Thomas Ferguson is the Research Director at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a member of the academic advisory board of Better Markets. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and taught formerly at MIT and the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Golden Rule (University of Chicago Press, 1995) and Right Turn (Hill & Wang, 1986). His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Economic History. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Political Economy and a longtime Contributing Editor at The Nation.
Thomas Ferguson
- Leader of Historical American Political Finance Data at the National Archives
- Leader of Financial Stability
- Leader of Political Economy of Distribution
By this expert
Unlocking America’s Political Finance History: Campaign Data from the National Archives
INET’s new data archive of historical political finance records at the National Archives assembles all campaign finance reports filed by political parties and presidential candidates up to 1974, the year before the Federal Election Commission was established.
Move Fast and Break Everything: Crypto and the Democrats
After FTX’s collapse, crypto looked finished. Yet Washington revived it—culminating in Trump’s GENIUS Act and a surprising Democratic shift. How did money and affluence predict pro-crypto votes, amid widening deregulation and cyber risk?
Move Fast and Break Everything: Crypto, Democrats and Deregulation
After FTX’s collapse, crypto looked finished. Yet Washington revived it—culminating in Trump’s GENIUS Act and a surprising Democratic shift. How much did money and affluence predict pro-crypto votes, amid widening deregulation and cyber risk?
Red Tech and American Politics: Nick French Interviews Thomas Ferguson
Venture-backed “tech capital” is reshaping U.S. politics through campaign finance, platform gatekeeping, defense/AI procurement, and policy entrepreneurship. In an interview with Nick French, INET’s Research Director Thomas Ferguson discusses these channels of influence, examining their macro-distributional consequences, and outlining guardrails to restore democratic accountability and broadly shared gains.
Featuring this expert
Stark New Evidence on How Money Shapes America’s Elections
Oversights of two generations of social scientists have weakened democracy.
7 Truths About Trump’s Tariffs — And the High-Stakes Future They Shape
Top money-and-politics expert Thomas Ferguson breaks down the real drivers of Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda, from big crypto plans to a new world order emerging.
Framing World Interdependence
The conference, which is part of our Academy’s ‘Future of Humankind’ initiative, will provide a global forum of discussion to scholars engaged in analytically understanding the evolution of world dynamics as a process involving a plurality of mechanisms, viewpoints and intersecting trajectories.
The Lehman Disaster and Why It Matters Today
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers, a giant investment bank with a storied history, filed for bankruptcy. The shock was profound; world markets melted down.