Barry Alan Bluestone (born December 27, 1944) is an American academic who is the Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy, founding director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and the founding dean of the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Previously he was Professor of Political Economy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He also taught economics at Boston College where he served as director of the university's Social Welfare Research Institute. [1] He is also one of five co-founders of the Economic Policy Institute. [2] In the 1980s and the 1990s he collaborated with the late economist Bennett Harrison on several publications.
Bluestone attended University of Michigan where he received his Ph.D. (1974). [3]
Bluestone has written extensively and has authored or co-authored a number of books focused on political economy and society including: The Deindustrialization of America (1982), The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America (1988), Negotiating the Future: A Labor Perspective on American Business (1992), Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the 21st Century (2000),The Prosperity Gap: A Chartbook of American Living Standards (2000), The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis (2001), Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization (2003), The Urban Experience: Economics, Society, and Public Policy (2008). [4]
In 1995, Bluestone served as policy staff member for Congressman Richard Gephardt Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. [5]
On February 5, 2018, a clip of a January 2018 lecture given by Bluestone was posted online in which he criticized President Donald Trump. In the clip, Bluestone said that "Sometimes I want to just see [Trump] impeached other times, quite honestly -- I hope there are no FBI agents here -- I wouldn’t mind seeing him dead." In a subsequent interview with the Boston Globe , Bluestone explained that his remark was "offhand" and that he does not condone violence or want President Trump assassinated. [6] He later apologized for his remarks, saying that he meant that he would have liked to see Trump "disappear from the White House." [7]
Rüdiger Dornbusch was a German economist who worked in the United States for most of his career.
Arthur Betz Laffer is an American economist and author who first gained prominence during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–1989). Laffer is best known for the Laffer curve, an illustration of the theory that there exists some tax rate between 0% and 100% that will result in maximum tax revenue for government. In certain circumstances, this would allow governments to cut taxes, and simultaneously increase revenue and economic growth.
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist, a professor at Harvard University, and an author of works on urban sociology, race, and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science, he served as the 80th President of the American Sociological Association, was a member of numerous national boards and commissions. He identified the importance of neighborhood effects and demonstrated how limited employment opportunities and weakened institutional resources exacerbated poverty within American inner-city neighborhoods.
Northeastern University is a private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1898, it was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association as an all-male institute before being incorporated as Northeastern College in 1916, gaining university status in 1922. With more than 38,000 students, Northeastern is the largest university in Massachusetts by enrollment.
The Rust Belt, formerly the Steel Belt, is an area of industrial decline in the United States that stretches from southeastern Wisconsin through northern and central Illinois, through parts of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, to western and central New York State. Some definitions of the Rust Belt also include parts of Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey and West Virginia. From the late 19th century to late 20th century, the region formed the industrial heartland of the country, with its economies largely based on automobile and steel production, coal mining, and processing of raw materials. The term "Rust Belt" is a dysphemism to describe an industry that has "rusted out", referring to the impact of deindustrialization, economic decline, population loss, and urban decay which is attributable to an area's shrinking industrial sector. The term gained popularity in the U.S. beginning in the 1980s when it was commonly contrasted with the Sun Belt, which was then surging. The largest cities in the Rust Belt include Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Rochester, and St. Louis. Smaller cities there include Allentown, Binghamton, Gary, Gloversville, Huntington, Scranton, Syracuse, Toledo, Trenton and Youngstown.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C., that carries out economic research and analyzes the economic impact of policies and proposals. Affiliated with the labor movement, the EPI is usually described as presenting a left-leaning and pro-union viewpoint on public policy issues. Since 2021, EPI has been led by economist Heidi Shierholz, the former chief economist of the Department of Labor.
Kamer Daron Acemoğlu is a Turkish-American economist of Armenian descent who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993, where he is currently the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics, and was named an Institute Professor at MIT in 2019. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, and the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024.
Avinash Kamalakar Dixit is an Indian-American economist. He is the John J. F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University, and has been Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lingnan University, senior research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and Sanjaya Lall Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford.
Robert L. Kuttner is an American journalist, university professor and writer whose works present a liberal and progressive point of view. Kuttner is the co-founder and current co-editor of The American Prospect, which was created in 1990 as an "authoritative magazine of liberal ideas," according to its mission statement. He was a columnist for Business Week and The Boston Globe for 20 years.
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.
Lawrence Alan Kudlow is an American conservative broadcast news analyst, columnist, journalist, political commentator, and radio personality. He is a financial news commentator for Fox Business and served as the Director of the National Economic Council during the Trump Administration from 2018 to 2021. He assumed that role after his previous employment as a CNBC television financial news host. By 2024 Kudlow was the vice chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, a dark money nonprofit think tank developing policies for a potential second Trump presidency.
Karen Gordon Mills is an American businessperson and former government official who served as the 23rd Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). She was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama on December 19, 2008, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on April 2, 2009, and sworn in on April 6, 2009. During her tenure, her office was elevated to the rank of Cabinet-level officer, expanding her power on policy decisions and granting her inclusion in the President's cabinet meetings. On February 11, 2013, she announced her resignation as Administrator and left the post on September 1, 2013.
Nitin Nohria is an Indian-American academic. He was the tenth dean of Harvard Business School. He is also the George F. Baker Professor of Administration. He is a former non-executive director of Tata Sons.
Pankaj Ghemawat is an Indian-American economist, professor, global strategist, speaker and author known for his work in the study of globalization. He created the DHL Global Connectedness Index and the CAGE Distance Framework.
Bennett Harrison was a leading radical political economist, writer, musician, songwriter. Among his academic appointments was professor of political economy at MIT, Boston. Harrison held posts at Harvard University, New School for Social Research, and Carnegie Mellon University. Harrison taught in universities in Italy and Japan.
Mark McGann Blyth is a Scottish-American political economist. He is currently the William R. Rhodes Professor of International Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. At Brown, Blyth additionally directs the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
James Alan Robinson is a British-American economist and political scientist. He is the Rev. Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and a University Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. At Harris, he also directs The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. Robinson previously taught at Harvard University from 2004 to 2015.
Deindustrialisation refers to the process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial activity and employment in a country or region, especially heavy industry or manufacturing industry. Deindustrialisation is common to all mature Western economies, as international trade, social changes, and urbanisation have changed the financial demographics after World War II. Phenomena such as the mechanisation of labour render industrial societies obsolete, and lead to the de-establishment of industrial communities.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an American academic, writer, and activist. She is a professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016). For this book, Taylor received the 2016 Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book from the Lannan Foundation. She is a co-publisher of Hammer & Hope, an online magazine that began in 2023.
Susan M. Collins is an American economist who has served as the 14th president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston since July 1, 2022. She is the first African American woman and first woman of color to lead any of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. Collins previously served as the 16th provost and executive vice president for academic affairs of the University of Michigan from 2020 to 2022.
