Thomas Ferguson

Involvement

Thomas Ferguson is the Research Director at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Senior Fellow at 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.

By this expert

A New Era of Endless Labor Shortages? A Critical Analysis of McKinsey's New Report

Article | Jul 15, 2024

The McKinsey report’s highlighting of an extremely high job vacancy ratio in recent years does not reflect the true state of the U.S. labor market.

The Fed’s “Chicken Run”: Why Sticking with High Rates Will Crash the Economy

Article | Jun 24, 2024

In persisting with its high rates policy, the Fed is acting like James Dean in the famous “chicken run” auto race in Rebel Without a Cause.

The Second Coming? Trump vs. Biden

Article | May 17, 2024

How have the macroeconomic problems in the US blinded many participants and observers to the actual state of the American economy as the election approaches?

Trump versus Biden: The Macroeconomics of the Second Coming

Paper Working Paper | | May 2024

The current paper returns to the key questions of wages and incomes and how wealth effects cripple reliance on interest rates to control inflation.

Featuring this expert

Global Inflation Today: What Is to Be Done?

PERI Conference, featuring INET Research Director Thomas Ferguson and INET Grantees

Event Conference | Dec 2–Nov 3, 2022

Emerging out of the COVID lockdown, inflation in the U.S. and globally has risen to the highest levels in 40 years. On December 2-3, PERI will host a conference to explore the causes of this global inflation spike. Conference participants will also provide critical perspectives on the austerity macroeconomic policies being implemented globally to control inflation and will propose alternative policies capable of managing inflation without imposing austerity and rising mass unemployment.

Young Scholars Initiative Early Career Days

Event Conference | Nov 18–20, 2021

publishing • the job market • writing • teaching • mental health • work-life balance

Thomas Ferguson is quoted in Truthout's interview with Chomsky

News Jun 17, 2021

“The most recent study, using sophisticated AI techniques, dispels “notions that anyone’s opinion about public policy outside of the top 10 percent of affluent Americans independently helps to explain policy.” Thomas Ferguson, the leading academic scholar of the power of the “tools and tyrants” of government, concludes: “Knowing the policy area, the preferences of the top 10 percent, and the views of a handful of interest groups suffice to explain policy changes with impressive accuracy.” — Jared Rodriguez, Truthout

Thomas Ferguson's research is cited in Noam Chomsky's interview with Jacobin

News Jun 11, 2021

“Well, one place to look always is: “Where’s the money? Who funds Congress?” Actually, there’s a very fine, careful study of this by the leading scholar who deals with funding issues and politics, Thomas Ferguson. He and his colleagues did a study in which they investigated a simple question: “What’s the correlation over many years between campaign funding and electability to Congress?” The correlation is almost a straight line. That’s the kind of close correlation that you rarely get in the social sciences: greater the funding, higher the electability.” — Noam Chomsky in an interview with Jacobin