Thomas Ferguson is the Research Director at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Senior Fellow at Better Markets. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and taught formerly at MIT and the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Golden Rule (University of Chicago Press, 1995) and Right Turn (Hill & Wang, 1986). His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Economic History. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Political Economy and a longtime Contributing Editor at The Nation.
Thomas Ferguson
By this expert
Good Policy or Good Luck? Why Inflation Fell Without a Recession
A major factor in the decline of inflation is the simple fact that America’s workers were, in general, unable to raise their nominal wages in line with the rise in the cost of living
A New Era of Endless Labor Shortages? A Critical Analysis of McKinsey's New Report
The McKinsey report’s highlighting of an extremely high job vacancy ratio in recent years does not reflect the true state of the U.S. labor market.
The Fed’s “Chicken Run”: Why Sticking with High Rates Will Crash the Economy
In persisting with its high rates policy, the Fed is acting like James Dean in the famous “chicken run” auto race in Rebel Without a Cause.
The Second Coming? Trump vs. Biden
How have the macroeconomic problems in the US blinded many participants and observers to the actual state of the American economy as the election approaches?
Featuring this expert
Global Inflation Today: What Is to Be Done? PERI Conference, featuring INET Research Director Thomas Ferguson and INET Grantees
Emerging out of the COVID lockdown, inflation in the U.S. and globally has risen to the highest levels in 40 years. On December 2-3, PERI will host a conference to explore the causes of this global inflation spike. Conference participants will also provide critical perspectives on the austerity macroeconomic policies being implemented globally to control inflation and will propose alternative policies capable of managing inflation without imposing austerity and rising mass unemployment.
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Thomas Ferguson is quoted in Truthout's interview with Chomsky
“The most recent study, using sophisticated AI techniques, dispels “notions that anyone’s opinion about public policy outside of the top 10 percent of affluent Americans independently helps to explain policy.” Thomas Ferguson, the leading academic scholar of the power of the “tools and tyrants” of government, concludes: “Knowing the policy area, the preferences of the top 10 percent, and the views of a handful of interest groups suffice to explain policy changes with impressive accuracy.” — Jared Rodriguez, Truthout
Thomas Ferguson's research is cited in Noam Chomsky's interview with Jacobin
“Well, one place to look always is: “Where’s the money? Who funds Congress?” Actually, there’s a very fine, careful study of this by the leading scholar who deals with funding issues and politics, Thomas Ferguson. He and his colleagues did a study in which they investigated a simple question: “What’s the correlation over many years between campaign funding and electability to Congress?” The correlation is almost a straight line. That’s the kind of close correlation that you rarely get in the social sciences: greater the funding, higher the electability.” — Noam Chomsky in an interview with Jacobin