Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis

The Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, made possible through a generous gift from Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz, is the economic policy research arm of Department of Economics at The New School for Social Research. Lance Taylor, Arnhold Professor of International Cooperation and Development, is director. William Milberg, associate professor of economics, coordinates program planning. Areas of particular emphasis at the center are macroeconomic policy, employment, income distribution, and globalization. The underlying purpose of these activities is to determine the conditions under which a more stable, equitable, and prosperous economy is possible, both in the United States and globally, and to develop domestic and international policies necessary to bring about these conditions.

The primary work of the center is organized around six faculty-student research working groups. The International Trade and Deindustrialization working group looks at the effects of expanded manufacturing trade on US manufacturing employment and the impact of outsourcing in the services sector on US income distribution. The working group on Private Debt Sustainability focuses on the recent history of short-run movements in debt and interest rates in the United States, and considers their implications for the business cycle and for policy. The New Labor Market Indicators working group is devising a measure of labor market conditions that takes into account unemployment as well as discouraged workers, involuntary part-time work, and most notably a measure of the incidence of low-paying jobs in the economy. The Employment Protection and Labor Market Outcomes working group is investigating the role of various labor market policies on labor market outcomes in industrialized countries, questioning the research findings of the OECD and IMF that show rigidities to be a significantly negative influence on employment. The working group on Economic Growth and Employment is exploring possible structural change in the traditionally stable relation between growth and employment has undergone, as indicated by the "jobless recovery." The Social Protection and Labor Market Conditions working group is rethinking the way the social safety net is provided in the United States, by researching the costs and potential effectiveness of a major overhaul of the system for providing and financing health insurance, pensions, unemployment insurance, and preschool childcare.

The center has also sponsored a variety of funded programs, including the MacArthur project on Liberalization and Employment Performance in the OECD; the Ford Foundation project on External Liberalization, Economic Growth and Distribution, and Social Policy; and the Ford Foundation project on Enhancing Market Transparency and Financial Risk Management.

The center supports a series of high-profile public lectures, research workshops, scholarly books, and conferences. In the 2005-6 academic year, the biannual Irene and Bernard Schwartz Lecture Series will host distinguished speakers Laura Tyson and James L. Galbraith. These events are used to gain a greater understanding of how the profit-seeking activities of private firms might also serve broader social goals, such as the creation of good jobs, the improvement of public health and education, the diffusion of socially useful new technologies, and the reduction of economic inequality. Each year, the center hires a number of graduate-student research assistants, who are assigned to the research working groups. It also awards Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz Dissertation Fellowships to doctoral students doing policy-related economic research.