CEPR Ten Year Anniversary Webcast
Thursday, September 24

In honor of our 10th Anniversary, CEPR hosted a two-hour live webcast. CEPR Co-Directors Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot were on hand to answer questions from viewers, and Jane Hamsher of firedoglake was the special guest moderator.

Interested in helping to support CEPR's work? CEPR relies entirely on the generosity of individuals and foundations to fund our work. Please help us continue our work into the next decade and beyond by contributing to our Ten Year Anniversary Campaign.

Co-Directors Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research in 1999 with total budget of less than $120,000. After ten years of hard work, CEPR’s budget has grown more than tenfold, and its influence has grown exponentially.

CEPR was mentioned over 6,650 times in various media in 2008 (an average of over 18 per day), far surpassing the previous year’s record high of 2,500. Over the course of the past year, CEPR was cited 37 times in the New York Times and 33 times in the Wall Street Journal. CEPR staff gave almost 250 TV and radio interviews last year alone. From its humble beginnings, CEPR has grown in both size and stature.

The reason? Over the past ten years, CEPR has developed a reputation for conducting timely, high quality, original, and independent research that successfully challenges conventional wisdom and identifies economic trends long before the economics profession has noted them.

For example, Dean Baker first warned of the housing bubble in the summer of 2002. While his views on the housing bubble were seen as alarmist and extreme for several years, they have repeatedly been proven right and have finally been recognized by the mainstream media as prescient warnings of the current economic crisis.

But don’t take our word for it…here’s what some others have to say about CEPR:

For years the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been at the forefront of anticipating and understanding the dominant economic trends in the US and world economy, and translating these trends into their political and social implications for working people. I have found CEPR's work utterly invaluable, and have used it in my research and my teaching. The writing is crystal clear and never sacrifices subtlety for clarity. Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot are public intellectuals of the highest order. CEPR deserves our strong support.
–Robert W. McChesney, author of several books on media and politics, professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, host of the weekly talk show, Media Matters, and cofounder of “Free Press”.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is such an important institution. Over the past decade, your work has been critical and crucial to educating the public and policy makers about the most important issues of our time. Where information and research were desperately needed in our public debate, you filled that gap and you've built something very lasting and very powerful.
–Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)

Set up in 1999 with a total budget smaller than some other thinktanks' entertainment funds, CEPR has been a professional thorn in the side of orthodoxy.
–The Guardian (UK)

CEPR is one of the most valuable resources we have to explain how economics works and how policies effect the lives of us all. Dean Baker is a genius, and CEPR is essential if we're to grow our democracy in America!
–Thom Hartmann, American radio host, former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, and political commentator.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research presents a useful challenge to consensus thinking. Mark Weisbrot enriches public policy debates with provocative ideas that are clearly stated. Best wishes for another 10 years.
–Warren Olney, Host, Executive Producer of radio talk show “To the Point”

The Center for Economic Policy Research is a vital and rare resource. The work that CEPR does is an essential and necessary component of the overall strategy to get America on the track of creating sustainable economic fairness.
–Mario Solis Marich, host of the “The Mario Solis Marich Show” on Progressive Talk Radio