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.
Thomas Ferguson
By this expert
The Knife Edge Election of 2020: American Politics Between Washington, Kabul, and Weimar
Covid and BLM protests were key to Biden’s victory
Public Opinion on U.S. Trade Policy: Time to Ask Better Questions
Open-ended polling responses reveal considerably more complexity – and more ambivalence and negativity – in Americans’ views of international trade than has been inferred from widely cited closed questions
Ambivalence About International Trade in Open- and Closed-ended Survey Responses
Open-ended polling responses reveal considerably more complexity – and more ambivalence and negativity – in Americans’ views of international trade than has been inferred from widely cited closed questions
Featuring this expert
Survey Bias May Underestimate Unemployment, Particularly Among Young Black Men With Julie Yixia Cai, Dean Baker, William Spriggs, and John Schmitt. Moderated by INET’s Thomas Ferguson
Join us for this lively and timely presentation, followed by Q&A.
Linear Relationship Between Money and Election Outcomes Continued in 2020
INET’s Research Director Thomas Ferguson discusses the latest analysis he and his colleagues have conducted of campaign spending in the 2020 election cycle. The result dispels the myth that money has lost significance and that Republicans were at a significant disadvantage.
Noam Chomsky discusses INET research into money and politics on Jacobin
“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 in politics, Thomas Ferguson. He and his colleagues did a study about a year ago a careful study in which they investigated a simple question, “what’s the correlation over the years many years between campaign funding and electability to congress?” It’s almost a straight line, it’s the kind of close correlation that you barely get in the social sciences. The greater the funding, the higher the electability. You can find a few cases here and there that aren’t right on the line, but from the standpoint of social science it’s a remarkable correlation.” — Noam Chomsky, Jacobin
INET research showing countries that prioritized health policies fared better economically is cross posted in Le Monde
Three American researchers, crossing the figures for growth and mortality due to the Covid-19 pandemic from many countries, conclude that containment is effective, provided it is accompanied by strong public subsidies.