June 9, 2011

Flexible, Family-Friendly Labor Policy: Maximum Benefit for Minimal Costs

12:15 - 1:45 p.m.
Economic Policy Institute
1333 H Street, NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005

Local, state and federal level efforts to enact legislation mandating paid sick or family leave and flexible work arrangements are often resisted on the grounds that they would impose costly burdens on employers and threaten the availability of jobs. Yet, new and ongoing research points to labor policy in novation that promotes work-family balance having the expected beneficial impacts without jeopardizing overall employment.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Economic Policy Institute hosted a forum examining the issues of paid family and sick leave in the United States while exploring the Australian example of mandating paid parental leave along with the right to request flexible work arrangements.

June 6, 2011

Three Employment Policy Crises: Jobs, Wages and Public-Sector Collective Bargaining

9 a.m. - noon
George Washington University
Cafritz Conference Center
Elliott Room (310)
800 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC

The nation is experiencing its greatest employment crisis since the Great Depression, yet national policy makers hold widely divergent views about jobs, wages and now public-sector collective bargaining. Prominent economic and employment experts took part in a policy briefing to discuss the latest research and findings to inform policymakers on unemployment and job growth, wage stagnation and the need for a new social contract, and the future of public-sector collective bargaining and pension reforms. CEPR Senior Economist John Schmitt participated in a roundtable discussion with researchers from several policy organizations.

June 6, 2011

Financial Regulation, New Financial Intermediaries, and Employment

2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.
George Washington University
Cafritz Conference Center
Continental Ballroom
800 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC

CEPR's Eileen Appelbaum chaired a panel discussing the role of finance in the real economy and its effect on firms, jobs, and labor relations. Panelists included Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO, Rosemary Blatt of Cornell University, and William Millberg of the New School for Social Research.

June 2, 2011

Using Scanner Data to Answer Food Policy Questions Conference

11:30 – 12:30 pm
Waugh Auditorium
Economic Research Service, USDA
1800 M Street NW
Washington, DC

CEPR's Shawn Fremstad took part in a panel on "Challenges and Successes of Using Scanner Data for Public Policy" at this conference. It was moderated by Ephraim Leibtag of the USDA's Economic Research Serivce and other panelists include Mary Muth (RTI International), Mark Lino (Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, USDA), and Helen Jensen (Iowa State University). Shawn's talk was based in part on a report he authored titled "Income, Inequality, and Food Prices."

May 25, 2011

2011 AAPI Summit

9 a.m. - noon
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center
HVC-215
1st Street SE and East Capitol Street NE
Washington D.C., DC 20515

The 2011 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Summit, hosted by the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the House Democratic Leadership, took place on May 24-25th in Washington, D.C. CEPR's Director of Domestic Policy, Nicole Woo, took part in a panel on Wednesday the 25th from 9-9:40am on the AAPI perspective on the recession and the recovery.

May 25, 2011

How Federal Reserve Policies Add To Hard Times At The Pump

1:30pm
Rayburn House Office Building
Room 2247
45 Independence Ave SW
Washington, DC 20219

CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker testified at a Congressional hearing on Fed policies and high gas prices, held by the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. A video of the hearing is available below or after the jump.

May 24, 2011

Noon
Healy Hall
Georgetown University
37th & O Streets NW
Washington, D.C. 20007

The Kalmanovitz Institute, Georgetown University and the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations sponsored a symposium titled "Sustainable Capitalism." CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker took part in a discussion with Andy Stern, Georgetown Public Policy Institute and William Greider, The Nation Magazine. The symposium's agenda can be found here.

May 23, 2011

Is There a Public Pension Crisis?

12:00-1:00pm
National Press Club
529 14th Street NW
Washington, DC 20045

Estimates of state and local government liabilities owed to public pension beneficiaries range from hundreds of billions of dollars to more than $3 trillion. Experts disagree over the proper assumptions for measuring these liabilities. Usually a long-term problem, now governments are seeing near-term negative effects on their budgets. How important is pension reform for the fiscal health of state and local governments? Does the public pension situation constitute a crisis? And if so, what steps should we be taking to address it? All these questions were discussed and debated in this forum (video). Panelists included Josh Barro (Walter B. Wriston Fellow & Editor of PublicSector.org at the Manhattan Institute), Andrew Biggs (Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute), Dean Baker (Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research), and Elizabeth McNichol (Senior Fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities). This event was moderated by Charles Lane of the Washington Post.

May 13, 2011

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Festival Center
1640 Columbia Road, NW
Washington D.C., DC 20009

From the makers of Beyond Elections, this new feature-length documentary takes viewers across the country amidst the economic collapse, to the grassroots solutions in the hands of the people. On September 15, 2008, the United States fell into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The same day filmmakers Sílvia Leindecker and Michael Fox set out on a trip around the country to ask the "American" people what they had to say about it. In 2010, they went back to see how things had changed. While financial forecasters say the recession is over, Leindecker's and Fox’s Crossing the American Crises: From Collapse to Action shows that the reality is otherwise.

May 11, 2011

Noon
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
10 G Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20002

As part of the Roundtable on Women and the Economy's next meeting, CEPR Senior Economist Eileen Appelbaum took part in a discussion on job loss in the recession and how it has affected women. Other participants included Heather Boushey from the Center for American Progress and Heidi Shierholz from the Economic Policy Institute. Martha Burk, director of the Corporate Accountability Project, National Council of Women's Organizations, and former Senior Policy Adviser for Women's Issues to Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, also spoke about "New Mexico's Contract Compliance Program: Achieving Pay Equity for Women."

Presentation (.ppt)