Research
A Universal Retirement Plan can Reduce Inequality and Prevent Downward Mobility
Policy Note | Up to 40 percent of middle-income workers are at risk of downward mobility into poverty or near-poverty in retirement because of an inefficient retirement system that disproportionately benefits those with high incomes. Universal retirement accounts and providing workers with more equitable and better targeted tax incentives are among the best methods to supplement Social Security and prevent downward mobility in retirement.
Policy Note | Up to 40 percent of middle-income workers are at risk of downward mobility into poverty or near-poverty in retirement because of an inefficient retirement system that disproportionately benefits those with high incomes. Universal retirement accounts and providing workers with more equitable and better targeted tax incentives are among the best methods to supplement Social Security and prevent downward mobility in retirement.
Paper | This paper highlights the role of credit performance in shaping economic performance and sheds new light on both the Brazilian boom in the 2000s and the economic contraction since 2015. Its results suggest that an active stance on public credit would have been instrumental in speeding up the economic recovery.
The green bond market is emerging as an impactful financing mechanism in climate change mitigation efforts. The effectiveness of the financial market for this transition to a low-carbon economy depends on attracting investors and removing financial market roadblocks.
Course | During the global pandemic nations made tradeoffs, or believed that tradeoffs had to be made, between health and wealth. This course uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to teach economic policy analysis and will help students learn the theoretical, institutional, and technical issues needed for effective economic policy research and advocacy.
Research Note— SCEPA's research finds that a significant part of the retirement boom consists of those we would otherwise expect to be working, given their employment a year earlier.
Working Paper—This paper explores how Covid-19 affected the employment and retirement patterns of older workers, with special attention to the distribution of pandemic impacts on those 55 and older.
Working Paper—Lack of meaningful action to mitigate climate change will disproportionally impact the vulnerable, including children who are being sent into the labor force to make ends meet for poor households hit by climate shocks.
