J. W. Mason

I am Assistant Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York. Previously, I taught at Roosevelt University in Chicago. I am also a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. I have a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

My research and teaching is primarily in macroeconomics. I am also interested in finance, economic history, the history of economic thought, and international finance and trade. My current research focuses on the historical evolution of leverage in various sectors of the US economy, and the interface between balance sheet positions and real economic activity.

I was formerly the Policy Director for the New York State Working Families Party.

You can find some things I’ve written here.

If you’re interested in my personal background, political commitments, and intellectual development, you can listen to this interview.

I live in Brooklyn, with Laura Tanenbaum and our son Eli.

I blog at The Slack Wire. (RSS feed.)

By this expert

Mainstream Macroeconomics and Modern Monetary Theory: What Really Divides Them?

Article | Sep 6, 2018

Despite disparate policy beliefs, MMT and orthodox macro rely on many of the same theoretical foundations

There Isn’t Really a ‘Mainstream’ at All

Article | Aug 11, 2016

There is a mix of common-sense opinions, political prejudices, conventional business practice, and pragmatic rules of thumb, supported in an ad hoc, opportunistic way by bits and pieces of economic theory.

James Crotty and the Responsibilities of the Heterodox

Article | Jul 17, 2016

It was during a year in residency at Tokyo’s Hitotsuabashi University in 1995 that Jim Crotty first “met” John Maynard Keynes.

Featuring this expert

YSI North America Convening

YSI Event Regional Convening YSI | Feb 22–24, 2019

On February 22-24, 2019, the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) will host its North America Convening in Los Angeles.

How Not to Criticize Standard Economic Models

Video | Jul 5, 2017

Mason doesn’t think teaching contending economic theories is effective, and sees the objective of introductory economics courses as teaching students basic tools to understand economic terminology and standard relationship between cause and effect.

INET Guide to the 2017 EEA Meeting

Event Conference | Feb 23–26, 2017

A reference guide to all Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) community presentations at the Eastern Economic Association’s (EEA) 2017 annual meeting