Robert Pollin

Robert Pollin is Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is also the founder and President of PEAR (Pollin Energy and Retrofits), an Amherst, MA-based green energy company operating throughout the United States.

His books include The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (co-authored 1998); Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (2003); An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa (co-authored 2007); A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co-authored 2008), Back to Full Employment (2012), Green Growth (2014), Global Green Growth (2015) and Greening the Global Economy (2015).

He has worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and numerous non-governmental organizations in several countries and in U.S. states and municipalities on various aspects of building high-employment green economies.  He has also directed projects on employment creation and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa for the United Nations Development Program. He has worked with many U.S. non-governmental organizations on creating living wage statutes at both the statewide and municipal levels, on financial regulatory policies, and on the economics of single-payer health care in the United States.

In 2018, he co-authored Economic Analysis of Medicare for All.  Between 2011– 2016, he was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Commission project on Financialization, Economy, Society, and Sustainable Development (FESSUD).  He was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers for 2013.”
 

Professional Experience: 

• Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 1998-present
• Professor of Economics, University of California-Riverside, 1982-98

Research Interests: 

• Macroeconomics, finance, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, clean-energy economics

Teaching: 

• Macroeconomics
• Applied econometrics

Honors and Awards: 

• Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Service Award (2011), University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Convocation Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity (2009), University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture (2008), University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Distinguished Outreach Professor (2006), University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Distinguished Teaching Award, University of California-Riverside (1983)

Professional Activities: 

• Consultancies with:
  U.S. Department of Energy (2009-11)
  International Labour Organization (2010)
  United Nations Industrial Development Organization (2012-)
• Member of Scientific Advisory Committee for European Commission Project on Financialization, Economy, Society, and Sustainable Development (FESSUD--2012 - )

Grants: 

• Surdna Foundation
• Stoneman Foundation
• FESSUD
• UNIDO

Selected Publications: 

• Back To Full Employment (MIT, 2012).
• A Measure Of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (Cornell, 2008).
• An Employment-Targeted Economic Program For South Africa (Edward Elgar, 2007).
• Green Recovery (Center for American Progress 2008).
• "Austerity is Not a Solution: Why the Deficit Hawks are Wrong," Challenge (2010).
• "U.S. Government Deficits and Debt Amid the Great Recession," Cambridge Journal of Economics (2012).
• "Public Policy, Community Ownership and Clean Energy," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (2013).