Delivering equitable growth: strategies for the next Administration

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is proud to introduce Delivering equitable growth: strategies for the next Administration. This series of essays serves as a guide to the two presidential transition teams, highlighting academic experts and their ideas on a wide range of economic policy issues core to our country’s future. Read the essays.

Read the full PDF in your browser

Ideas about what does—and what does not—make the economy grow are at the core of our national economic debate. The U.S. economy underwent dramatic structural changes over the past three decades, with one of the most profound being the rise in economic inequality. Data from University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez shows that share of income accruing to the top one percent grew dramatically, from 34.2 percent in 1979 to 50.5 percent in 2015. Analysis from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finds that while incomes for the top one percent grew by 187 percent between 1979 and 2013, incomes for the middle 60 percent of American households grew by just 32 percent over that same period. This period of rising inequality has been matched by a three-decade long deceleration in the rate of U.S. economic growth.

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is proud to be a hub for economists and other scholars who are actively working to come to terms with what these changes mean—and what the research implies for policymaking. Making evidence-informed policy requires knowing the research, and, perhaps even more importantly, knowing who to rely on for smart ideas. As the next Administration gears up to govern, building out this network of ideas and scholars is critical. To that end, we introduce “Delivering equitable growth: strategies for the next Administration.” This series of essays highlights academic experts and their ideas on a wide range of economic policy issues core to our country’s future.

These essays are neither a platform nor a position statement. Rather, they represent a diverse range of academic experts writing in their own words about an economic problems facing our society, summarizing the research that defines those problems, and proposing solutions informed by that research. Scholars tackled topics ranging from policies affecting families, businesses, capital and markets, and communities. Equitable Growth provided copy editing and layout assistance for the essays.

These essays are meant to be a starting place for the next Administration’s engagement with Equitable Growth’s rapidly growing network of academics who are part of the evidence-driven conversation about the future of U.S. economic policy. We hope that our efforts provide a launch-point for elevating new voices and new ideas into the conversation, as well as highlighting the evidence behind ideas that have been part of the conversation for quite some time.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you are interested in speaking with one of the authors or in learning more about the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.