Economy

How Finance Gutted Manufacturing

Since the 1980s, financial market pressures have driven companies to hive off activities that sustained manufacturing.

  • Suzanne Berger
with responses from
  • Dean Baker
  • Dan Luria & Joel Rogers
  • Dan Breznitz
  • Gary Herrigel
  • Susan N. Houseman
  • Mike Rose
  • Nichola Lowe
  • J. Phillip Thompson
  • Catherine Tumber
  • David Weil

Why the Success of the Rest is Good for America

Charles Kenny's The Upside of Down.

  • Ali Wyne

Afghanistan’s Misguided Economy

In 1978, Afghanistan had achieved food security for a population of 15 million. Today, Afghanistan is extremely dependent on aid and imports.

  • Graciana del Castillo

Inequality: Is Obama Serious About Economic Justice?

President Obama seems comfortable pursuing cooperation, but not redistribution.

  • John Stoehr

Learning Sympathy

The success of humanitarian appeals  is not a given of human nature. They work because we have come to sympathize with the suffering of others, distant and alien.

  • Claude S. Fischer

Job Openings

Today’s high unemployment isn’t a result of a lack of skilled labor but rather a slow recovery.

  • Paul Osterman
  • Andrew Weaver

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Marching (Again) for Jobs and Wages

Today’s mix of economic problems calls for demands that echo those of the 1963 marchers.

  • Thomas A. Kochan

Democracy and Philanthropy

Rob Reich on the Role of Foundations in Democratic Societies

  • Rob Reich

Where Is Inequality Headed?

What History and Economics Tell Us About Inequality's Future

  • Anthony Atkinson

Ages and Wages

Older Americans Are Earning More than Ever

  • Gary Burtless

Beyond Blame

The philosophy of personal responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy. It’s time to move past blame.

  • Barbara H. Fried
with responses from
  • Paul Bloom
  • Christine M. Korsgaard
  • Gideon Rosen
  • Erin Kelly
  • Brian Leiter
  • Adriaan Lanni
  • George Sher
  • Mike Konczal
  • T. M. Scanlon

A Costly Defense

Sequestration won’t gut the military

  • Cindy Williams

Government Loansharking

An Update on the Student-Debt Crisis

  • Malcolm Harris

The Promise and Limits of Private Power

Richard M. Locke at the Watson Institute

  • Richard M. Locke

“What Are Foundations For?” at Harvard

Rob Reich discusses his views on the role of foundations in democratic societies, as articulated in his Boston Review forum essay "What Are Foundations For?" 

  • Rob Reich

What Are Foundations For?

Philanthropic institutions are plutocratic by nature. Can they be justified in a democracy?

  • Rob Reich
with responses from
  • Christopher J. Coyne
  • Stanley N. Katz
  • Diane Ravitch
  • Deborah Fung
  • Paul Brest
  • Rick Cohen
  • Tyler Cowen
  • Seana Valentine Shiffrin
  • Pablo Eisenberg
  • Larry Kramer
  • Eric Beerbohm
  • Robert K. Ross
  • Gara LaMarche
  • Emma Saunders-Hastings

Little, Big

Big-time development economists are missing something.

  • Pranab Bardhan

Fix It Fair

Repair Our Crumbling Infrastructure the Right Way

  • Amy B. Dean

Giving Kids a Fair Chance

A Boston Review Book

  • James J. Heckman

Hard Money Man

Paul Volcker’s career of public service reads as a history of the last half-century of American money.

  • Jonathan Kirshner

Taxing Away Inequality

A Conversation with Emmanuel Saez

  • David B. Grusky
  • Emmanuel Saez

An Embarrassment of Riches

Literature and the Ethics of Wealth in the Gilded Age

  • Gavin Jones

Unfinished Revolution

Dr. King’s goal was full employment and universal health care.

  • J. Phillip Thompson

Islamophobia Is Bad for Business

Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment has cost the United States and the West a number of business opportunities.

  • Massoud Hayoun
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