Event Archive - Page 2 of 8 - Equitable Growth

Data Infrastructure for the 21st Century: A Focus on Racial Equity

The large observed racial divides in income, wealth, employment, and other markers of economic well-being between households is a well-known characteristic of the U.S. economy. These divides have a tragic human cost, but they are also a drag on our economy. Pay discrimination, barriers to wealth accumulation, and other forms of systemic racism prevent people from developing and fully deploying their human capital.

The Biden administration has made a public commitment to advance racial equity, including through an executive order signed on President Joe Biden’s first day in office that establishes an Equitable Data Working Group. Across many domains, federal data collection and reporting can be improved to better reflect the diversity of our economy. These improvements could then guide policymakers in implementing more finely tuned policies to address the legacy of systemic racism and the differential impacts of recessions and other economic shocks on communities of color.

This event convened a panel of academics to discuss some actionable areas of policy where the Biden administration could take steps to increase the quality and utility of economic data disaggregation and how these steps would lead to better policy outcomes.

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Speakers

Randall Akee

Randall Akee is an associate professor in the Department of Public Policy and American Indian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently on leave from UCLA and is a David M. Rubenstein fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution. Akee is an applied microeconomist and has worked in the areas of labor economics, economic development, and migration. He has conducted research on the determinants of migration and human trafficking, the effect of changes in household income on educational attainment and obesity, the effect of political institutions on economic development, and the role of property institutions on investment decisions. He also spent several years working for the state of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs Economic Development Division. He is a research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and the Center for Effective Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the National Advisory Council on Race, Ethnic, and Other Populations at the U.S. Census Bureau and is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Corey Fields

Corey D. Fields is an associate professor and the Idol Family Chair in the Sociology Department at Georgetown University. His research explores the role of identity at the individual and collective levels in structuring social life. He draws on a cultural perspective—across a range of methodological approaches—that emphasizes the role of meaning and meaning-making, while recognizing that identities are enacted in specific social contexts. Fields is the author of Black Elephants in the Room: The Unexpected Politics of African-American Republicans. The book explores the dynamic relationship between race and political institutions in contemporary U.S. politics. He has published in Social Psychology Quarterly, Social Currents, Cultural Sociology, and Sociological Forum. He’s also published and has been cited in general media outlets. Currently, he’s working on a few new projects. One interrogates the relationship between social and professional identity through the experiences of African Americans in the advertising industry. Another uses interviews from the American Voices Project to examine racial differences in individuals’ experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and protests against police injustice. A third project analyzes public organizational statements about COVID-19 and racial injustice.

Rakeen Mabud

Rakeen Mabud is the managing director of policy and research and chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. Mabud is an expert on economic inequality and the 21st century workplace, with a particular focus on how structural factors, such as racism and sexism, perpetuate inequities. Most recently, Mabud was the senior director of research and strategy at TIME’S UP Foundation, where she spearheaded the organization’s signature Time’s Up, Measure Up initiative. Prior to TIME’S UP, she was a fellow and the director of 21st century economy and economic inclusion programs at the Roosevelt Institute, where she wrote about how structural inequities interact with the distribution of power in the economy. Mabud also served in the Obama administration in the Office of Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, Forbes, Teen Vogue, Morning Consult, The Hill and Ms. Magazine, among other outlets.

Marie Mora

Marie T. Mora is associate provost for academic affairs and professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Previously, she was professor of economics and associate vice provost for faculty diversity at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and a professor of economics at The University of Texas-Pan American, which was consolidated to form UTRGV. Prior to that, she was a tenured faculty member at New Mexico State University. Mora earned her Ph.D. in economics from Texas A&M University, and B.A. and M.A. degrees (also in economics) from the University of New Mexico in her hometown of Albuquerque. Mora’s research interests are in labor economics, particularly in the areas of Hispanic/Latino labor market and other socioeconomic outcomes, including self-employment and migration. She has published on these topics in refereed journals such as the American Economic Review P&P, Industrial Relations, Journal of Population Economics, Social Science Quarterly, and International Migration Review, among others. Her books include Population, Migration, and Socioeconomic Outcomes of Island and Mainland Puerto Ricans: La Crisis Boricua (Lexington Books 2017), co-authored with Alberto Dávila & Havidán Rodríguez; the award-winning Hispanic Entrepreneurs in the 2000s (Stanford University Press 2013), co-authored with A. Dávila; and two co-edited/co-authored volumes (also with A. Dávila): The Economic Status of the Hispanic Population (Information Age Publishing 2013), and Labor Market Issues along the U.S.-Mexico Border (University of Arizona Press 2009). Mora has been invited to share her research expertise on Hispanic/Latino socioeconomic outcomes across the United States, including with the White House Initiative for the Educational Excellence of Hispanics; the White House Council of Economic Advisers; the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; and the U.S. Department of Labor; among other agencies and institutions.

Tracey Ross

Tracey Ross is a director at PolicyLink, where sheis focused on federal policy and narrative change. Most recently, she led the organization’s All-In Cites initiative, working with cities across the country to adopt policies and practices to ensure that people’s ZIP codes do not determine their life outcomes. She is also a contributing writer for Essence magazineand serves as a delegate to the U.S. Japan Leadership Program. Prior to joining PolicyLink, Ross worked at the Center for American Progress on urban poverty and environmental justice, and at Living Cities on building a green economy. She has been a guest on The Melissa Harris Perry Show on MSNBC, Inside Story on Al Jazeera English, and was a regular commentator for SiriusXM’s The Agenda. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence, ThinkProgress, Ebony,and The Nation. Ross began her career in the offices of former U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO). She completed her master’s degree in public affairs with a focus on urban policy and planning at Princeton University, and received a bachelor’s degree in political science and anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe

Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe is an economist and mathematician, and the president and founder of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race. She is the co-editor of the Review of Black Political Economy and has served as president of the National Economic Association. She was previously on the Center for American Progress’ National Advisory Council on Eliminating the Black-White Wealth Gap and currently serves on the boards of the International Association for Feminist Economists and Diversifying and Decolonising Economics. Sharpe is a fellow in the inaugural cohort of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Mosaic Economic Project and was named a Black Scholar You Should Know by TheBestSchools.org and BlackEnterprise.com. Her research has been featured on the PBS News Hour, Marketplace, and the Kerri Miller Show, and in The New York Times, The Economist, and The Washington Post. She is a recurring guest on the BBC’s Business Matters and an opinion contributor to Bloomberg.com. Sharpe completed her undergraduate studies in mathematics at North Carolina Wesleyan College. She holds master’s degrees from Clark Atlanta University in applied mathematics, Stanford University in operations research, and Claremont Graduate University in economics. She completed her doctorate in economics/mathematics at Claremont Graduate University.

Danny Yagan

Danny Yagan is chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget.

Please direct questions related to event content to Computational Social Scientist Austin Clemens.

Please direct questions related to event logistics and technology to Events & Conferences Manager Natalie Intondi.

Webinar: How to strengthen U.S. labor standards enforcement to protect workers’ rights

The COVID-19 pandemic that led to record unemployment also devastated state and local government revenues across the country. With governments still facing extraordinary budget deficits, this fiscal crisis makes it even more difficult for state and local labor enforcement agencies to respond to labor violations, such as wage theft, just when this work is needed most.

In this webinar, Equitable Growth grantees Janice Fine, Daniel Galvin, and Jenn Round of the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at Rutgers University outlined how labor standards enforcement agencies can strategically target high-violation industries. They also described how agencies can partner with worker centers, unions, legal advocacy organizations, and other community-based organizations to more proactively address labor rights violations.

The webinar included information on further resources for labor standards enforcement agencies and community and worker organizations and how federal labor enforcement standards can be reformed to meet the challenges of a changing U.S. labor market hit hard by the coronavirus recession. The webinar included a Q&A period with the audience following the presentation.

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About Janice Fine

Janice Fine is a professor of labor studies and employment relations at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University, and director of research and strategy at the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization. Fine researches worker organizations, historical and contemporary debates within labor movements regarding immigration, labor standards enforcement, privatization, and government oversight. She works across the country with government agencies and organizations to research labor violations in their jurisdictions and implement innovative labor standards enforcement strategies, including partnerships between government agencies and organizations. Prior to becoming a professor at Rutgers, she worked as a community, labor, coalition, and political organizer for more than 20 years.

About Daniel Galvin

Daniel Galvin is an associate professor of political science and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He is also a nonresident fellow at the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations. His current book project examines the development of alt-labor groups and the changing politics of workers’ rights. Galvin’s other work focuses on presidential and party politics and U.S. political development. He is the author of Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush (Princeton University Press), co-editor of Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State (New York University Press), and has published numerous journal articles and book chapters. Galvin holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

About Jenn Round

Jenn Round is a senior fellow with the labor standards enforcement program at the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at Rutgers University. Prior to joining CIWO, Round helped to launch and led enforcement at the Seattle Office of Labor Standards. She has played an integral role in planning, implementing, and managing numerous rule of law programs, including developing a culturally relevant program designed to reduce domestic violence in rural Alaska and creating an undergraduate law degree program at the American University of Afghanistan. She holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and a LL.M. from the University of Washington School of Law.

About Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy

This webinar drew from Fine, Galvin, and Round’s essay, “Strategic enforcement and co-enforcement of U.S. labor standards are needed to protect workers through the coronavirus recession,” which was co-authored with Hana Shepherd and appeared in Equitable Growth’s new book, Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy. The book features 10 essays by leading scholars on policies to raise wages by addressing underlying structures and dynamics in our economy. The essays—developed in partnership with the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley and with funding from the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust—guide policymakers on how to deliver broadly shared economic prosperity by making wages a key outcome to structural economic policy at the federal and state levels.

Please direct questions related to event content to Labor Market Policy Analyst Kathryn Zickuhr.

Please direct questions related to event logistics and technology to Events and Conferences Manager Natalie Intondi.

Equitable Growth Presents: Dispelling Poverty Myths and Expanding Income Support

A conversation with Mark Rank, the Herbert S. Hadley professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on issues of poverty, inequality, and social justice. Rank presented research on the widespread and systemic nature of poverty, which a majority of Americans will experience at some point during their lives. This was followed by a conversation on how understanding the “myths” of poverty can inform current policy debates on how to strengthen and expand our income-support system to invest in people and grow the economy.

This event was an installment of “Equitable Growth Presents: Evidence for a Stronger Economy,” a lecture series that seeks to foster a deeper understanding of cutting-edge research and analysis on economic inequality and growth. These lectures bring together leading scholars to explore how new research is shifting important conversations in academia and economic policy.

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Please direct questions related to event content to Senior Manager of Academic Engagement, Christian Edlagan.

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Webinar: Transforming U.S. supply chains to create good jobs

One reason U.S. workers’ wages are stagnating is that large firms shifted from doing many activities in-house to buying goods and services from a complex web of other companies. Sometimes this restructuring can lead to innovation if supplier firms specialize in producing complex technologies or processes. But in other cases, firms outsource so they can offload production onto firms with weak bargaining power and thus little ability to compete except by aggressively holding down wages. This “low-road” model for the U.S. economy weakens innovation and suppresses wages, contributing to the erosion of U.S. workers’ standard of living.

A different kind of outsourcing is possible: high-road supply networks that benefit firms, workers, and consumers alike. High-road outsourcing, however, requires overcoming both market and network failures. In this hour-long webinar, economist and Equitable Growth grantee Susan Helper, the Carlton professor of economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, presented her research on building high-road supply networks that allow greater collaboration between management and workers, and a set of policy proposals that directly address each of the reasons that outsourcing increases wage inequality.

About Susan Helper

Susan Helper is the Carlton professor of economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. She was formerly chief economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce and a member of the White House staff. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the impacts of supply chain design and of automation on job quality and on climate change. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and co-director of CIFAR’s Project on Innovation, Equity, and the Future of Prosperity. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and her B.A. from Oberlin College in economics, government, and Spanish.

About Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy

This webinar drew from Helper’s essay, “Transforming U.S. supply chains to create good jobs,” which appeared in Equitable Growth’s new book, Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy. The book features 10 essays by leading scholars on policies to raise wages by addressing underlying structures and dynamics in our economy. The essays—developed in partnership with the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley and with funding from the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust—guide policymakers on how to deliver broadly shared economic prosperity by making wages a key outcome to structural economic policy at the federal and state levels.

Please direct questions related to event content to Labor Market Policy Analyst Kathryn Zickuhr.

Please direct questions related to event logistics and technology to Events and Conferences Manager Natalie Intondi.

Research on Tap: Investing in an equitable future

Research shows that the Great Recession prolonged long-term scarring for many workers and their families, in part because U.S. policymakers failed to see an economic recovery through to its conclusion. In the decade following the Great Recession, wages stagnated and working and middle-class families barely recovered, despite record-long economic growth. Indeed, younger workers, rural communities, and many families—especially families of color—never recovered.

In short, the need for substantially greater public investments in sustainable economic growth existed before any of us had ever heard of the new coronavirus.

Now, in the wake of the pandemic, there is an opportunity to address pervasive economic inequality and make critical investments in human, physical, and intellectual capital. If policymakers do it right, then the United States could emerge from the coronavirus recession stronger, more resilient, and more equitable.

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth and the Groundwork Collaborative relaunched our popular event series Research on Tap, a space for drinks, dialogue, and debate. In this installment, we discussed the role of increasing investments to address the underlying structural inequalities laid bare by the coronavirus recession and advance a sustained economic recovery that puts the United States on a path to strong, stable, and broadly shared growth.

The event kicked off with a one-on-one conversation between Chair Rouse and Washington Post reporter Tracy Jan, who covers the intersection of race and the economy.

Tracy Jan

Tracy Jan covers the intersection of race and the economy for The Washington Post, a beat she launched in December 2016 that encompasses racial economic disparities, immigration, housing policy and other stories that hold businesses and politicians accountable for their decisions and promises. Her work has delved deeply into reparations for slavery, systemic racism in America, and the economic and health impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Black, Asian, Latino and immigrant communities. She previously was a Washington-based national political reporter for The Boston Globe, where she covered the 2016 and 2012 presidential campaigns. During her 12 years at the Globe, Jan had also written about health and science policy, higher education, and Boston Public Schools. She started her career as a crime and courts reporter at The Oregonian after receiving her bachelor’s degree in communication and master’s degree in sociology from Stanford University. She was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, as well as a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan. She has reported from Taipei, Beijing, Tibet and along the Yangtze River.

Cecilia Rouse

Cecilia Elena Rouse was confirmed by the Senate on March 2, 2021 as the 30th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, making her the first Black leader of C.E.A. in its 75-year history. In this role, she serves as President Biden’s Chief Economist and a Member of the Cabinet. She is the Katzman-Ernst Professor in the Economics of Education and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Immediately prior to the Administration, Rouse served as the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. From 2009 to 2011, Rouse served as a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. She worked at the National Economic Council in the Clinton administration as a Special Assistant to the President from 1998 to 1999. Her academic research has focused on the economics of education, including the benefits of community colleges and impact of student loan debt, as well as discrimination and the forces that hold some Americans back in the economy. Rouse was the founding director of the Princeton Education Research Section, and she served as senior editor of The Future of Children, a policy journal published by Princeton and the Brookings Institution. She previously served on the boards of the Council of Foreign Relations, University of Rhode Island and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and was an independent director of the T. Rowe Price Funds. Rouse joined the Princeton faculty in 1992 after earning her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, where she also completed her undergraduate work.

Following, four leading experts discussed strategic investments to spur structural change.

Jhumpa Bhattacharya

Jhumpa Bhattacharya is the Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. In this role, Jhumpa is a key contributor to the thought leadership of the Insight Center, provides cross-program content support and strategic guidance, and oversees the racial and economic justice portfolio. She directly leads work identifying policy and narrative solutions to racial and gender wealth inequities as well as work on mitigating the harms of mass incarceration.

Joelle Gamble

Joelle Gamble serves as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy on the Biden-Harris National Economic Council. Prior to this role, she was an economic policy advisor on the Biden-Harris Transition, a principal for the Reimagining Capitalism initiative at Omidyar Network and a Senior Advisor to the CEO and Director at the Roosevelt Institute. Joelle holds degrees in international development from UCLA and economic policy from Princeton University.

Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova is the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law and Director of the Jack Clarke Program on the Law and Regulation of Financial Institutions and Markets at Cornell University. Professor Omarova’s research focuses on systemic risk regulation and structural trends in financial markets, banking law, and political economy of finance. Prior to joining academia, she served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury as a Special Advisor for Regulatory Policy to the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a J.D. degree from Northwestern University.

Amanda Fischer

Amanda Fischer is the Policy Director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Prior to joining Equitable Growth, she worked for more than a decade on Capitol Hill in roles related to economic policymaking. Fischer was most recently chief of staff for Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA). She also served as staff on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), as a policy advisor for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and as deputy staff director for the House Committee on Financial Services for Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA). She graduated with a bachelor’s degrees in business administration and public policy from the University at Buffalo and an M.A. in public policy from Georgetown University.

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A future for all workers: Technology and worker power

Technology has always been an integral part of the tools people use at their jobs and to create solidarity and exercise their voices at work. Change is inevitable, but the form it takes is not. At issue are how workplaces implement new technologies and the impact these technologies have on workers’ lives. How these technological changes are implemented, in turn, depends on the underlying economic and legal structures, as well as the extent to which workers are empowered to be full and active partners in technological adoption and integration.

Equitable Growth’s “A future for all workers: Technology and worker power” virtual event featured researchers and advocates discussing how technology is used to amplify or stifle worker voice, how workers bargain over the use of data and technology, and how policy can improve outcomes in the future of work.

Panel 1: Using technology for worker voice

Technology offers new opportunities for workers to engage with each other and collectively exercise their voice at work. This panel reviewed how workers successfully use the tools of technology to engage with each other and with their employers to increase worker power, and what new tools and policy supports are needed to continue to build worker power in a new economy.

Panel 2: Bargaining over technology

Throughout history, technological adoption within workplaces has changed the nature of people’s jobs. One critical aspect of worker power is being able to bargain over the processes of implementing and using new technologies, so that both workers and businesses can thrive in a productive economy. This panel explored worker advocacy around new technologies in the workplace, and what legislation and protections are needed for workers to have a say over how and when new technologies become part of their jobs.

Download the agenda and speaker information:

Technology and worker power Download

Watch the livestream of the event:

Please contact events@equitablegrowth.org with any questions.

Ideas to Boost Wages in the New Economy: Ten Essays on Raising Wages for U.S. Workers

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth held a launch event for our book of essays on how to boost U.S. wages in the new economy on January 14, 2021, from 2:30 p.m. – 4 p.m. EST.

The book, Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy, features 10 essays by leading scholars on policies to raise wages by addressing underlying structures and dynamics in our economy.

The essays—developed in partnership with the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley and with funding from the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust—guide policymakers on how to deliver broadly shared economic prosperity by making wages a key outcome to structural economic policy at the federal and state levels.

The event included a series of fireside chats to discuss how to reimagine the U.S. economy so that workers are able to share in the value they create, highlighting policy priorities and proposals to balance power and foster an equitable economy. The event began with an introductory keynote from Congressman Bobby Scott, Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, about labor policy in the new Congress.

Speakers included:

Congressman Bobby Scott, Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives (Keynote)
Ioana Marinescu, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, on addressing market concentration and employers’ ability to undercut wages.
Jesse Rothstein, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Director, California Policy Lab, on supporting policies to broadly share economic risks.
Andria Smythe, Assistant Professor of Economics, Howard University, on making higher education more accessible.

Watch the recording of the event:

Please contact events@equitablegrowth.org with any questions.

Equitable Growth 2021: People and Research Advancing Economic Evidence

What was it?

Equitable Growth 2021: People and Research Advancing Economic Evidence brought together Washington Center for Equitable Growth grantees and stakeholders to showcase cutting-edge research from our grantees on how economic inequality affects economic growth and stability. Early and mid-career, as well as established, scholars had a chance to give and receive feedback on their research, as well as discuss the relevance of that research in an evidence-backed economic agenda in 2021 and beyond.

Why you should have attended?

Research matters—perhaps now more than ever. Good policies begin with rigorous research such as the kind presented by our grantees at Equitable Growth 2021. Ongoing transformative shifts in economic thinking have brought to light the telling effects of inequality on growth in the United States, and the coronavirus recession has further laid bare structural inequality and racial inequities woven into the U.S. economy. The research presented, and the scholars who produced it, has the power to shape both new bodies of research and the U.S. economic policy agenda in 2021 and beyond.

Who attended?

Equitable Growth grantees, Steering Committee and Research Advisory Board members. Paper sessions were open to philanthropic partners and journalists, and the conference opened and closed with public events.

What was on the agenda?

From paper sessions to trainings, fireside chats, keynotes, and salon conversations, Equitable Growth 2021 focused on the people and research advancing economic evidence right now.

View the opening fireside chat and the keynote:

Equitable Growth 2021 – Welcome and Fireside Chat

Keynote with U.S. Representative Ro Khanna

Paper and panel sessions covered throughout are outlined below, with video for those sessions that were on the record:

New Insights into the Role of the Social Safety Net in Economic Stability and Individual Well-being

Labor Market Regulations and the Outcomes of Vulnerable Workers

Measurement and Dimensions of Inequality

Firms and Wage Inequality

Competition and Market Structure

Markets, Innovation, and Equitable Growth

Labor Market Institutions and Outcomes

Work and Wages

Sessions that were not on the record included:

Policies to Address the Impact of Race and Socioeconomic Status on Economic Outcomes
The Role of Unemployment Insurance in Supporting Workers and the Economy
Climate Change and Environmental Harm
Well-Being and Time at Work
Concentration and Labor Markets

In addition to opportunities to learn about cutting-edge research, grantees also had an exclusive opportunity to learn from peers and experts on the following topics during professional trainings and informal salons:

Navigating the Academic Job Market
Accessing Administrative Data
Working With the Media
How to Mentor Graduate Students and Early Career Professionals
Policy Training and Public Service Opportunities

Restoring Competition in the United States: A Vision of Antitrust Enforcement for the Next Decade

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth held a virtual conference on November 19 to discuss the release of Equitable Growth’s antitrust transition report.

An emerging bipartisan consensus warns that antitrust enforcement has failed to protect the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, as underscored by the October 2020 House Judiciary Committee’s report, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets.” Federal antitrust enforcers in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission have been criticized for being too lax, and courts have been criticized for incorrectly limiting the reach of the antitrust laws. Equitable Growth’s transition report is the work of a committee of academics, legal experts, and former government officials who assessed the antitrust landscape and provided their recommendations for the next administration’s antitrust enforcement priorities to correct these failures.

This webinar consisted of a series of panels discussing these recommendations for improving antitrust enforcement. The panels covered a broad range of issues, from political leadership at the agencies to case selection and the need for legislation. This conference featured the following authors of the transition report and commentators:

Agenda

1:00 p.m.: Introduction and Opening Remarks:

Heather Boushey, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

1:25 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Panel #1: How the Antitrust Agencies Can Optimize Deterrence

Bill Baer (moderator), Brookings Institution (on leave)
Nancy Rose, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jonathan B. Baker, American University
Michael Kades, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Daniel Crane, University of Michigan
Marc Lanoue, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (Detailed from Federal Trade Commission)

2:50 p.m. – 4:10 p.m: Panel #2: Promoting Competition as a Federal and Congressional Priority

Carl Shaprio (moderator), University of California, Berkeley
Tim Wu, Columbia University
Fiona Scott Morton, Yale University
Michael Kades, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Ganesh Sitaraman, Vanderbilt University
Josh Soven, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Additional event resources

Restoring Competition in the United States: A vision for antitrust enforcement for the next administration and Congress

Equitable Growth releases policy agenda for U.S. antitrust enforcement

Vision 2020 Webinar: Focusing on Economic Recovery and Structural Change

The public health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic recession are unprecedented in speed and severity. Decades of failed economic policies, based on ideology instead of evidence, and a blind adherence to the idea that markets can solve every problem made our economy and our society especially vulnerable. Today’s crises have exposed and exacerbated many systemic inequalities in our society, and the evidence suggests the economic downturn will be especially harmful to the long-term economic mobility and wealth accumulation of Black and Latinx families.

To have any chance of emerging on a stronger footing as a nation with less economic inequality and more sustainable economic growth, policymakers need to enact a robust set of public policies that ensure high-end inequality is contained, counterweights to concentrated power are built, and economic security for all is achieved now and going forward.

To aid discussion of the bold policy ideas necessary to achieve these goals, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth hosted a webinar with top economic experts on Thursday, June 25 between 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. ET. The event, titled Vision 2020: Focusing on economic recovery and structural change, tackled how current finance, banking, and labor laws and institutions exacerbate economic and racial inequality, and what we can do to set the stage for strong, stable, and broad-based economic growth now and into the future.

The webinar was a continuation of Equitable Growth’s Vision 2020 project, an effort to ensure the latest research informs critical election-year economic policy debates, and followed the release of the book Vision 2020: Evidence for a Strong Economy and the 2019 conference of the same name. The book is a compilation of 21 essays proposing evidence-backed, concrete, and at-scale policy ideas to reduce economic and racial inequality and boost shared prosperity. Four of the books’ authors were featured at the webinar. For summaries of those highly relevant essays, click here.

The webinar included two panels:

Democratizing the Economy (2:00-2:40p.m. ET): How financial institutions and the Federal Reserve have exacerbated inequality and why we need new institutions, or drastically reformed ones, to ensure broadly shared growth.
- Heather Boushey (moderator), Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- Mehrsa Baradaran, University of California, Irvine
- Emma Coleman Jordan, Georgetown University
Building Power for Workers and Families (2:40-3:30p.m. ET): How enhanced collective bargaining rights, public benefit and social insurance programs, anti-discrimination protections, and other power-building policies can help Black, Latinx, and other workers emerge stronger from this crisis.
- David Mitchell (moderator), Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia University
- Taryn Morrissey, American University
- Naomi Zewde, City University of New York