Mostly Economics

This week Dean speaks to Milo Vassallo, Executive Director of the Media and Democracy Project, about wresting back the free press from media oligarchs. As corporate consolidation has gutted local newsrooms and created vast news deserts, communities can rebuild civic journalism from the ground up.

This week Dean speaks to Kim Weeden, Professor of Sociology at Cornell University and Director of the Center for the Study of Inequality, about why America's wage gap keeps growing. While protections for minimum wage workers have weakened over the past 40 years, the rules that protect high earners have only gotten stronger.

Health policy expert Sarah Lueck of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities joins Dean Baker to discuss the Affordable Care Act's future amid a prolonged government shutdown. They unpack how expiring premium tax credits could raise costs for millions, the ACA's major achievements, and why congressional action is urgently needed.

Today on Mostly Economics, Ha-Joon Chang, Professor at the Department of Economics at SOAS University of London and Senior Research Fellow at CEPR, critiques the IMF and World Bank's Washington Consensus model. He explains how neoclassical economics locks poor countries into existing capabilities. Chang contrasts South Korea's transformation through state-directed industrial policy with Mexico's stagnation under NAFTA. He exposes how the World Bank manipulated data to falsely claim economic progress. Chang also reveals how patent monopolies contradicted free market principles during COVID-19, preventing lifesaving technology sharing.

Dean Baker speaks with Suresh Naidu, Professor of Economics at Columbia University, about unions' role in reducing inequality, how employer wage-setting power shapes labor markets, sectoral bargaining experiments in California and Minnesota, the problems with H-1B visa programs, and why Democrats shifted away from labor policy toward tax-and-transfer approaches in recent decades.

Dean Baker speaks with Heather Boushey, former Council of Economic Advisers member and current Professor of Practice at UPenn's Climate Center for Energy Policy, about the Biden administration's economic legacy. They discuss the historic manufacturing boom, infrastructure investments in left-behind communities, why economic forecasting models failed, and record wage gains for low-income workers.

Economist Juliet Schor discusses her groundbreaking four-day workweek research, revealing how companies maintain productivity while dramatically improving worker well-being. From 90% retention rates to reduced burnout, Schor explains why this workplace revolution is gaining momentum post-pandemic and how AI could accelerate adoption of shorter work weeks.

Dean Baker interviews Laura Dresser, Associate Director of Wisconsin's High Road Strategy Center, about the power of state and local policy to improve working people's lives. They discuss how Wisconsin's anti-union legislation devastated labor organizing, successful state-level initiatives on minimum wage and community college programs, and the potential for progressive policies on childcare, transportation, and education when federal action is blocked.

Climate scientist Michael Mann and vaccine researcher Peter Hotez discuss their book "Science Under Siege," examining how plutocrats, petrostates, press, pros, and propagandists undermine scientific truth. They reveal how wealthy individuals fund anti-science campaigns, authoritarian regimes spread climate denial, and mainstream media enables false equivalency between facts and conspiracy theories.

The conversation covers the deadly consequences of vaccine misinformation, the Serengeti strategy of targeting individual scientists, and why 200,000 Americans died needlessly from COVID. Mann and Hotez argue this assault on expertise threatens democracy itself, while offering solutions for scientists to become more visible public advocates for truth.

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