Publications

This transcript is CEPR Dean Baker's statement before the Joint session of the Labor and Education Committees, New Mexico State Legislature on the issue of return assumptions used by the state pension...chevron_right

On 23 January 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its estimates for union membership in the United States in 2012. This issue brief focuses on the union membership numbers by state. In...chevron_right

This report looks at the effect of raising the maximum amount of annual earnings subject to the Social Security Tax (the payroll tax cap). To help alleviate Social Security’s long-term budget shortfal...chevron_right

This paper examines the policy advice given by the IMF to European Union countries in 67 Article IV agreements for the four years 2008-2011. It focuses in particular on fiscal adjustments, inflation t...chevron_right

This paper discusses reasons why the Medicare drug benefit plan has cost considerably less than expected. While there are undoubtedly many factors underlying the slower than projected increase in drug...chevron_right

This issue brief refutes the claims that switching to the Chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) would help the federal government save money by slowing increases in social benefits and raising additional...chevron_right

This paper analyzes the economic situation of married parents in the United States. The paper concludes that to reduce marital poverty and hardship policy makers need to expand and strengthen labor ma...chevron_right

This paper uses polling data collected in Venezuela from 2004-2010 to help adjust the most recent presidential election data for polling firm bias. The regression results show that the average lead of...chevron_right

Is the high level of unemployment in the US structural in nature? This issue brief argues that the answer is "no" – it is lack of demand, caused by the collapse of the housing bubble, that is at the r...chevron_right

This paper argues that the decline in the US economy’s ability to create good jobs is related to deterioration in the bargaining power of workers, especially those at the middle and the bottom of the ...chevron_right

Analysts have made gloomy predictions regarding the state of Venezuela's economy for most of the Chavez presidency. However, the CEPR's Mark Weisbrot and Jake Johnston argue that such pessimistic forecasts are often wide of the mark.chevron_right

This report examines the problem of credit access for low- and moderate-income households. It notes that this problem has two dimensions. On the one hand, there are millions of consumers without acces...chevron_right

Private equity firms, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and other private pools of capital form part of the growing shadow banking system in the US. These new financial intermediaries provide an alt...chevron_right

This paper examines the decline in unionization in the US that began in about 1960. While various explanations have been put forward to explain this – with many focusing on some form of structural cha...chevron_right

In May 2012, US Drug Enforcement Agency officers participated in a counter-narcotics operation that left four Hondurans dead. A closer inspection of the data gathered after the incident points to some worrying inconsistencies in the official accounts.chevron_right