Dean Baker

Dean Baker...

Background

Dean Baker (b.July 13, 1958) is described as an American macroeconomist.

He graduated with a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1981, then with an M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1983.

Dean Baker received his Ph.D in economics from the University of Michigan.

He had also worked as an assistant professor at Bucknell University.

It is claimed that his areas of expertise are: Housing, consumer prices, intellectual property, Social Security, Medicare, trade, employment.

Other areas of Baker's expertise include budget and taxes and inflation and interest rates.

50th Anniversary of the Institute for Policy Studies

50th Anniversary of the Institute for Policy Studies, Fri, Oct 11, 2013 through Sun, Oct 13, 2013.

Who: Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!; Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation; Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance; Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research; George Goehl, National Peoples Action; Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist; Ariel Dorfman, Argentine-Chilean writer, scholar, activist; Harry Belafonte, American actor, artist, activist; John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies; over 600 activists, students, and scholars.

Where: Liaison Hotel, 415 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington DC; Union Station, 50 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington DC.; Busboys and Poets, 5th and K Sts. NW.

Student activism

Baker, when a grad student at the University of Michigan, was a participant at two sit-ins for which he was arrested, in protest at Rep. Carl Pursell's votes for military aid to the Contras.

The Contras were an American backed - (under the Reagen administration) - anti-communist insurgency who were fighting the then Soviet and Cuban aligned Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Centre for Economic and Policy Research

Baker is co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research in Washington D.C.

He was also its co-founder.

He had also previously worked as a senior economist for the above.

Major contributor of economic reports

Major media outlets often cite Baker in economic reporting; these outlets include National Public Radio, CNN, CNBC, the New York Times and Washington Post.

Baker has a blog called Beat The Press which features commentry on economic reporting.

Beat The Press was formerly published at The American Prospect, but has been relocated at the CEPR website.

He also contributes a weekly column for the Guardian Unlimited (UK).

He was the author of the weekly online commentary on economic reporting, the Economic Reporting Review (ERR), from 1996 - 2006.

Baker's analyses have appeared in many major publications. These include the New York Daily News, the Washinton Post, the London Financial Times and the Atlantic Monthly.

Author of several books

Baker's books include: False Profits: Recovering form the Bubble Economy (PoliPoint Press, 2010); Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy (PoliPoint Press), wherein he points the finger at greed as part of the problem; The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer; Thinking Big: Progressive Ideas for a New Era (Progressive Ideas Network, 2009)and Social Security: The Phony Crisis (with Mark Weisbrot, University of Chicago Press, 1999).

Baker's numerous articles

These include "Are Protective Labor Market Institutions at the Root of Unemployment? A Critical Review of the Evidence," (with David R. Howell, Andrew Glyn, and John Schmitt); Capitalism and Society 2, no. 1, 2007; "Asset Returns and Economic Growth," (with Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman) and The Benefits of Full Employment (with Jared Bernstein).

National Health Insurance Conference

Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) hosted a National Health Insurance Conference, April 16-17, 2004 to kick off a 50-state campaign for passage of national health insurance legislation, HR 676 – the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.” Conyers introduced HR 676 in the House in 2003.

Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, keynoted the conference, speaking on “The State of Health Care – The Case for National Health Insurance.” Conyers spoke on “Launching a National Movement for HR 676,” followed by a session on “Getting the Message Out – Working the Media.”

Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Joel Segal, senior assistant to Conyers, presented the details of HR 676 in a session titled, “What Is It and How Do We Pay For It?” They will seek to arm the participants to take the message back to the neighborhoods. There was also a session on strategies to promote single-payer legislation on the state level. Activists were working on state single-payer bills in a number of states, including Massachusetts, California, and Pennsylvania. The agenda includes nuts-and-bolts workshops on working with unions, faith communities, educators, and health workers.

Ron Gettelfinger, United Auto Workers president, and Leo Gerard, Steelworkers president, both advocates of single-payer health care, were invited to address the conference. The conference also extended invitations to Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, two of the co-sponsors of HR 676.

Conference organizers intended to establish a national health insurance citizens’ network to begin implementing a campaign to pass HR 676 or its equivalent. They also hoped to open a national health insurance coordination office in Washington.

Dozens of health care and social justice organizations endorsed the conference including Physicians for a National Health Program, the Gray Panthers, Jobs with Justice of Washington, D.C., the National Coalition for the Homeless, the American Medical Students Association, Universal Health Care Action Network, and the National Welfare Rights Union.

“We believe that the leadership should come from the people that do the work, and now is the time to build a serious movement for national health insurance for all in America,” asserted conference organizers Michelle Tingling-Clemmons and Rick Tingling-Clemmons. The conference was held at Howard University Hospital and Towers Auditorium, 2041 Georgia Ave. NW, Washington, D. C.

In These Times

As of 2009 Dean Baker was a Contributing Editor of Chicago based socialist journal In These Times.

Consultant to powerful bodies

Some of the more powerful and influential bodies he has been consultant for include the OECD's Trade Union Advisory Council; the World Bank and the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

JournoList

Dean Baker of The American Prospect was an identified member of JournoList - an email group of approximately 400 "progressive" and socialist journalists, academics and "new media" activists.

JournoList members reportedly coordinated their messages in favor of Barack Obama and the Democrats, and against Sarah Palin and the Republican Party. JournoList was founded in 2007 and was closed down in early 2010.

'Top Economists to Advise Sanders on Fed Reform'

On October 20, 2011, Bernie Sanders released a press release titled "Top Economists to Advise Sanders on Fed Reform":

"WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 – Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other nationally-renowned economists agreed today to serve on a panel of experts to help Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) draft legislation to reform the Federal Reserve.

Sanders announced formation of his expert advisory panel in the wake of a damning report that faulted apparent conflicts of interest by bank-picked board members at the 12 regional Fed banks.

Top executives from Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, General Electric and other firms sat on the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks while their firms benefited from the central bank’s policies during the financial crisis, the Government Accountability Office investigation found. The dual roles created an appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the GAO.

After the report was issued Wednesday, Sanders said he would work with top economists to develop legislation to restructure the Fed and tighten rules on conflicts of interest, ensure that the Fed fulfills its full-employment mandate, increase transparency, protect consumers and reduce income inequality.

Sanders’ panel of experts includes:

• Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize. The economics professor at Columbia University is a former chief economist for the World Bank.
• Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute and an economics professor at Columbia University. He also is special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
• Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President-Elect Obama’s transition advisory board. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the century.
• James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith served in several positions on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee.
• Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, the premier research organization focused on U.S. living standards and labor markets.
• William Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He worked with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision.
• Nomi Prins, a senior fellow at Demos, was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, a senior manager at Bear Stearns in London, a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers, and an analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPM Chase)
• William Greider, author of Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, a monumental account of how the American central bank, cloistered and protected from public accountability, exercises its control over the US economy – workers, consumers, investors.
• Jane D'Arista, an Economic Policy Institute research associate, has written on the history of U.S. monetary policy and financial regulation, The former Boston University School of Law professor previously served as a staff economist for Congress.
• Tim Canova, professor of economic law and co-director of the Center for Global Law & Development at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif. He was an early critic of financial deregulation and warned of the dangers of the bubble economy.
• Robert Johnson, senior fellow and director of the Project on Global Finance at the Roosevelt Institute. He was chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee and a senior economist for the Senate Budget Committee.
• Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a consultant for the World Bank and the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.
• Gerald Epstein, chair of the economics department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Epstein also is the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute.
• Robert Auerbach, professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs with the University of Texas at Austin. Auerbach was an economist with the House banking committee during the tenure of four Federal Reserve Chairmen: Arthur Burns, William Miller, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan. Auerbach also served as an economist in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Domestic Monetary Affairs during the first year of the Ronald Reagan administration and as a financial economist with the U.S. Federal Reserve System.
• Roger Hickey, Co-Director of the Campaign for America's Future. In the late 1980s he and Jeff Faux created the Economic Policy Institute.
• Robert L. Borosage is the founder and president of the Institute for America's Future and co-director of its sister organization, the Campaign for America's Future.
• Robert Pollin, co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute and economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has worked with the Joint Economic Committee and the U.S. Competitiveness Policy Council.
• L. Randall Wray, a professor of economics and research director of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and a Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute.
• Stephanie Kelton, associate professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research scholar at the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.

The need for major reforms at the Federal Reserve was driven home by the GAO findings announced Wednesday and in an earlier report issued on July 21. Both unprecedented audits of the Federal Reserve were required by a Sanders’ amendment to last year’s Wall Street reform law...

Feb. 2009 EFCA statement

On February 24, 2009 Richard B. Freeman, Frank Levy and Lawrence Mishel, issued an Economic Policy Institute Employee Free Choice Act Statement on the Economic Policy Institute website, calling for the passage of the pro labor union Employee Free Choice Act.

Statement endorsers included Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research.

"Employment: A Human Right"

Following the establishment of the Congressional Full Employment Caucus February 2014, Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) are hosting a forum entitled, "Employment: A Human Right," moderated by Christina Bellantoni, Editor-in-Chief of Roll Call, this Wednesday, February 5th from 2 -- 3pm in 2226 Rayburn House Office Building. Esteemed panelists for this forum included: Dean Baker the Co-Director and Co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research; John Cavanagh, Director of the Institute for Policy Studies; Phil Harvey, Professor of Law and Economics at Rutgers University; Thea Lee, Deputy Chief of Staff of the AFL-CIO; and Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Insitute.

"Progressive Agenda"

Signers of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's May 12, 2015 launched The Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality included Dean Baker - Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research .

DSA event