Unfair Global Tax System Makes Sustainable Development Impossible

Leonce Ndikumana is interviewed about how the global tax system allows capital to flow from developing countries into global tax havens. He says globalized corporations take advantage of the patchwork of taxation policies that leads to loss of revenue for poorer countries where natural resources are mined or collected.

Michael Ash's New Book Looks at the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8

Professor Michael Ash has written a new book that looks at both the build-up to and the fallout from the global financial crisis of the late 2000s—including the surprising resilience of the systems that led to that crisis.

Ash and his coauthor, Francisco Louçã of the University of Lisbon, wrote the book, Shadow Networks: Financial Disorder and the System that Caused Crisis (Oxford University Press), for a general audience.

 

UMass Economics in the News

A columnist writing about issues that should be addressed by the new Congress says raising the minimum wage is high on his list. He cites recent research done by Arindrajit Dube, economics, that finds that a 10-percent increase in the minimum wage will tend to increase the incomes for the poorest 15 percent of families by about 3.3 percent after three years, while cutting the poverty rate substantially. The writer notes that Dube uses publicly available survey data and is able to analyze a large number of wage increases at both the federal and state levels. (Bloomberg, 11/13/18)

Research done by James K. Boyce, emeritus professor of economics, and Michael A. Ash, economics, on how minority communities are often the site of polluting industries, but see very little of the economic benefit from those facilities, especially in the form of jobs, is cited in a news story. (Pacific Standard, 11/9/18)