Center for Economic and Policy Research

Center for Economic and Policy Research

Abbreviation	CEPR
Formation	1999; 22 years ago (1999)
Type	Economic policy think tank
Headquarters	1611 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, D.C., United States
Co-directors	Dean Baker Mark Weisbrot
Revenue (2019)	$4,333,658
Expenses (2019)	$2,392,792[1]
Website	www.cepr.net

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is an economic policy think-tank based in Washington, D.C., that was co-founded in 1999 by economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot.^[2] CEPR contributors include Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipients Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Solow. Politically, it has been described as both progressive^[3] and left-leaning.^[4][5][6]

History[]

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), founded in 1999, is a think tank which concentrates on economic research and public education. CEPR has focused on topics that affect people's lives, in order to contribute to public debate in the United States (social security, healthcare, the national budget), and internationally (global economy, International Monetary Fund, and Latin America policy).^[7]

Policy positions[]

CEPR has been described as both progressive^[3] and left-leaning.^[4][8][6] CEPR is based in Washington, D.C.

United States[]

Affordable Care Act[]

CEPR supports the Affordable Care Act (ACA) stating that it is "a family-friendly policy" and that the policy "has allowed thousands of workers to voluntarily reduce their work hours to care for children or elderly parents, or to explore new opportunities." Despite the increase in the percentage of workers employed on a part-time basis, CEPR concluded that such statistics were not sufficient to make any overall judgments on the health of the labor market.^[9][10]

Employment[]

CEPR backs alongside the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) the Full Employment Caucus, a group on United States House officials that advocate for full employment in the United States.^[11]

Minimum wage[]

A 2014 study by CEPR shows that 13 states that increased their minimum wage had an average payroll of 0.99% compared to 0.68% in other states, though the CEPR stated the analysis was "far from scientific".^[12]

Taxes[]

In a 2014 report in Fortune, CEPR co-founder Dean Baker suggested that according to poll findings, many citizens of the United States did not notice a 2% increase in their Social Security tax.^[13]

Brazil[]

In 2008, Brazilian Foreign Secretary Celso Amorim cited CEPR's work to explain why Brazil had no interest in signing a free trade agreement with the United States. He said that the CEPR report concluded that the most severe impacts from the financial crisis of 2007–08 would be suffered by those economies most integrated to United States, those that have free trade agreements with the US.^[14]

Venezuela[]

CEPR and its founder Mark Weisbrot have analysed and often written about the crisis in Venezuela. In an October 2012 op-ed for The New York Times, Weisbrot wrote that "[a]lthough some media have talked of Venezuela’s impending economic collapse for more than a decade, it hasn’t happened and is not likely to happen."^[15] In a July 2014 article for Fortune, Weisbrot said the Venezuelan economy had performed well for the period from 2004, when the government gained control of the oil industry from the opposition, to 2012. He said the problems which commenced in 2012 were mainly due to Venezuela's exchange rate system.^[16] In a June 2016 article in The New York Times, Weisbrot wrote that "Washington has caused enormous damage to Venezuela in its relentless pursuit of 'regime change' for the last 15 years." He suggested the US end its intervention, which involved economic sanctions, funding of opposition groups and refusal to accept presidential election results.^[17]

Bolivia[]

in 2019, CEPR criticized the Organization of American States (OAS)'s audit of the 2019 Bolivian general election, which concluded that the results of the elections should be voided because there were "drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results after the closing of the polls". Co-Director Mark Weisbrot wrote that the report "provides absolutely no evidence — no statistics, numbers, or facts of any kind — to support this idea", and called on the OAS to retract its press release.^[18]

CEPR asked researchers at the MIT Election Data and Science Lab to independently verify their work on the 2019 Bolivian election.^[19] The MIT researchers published a statistical analysis on 27 February 2020, confirming the results of the CEPR study and finding that there was no "statistical evidence of fraud that we can find — the trends in the preliminary count, the lack of any big jump in support for Morales after the halt, and the size of Morales’s margin all appear legitimate. All in all, the OAS's statistical analysis and conclusions would appear deeply flawed" and that "it is highly likely that Morales surpassed the 10-percentage-point margin in the first round" as originally presented.^[20]

Personnel[]

CEPR's staff includes Ha-Joon Chang^[21] and Eileen Appelbaum.^[22][23] Other staff members include John Schmitt, Deborah James and Alexander Main.^[24][25]

CEPR contributors include Advisory Board Members Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Solow.^[26]

As of 2017, CEPR's Board of Directors includes:^[27]

Julian Bond served as CEPR's Board Chair in the past.^[28]

References[]

External links[]

• CEPR website