Politics and Political Economy

The State and Life Chances in Urban China

Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare

Historical study of the functions of the relief system in America reveals that its policies are cyclical, expanding in times of civil disorder and contracting once political stability is restored.

The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America

It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty

Class, Status, Party

The End of Class Politics? Class Voting in Comparative Perspective

Good Times Bad Times

This paper returns to a classic question of political economy – the zero-sum conflict between capital and labor over the division of the national income pie. A detailed description of labor's share of national income in sixteen industrialized democracies uncovers two long-term trends: an increase in labor's share in the aftermath of World War II, followed by a decrease since the early 1980s. In this paper I propose a model of the relative bargaining power of capital versus labor towards an understanding of the dynamics of labor’s share.

State-Local Pension Costs: Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, and Post-Reform

State and local governments have been facing an extraordinarily difficult fiscal environment in recent years. One of many challenges has been restoring public pension plans to a sound fiscal footing after the economic crisis of 2007-09. States have begun to respond by enacting a mix of revenue increases and benefit cuts. These changes will, over time, improve the financial outlook for plans and help ease their impact on other budget priorities.

Public Attitudes About Macroeconomic Policy in the U.S.

Since at least the Great Depression, most economists and most Americans appear to have accepted that the government should play a significant role in managing the economy by adopting policies that stabilize employment, encourage economic growth, and control inflation. Nevertheless, Americans have always differed on the proper form and extent of government intervention, and these differences may have sharpened in recent decades. In general, policy attitudes appear to have sorted into liberal and conservative clusters and aligned more fully with partisan preferences (Abramowitz 2010).

Tax Structure and Revenue Instability: The Great Recession and the States

Though the great recession has had the most severe overall effect on state tax revenues of any downturn since the Great Depression, impacts varied widely across states. Tax revenues were affected through two different channels. The first is due to the collapse in realized capital gains income following the sharp decline in the stock market. State tax bases are affected in proportion to pre-recession reliance on capital gains income, in turn closely associated with the degree of income concentration.

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