In an article for the Boston Review, Prabhat Patnaik examines the four decades under neoliberal globalization. Its agenda has decimated labor rights, imposed rigid limits on fiscal deficits, given massive tax breaks and bailouts to big capital, sacrificed local production for multinational supply chains, and privatized public sector assets at throwaway prices. Patnaik argues that as the credibility of trickle-down economics has eroded, neofascism has emerged as a new prop sustaining neoliberalism. The result is that capital moves readily across international borders while the movement of people is controlled by a sharp increase in income inequality and a steady winnowing of democracy.
Read more...
Reframing Incentives for Climate Policy Action
A key aim of climate policy is to progressively substitute renewables and energy efficiency for fossil fuel use. The associated rapid depreciation and replacement of fossil-fuel-related capital entail a profound reorganization of industry value chains, international trade and geopolitics. In this new study, PERI’s Gregor Semieniuk and coauthors show that a new configuration is emerging in which fossil fuel importers are better off decarbonizing, competitive fossil fuel exporters are better off flooding markets and uncompetitive fossil fuel producers suffer from their exposure to stranded assets and lack of investment in decarbonization technologies.
Read more...
Political Economy of the Environment
This new book, edited by Éloi Laurent and Klara Zwickl, is comprised of research surveys by leading environmental scholars, including PERI's James Boyce, Michael Ash, and Rich Puchalsky. The chapters present the state of the art on ecological issues and crises from a political economy perspective, shedding new light on both the effect of economic and power inequality on environmental dynamics and the economic and social impact of environmental dynamics. Boyce contributes a chapter on "Carbon Pricing and Climate Justice." Boyce, Ash, and Puchalsky’s chapter is "Building on the Right-to-Know: Data Interlinkage and Information Intermediation for Environmental and Corporate Regulation."
Read more...
Advancing Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice: Interview with Michael Ash
In this interview with C.J. Polychroniou, Michael Ash says “I have always wanted to intervene for justice in economic and social affairs. I thought economics would give me the tools to understand the problems – like deprivation, inequality, and unemployment – and to develop solutions.” Ash discusses his current work on environmental justice in the context of green economic and energy transition, explaining why and how equity and social justice need to be included in the initial design of the new systems instead of waiting to graft them on after it is too late.
Read more...