Articles
Articles and analyses from the INET community on the key economic questions of our time.
Social Security and the Vanishing Paycheck
Social Security runs on the paycheck. But a growing share of American wealth now comes from profits, assets, and ownership. The program that ended old-age poverty was never built for an economy that pays people this way.
Why Public Policy’s Core Value Should Be Equality
Equality runs deeper than economics textbooks or policy fashions suggest. Across disciplines, evidence increasingly links more equal societies to stronger well-being, greater social trust, and healthier democracies, challenging the assumption that fairness must come at the expense of prosperity or economic dynamism.
AI is Hungry for Power and You are Footing the Bill
The same technology that promises efficiency in offices is fueled by a system that is making life more costly for everyday workers. Part of “AI and the Future of the American Worker,” a series on how artificial intelligence is impacting labor, power, and the meaning of work.
From Fed Failures to Inflation and Stablecoins: America’s Trust Is Cracking
Authors Bill Bergman and Larry Feltes argue that declining public confidence in government and financial institutions is putting the U.S. economy in peril — and a crisis could come faster than you think.
One Affordability Battle After Another: What to do about the growing damage from the AI-Fossil Fuel Industrial Complex
Affordability of electricity and concerns about fossil fuel pollution, water resources, and job loss, have driven a rebellion against data centers that is both grassroots and bipartisan. It’s time for cleaner, faster and cheaper solutions.
5 Lessons from the End of the Larry Summers Era
Summers’ influence was immense, but so were his blind spots. It’s time for economics that values people and the planet over power and prestige.
Debt, Austerity, and the New EU Rules: Why Italy’s “Reform” Path Still Leads Nowhere
Europe’s revamped fiscal rules promise discipline and stability, but Italy’s numbers tell a different story. Once realistic multipliers and hysteresis are built in, consolidation pushes debt up, growth down, and recessionary pressure outwards across the eurozone, hardly a recipe for sustainability.
INET Warned Over 2 Years Ago: Spending by the Wealthy Is Distorting the Economy
The idea is finally catching on, but many still miss how deeply it’s driving inflation, masking wage losses, and complicating recovery.
Not the Fix—The Tell: The Meaning of a $100,000 H-1B Fee
The new $100,000 H-1B fee tacitly acknowledges what early policy architects signaled: expanding temporary tech visas can depress domestic wages. By bringing the fully loaded cost of a new H1B hire closer to what the local market would require to recruit and retain comparable talent, it narrows the wedge between visa-enabled staffing and hiring Americans at market rates.
Engendering Pluralism: How Gender Diversity Can Transform Economics
How women economists expand orientations and perspectives that can transform economics into a pluralistic, critically engaged, and socially responsive discipline.