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Political Economy Research Institute

Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Subsides for the Green Transition

Robert Pollin, Shouvik Chakraborty and Gregor Semieniuk

This study by PERI researchers Robert Pollin, Shouvik Chakraborty, and Gregor Semieniuk develops a program for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies while protecting the well-being of the poor and other communities through alternative subsidy measures. The study is global in scope while also focusing on country-level case studies for India and Indonesia. The authors show that fossil fuel subsidies constitute both a major obstacle to advancing a successful global green transition and a huge financial resource that can be mobilized to help build a clean energy-dominant energy infrastructure.

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Barriers to Black Intergenerational Mobility since Reconstruction

Patrick Mason

In this case study of his own family’s history from Reconstruction to the 1940s, PERI researcher Patrick Mason shows how multigenerational Black-white gaps in occupational attainment have persisted. Mason demonstrates that these racial differences in intergenerational mobility are not caused by differences in family values and behavior. Rather, Jim Crow in the South and anti-black racism in the north stymied upward mobility for subsequent generations, even while each generation obtained greater education than its predecessors, were willing to relocate for employment opportunities, and possessed both a culture of achievement and possible advantages as mulattoes.

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The Costs of Parental Child Care on Paid Employment Opportunities

Nancy Folbre and Jooyeoun Suh

PERI researcher Nancy Folbre and Jooyeoun Suh examine the constraints on paid employment opportunities for mothers through focusing on the time mothers spend supervising their young children while engaging in other activities. Folbre and Suh find that the time mothers spend on supervision exceeds time devoted to active care by a factor of 2.9 and is more negatively related to maternal hours in paid employment. In-your-care time is an important indicator of the opportunity costs of motherhood, especially in low-income households unable to purchase or otherwise unable to obtain “babysitting” assistance.

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The ‘Resource Curse’ in Cameroon

Léonce Ndikumana, Hans Tino Mpenya Ayamena and Juste Lokossou

Cameroon is one of the most well-endowed African countries in a wide range of natural resources. But as PERI researcher Leonce Ndikumana shows, Cameroon has struggled to leverage these resources to secure a decent living standard for the majority of its population. Rather, Cameroon is among African resource rich countries that are known for suffering high financial hemorrhage through capital flight. This is one chronic manifestation of the ‘resource curse’ that tends to plague countries that are endowed with vast amounts of resources in a context of poor institutions and weak regulatory frameworks.

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