Nominee's Background:
Robert Pollin is founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass Amherst. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research in New York City in 1982. His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, and the analysis of financial markets. His recent books include Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (Verso 2003); The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (with Stephanie Luce, The New Press New Press 1998); and the edited volumes Globalization and Progressive Economic Policy (with Dean Baker and Gerald Epstein, Cambridge 1998), The Macroeconomics of Saving, Finance, and Investment (University of Michigan Press 1997), and Transforming the U.S. Financial System (with Gary Dymski and Gerald Epstein, M.E. Sharpe 1993). In the area of labor market policies, Professor Pollin has written extensively on the viability of living wage policies, including those as proposed by policy makers in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Calif.; New Orleans, La.; and Santa Fe, N.M. He is currently completing a manuscript, co-written with Professor James Heintz of PERI, on the economics of global sweatshops. In separate areas of policy work, he is currently co-directing a project on employment-targeted macroeconomic policies for South Africa, under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). He has worked previously with the UNDP in Bolivia, and has worked with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and as a member of the Capital Formation Subcouncil of the U.S. Competitiveness Policy Council.
http://www.umass.edu/peri/aboutus/ourstaff.htm#robert
Nominating Speech:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/nopq-titles/pollin_contours.shtml
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Progressive Criteria:
The Department of Commerce will:
Promote commerce to enhance citizens' lives, not simply to enrich investors;
Promote decent, well-paying, environmentally sustainable jobs;
Take the initiative in developing a Genuine Progress Indicator to replace GDP which does not adequately distinguish between good growth and destructive trends; Work to provide new guarantees for pension security;
Support very small businesses, minority and women-owned businesses;
Direct and manage the patent and trademark system to promote the common good by promoting valuable inventions, research and intellectual exchangee, as a higher priority than protecting corporate profits.
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