Heidi Garrett-Peltier

The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities

This study focuses on the employment effects of military spending versus alternative domestic spending priorities. The authors begin by introducing the basic input-output modeling technique for considering issues such as these in a systematic way. They then present some simple alternative spending scenarios—namely, devoting

A Review of “Civilizing the Economy”

1 billion to the military versus the same amount of money spent for five alternatives: tax cuts that produce increased levels of personal consumption; health care; education; mass transit; and construction targeted at home weatherization and infrastructure repair. The first conclusion in assessing such relative employment effects is straightforward:

Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs & Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy

1 billion spent on personal consumption, health care, education, mass transit, and construction for home weatherization/infrastructure will all create more jobs in the U.S. economy than would the same

The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy: How the Economic Stimulus Program and New Legislation Can Boost U.S. Economic Growth and Employment

1 billion spent on the military. The authors then examine the pay level of jobs created through these alternative spending priorities and assess the overall welfare effects of the alternative employment outcomes. Combining these alternative domestic spending categories in an effective way can also generate a higher level of compensation for working people in the United States and a better average quality of jobs.

Green versus brown: Comparing the employment impacts of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and fossil fuels using an input-output model

The economic crisis of 2008 and the great recession in which we still find ourselves have made it abundantly clear that mainstream economic thought needs an overhaul. The profit motive of a capitalist economy, combined with a nearly unregulated financial sector, caused financial firms to pursue actions that were in their own short-term interests, but which added no real value to the economy and, in fact, undermined the very system of which they are a part. In his newest book, Civilizing the Economy, Marvin Brown challenges the framework of a free-market economy and offers an alternative vision for the place and purpose of economic interactions. The economy, Brown argues, should be based on providing for the needs and wants of humans, and we should recognize the role of the providers themselves. Reframing the way we speak of and view the economy would engender changes in the way we organize firms and markets and would re-position the economy within the social and civic sphere.