States as study cases. According...

During its last complete business cycle, from 2001 to 2007, the United States experienced unsustainably high trade deficits. Policymakers are considering a number of measures to avoid a recurrence of such large external imbalances. One such measure is the promotion of better labor rights around...

The United States experienced an unprecedented financial crisis after 2007. This paper analyzes if retirees had enough wealth built up to weather the financial risks that materialized in the crisis. Financial risks associated with saving for retirement had increasingly shifted onto individuals...

When the United States puts a cap on carbon emissions as part of the effort to address the problem of global climate change, this will increase the prices of fossil fuels, significantly impacting not only consumers but also local, state, and federal governments. Consumers can be “made...

The risks of extreme weather events are typically being estimated, by federal agencies and others, with historical frequency data assumed to reflect future probabilities. These estimates may not yet have adequately factored in the effects of past and future climate change, despite strong...

This working paper evaluates the prospects for China’s energy supply and its impact on economic growth between 2008 and 2050. After considering China’s domestic potential of coal, oil, and gas production, the potential of energy imports from the rest of the world, as well as potential...

This new environmental justice study, (co-authored by PERI’s James Boyce, Michael Ash, & Grace Chang, along with Manuel Pastor, Justin Scoggins, & Jennifer Tran of the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California) examines not only who receives the...