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Political Economy Research Institute

The Political Economy of Racism in the U.S.

Michelle Holder and Jeannette Wicks-Lim

Why does racial inequality persist in the United States? PERI researcher Jeannette Wicks-Lim and Michelle Holder address this question through the lens of stratification economics. Wicks-Lim and Holder describe the ways in which stratification economics offers an antidote to the hyper-focus, within conventional economics, on individuals and disregard for how politics shapes the economy. The book also fuses stratification economics with intersectional theory to illuminate how gender and ethnicity intertwine with racial oppression. They demonstrate why policy interventions spurred by effective social movements remain imperative for advancing racial and gender equity.

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New Measures Identify Worst Polluting U.S. Corporations

PERI researchers Michael Ash and James Boyce, along with Rich Puchalsky, have produced a new edition of the Greenhouse 100 Suppliers Index. This index identifies U.S. corporations that produce the largest shares of oil, coal, and natural gas that generate greenhouse gas emissions when these fossil fuels are burned. This index finds that the largest polluters include the oil companies Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66, and ExxonMobil and the coal mining corporations Core Natural Resources and Peabody Energy. The largest ten polluters account for 44% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. from energy sources.

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Gender, Skin Tone, and Labor Market Discrimination in Mexico

Luis Monroy Gomez Franco, Roberto Vélez‑Grajales and Gastón Yalonetzky

PERI researcher Luis Monroy-Gomez-Franco and co-authors explore how the intersection of skin tone and gender shapes economic opportunities in Mexico. They find that the Mexican labor market is partly segregated by skin tone, with dark-skinned Mexicans more likely to occupy menial service-sector jobs and less likely to hold managerial or clerical positions compared to lighter-skinned counterparts. Their results underscore the ineffectiveness of the current laws, which formally ban racial discrimination. The authors advocate for making anti-discrimination legal complaints more accessible and to increase proactive anti-discrimination enforcement by federal regulators.

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The Crypto Chokehold

Gerald Epstein

Why do crypto currencies exist? Whose interests are served by the explosive expansion of crypto markets? What dangers do the huge swings in crypto market valuations create for the operations of financial markets and the overall economy? PERI researcher Gerald Epstein demonstrates that the main purpose of crypto currencies is the naked extraction of wealth by a small circle of crypto-capitalists, especially those with ties to Donald Trump and his family. Epstein also explains why cryptocurrencies increase the risks of a massive financial crisis, because they are both unregulated and highly vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.

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