James Heintz

James Heintz holds a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts and a master's degree from the University of Minnesota. He has written on a wide range of economic policy issues, including job creation, global labor standards, the distributive consequences of macroeconomic policies, and human rights. He has worked on collaborative projects with numerous United Nations agencies, including the International Labour Organization, the U.N. Research Institute for Social Development, the Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Development Programme, and UNIFEM. His policy work has focused on the U.S. as well as developing countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, the Gambia, Madagascar, and South Africa. He is co-author of several books including, with Nancy Folbre, The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy. From 1996 to 1998, he worked as an economist at the National Labour and Economic Development Institute in Johannesburg, a policy think tank affiliated with the South African labor movement. His current work focuses on employment policy and poverty outcomes; economic policy choices and human rights; informal and atypical employment; macroeconomic policies for sub-Saharan Africa; and the links between economic policies and distributive outcomes, including race and gender dimensions.

Teaching: 

• Econ 204. Intermediate Macroeconomics
• Econ 705. Macroeconomic Theory

Selected Publications: 

• with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Stephanie Seguino. (2013) "Critical Perspectives on Financial and Economic Crises: Heterodox Macroeconomics Meets Feminist Economics" Feminist Economics 19(3): 4-31.
• "World Development Report 2013: Meeting the global employment challenge?" (2013) Development and Change, 44(3): 797-811.
• with Radhika Balakrishnan. (2012). "Debt, Power, and Crisis: Social Stratification and the Inequitable Governance of Financial Markets." American Quarterly 64(3): 387-409.
• with Jayati Ghosh and Robert Pollin. (2012). "Speculation on commodity futures markets and destabilization of global food prices: exploring the connections." International Journal of Health Services 42(3): 465-83.
• with Stephanie Seguino. (2012). "Contractionary monetary policy and the dynamics of US race and gender stratification." American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 71(3): 603-38.
• with Lynda Pickbourn (2012). "The Determinants of Selection into Non-agricultural Self-employment in Ghana". Margin: Journal of Applied Economic Research. 6(2): 181-209.
•  with Léonce Ndikumana (2011). "Is there a case for inflation targeting in sub-Saharan Africa?" Journal of African Economies 20: 67-103 (supplement 2).
• "The Structure of Employment, Globalization, and Economic Crises: Rethinking Contemporary Employment Dynamics with a Focus on the U.S. and Japan" (2011) Political Economy Quarterly (in Japanese) 48(1):45-59.
• with Radhika Balakrishnan and Diane Elson (2011). "Financial regulation, capabilities and human rights in the US financial crisis: the case of housing" Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. 12(1): 153-68.
• "The impact of public capital on the U.S. private economy: new evidence and analysis" (2010) International Review of Applied Economics. 24(5): 619-32.