Policy Resources
From in-depth analysis to practical policy insights, find research that helps explain how economic policy shapes outcomes for workers, families, and long-term growth.
Our Policy Areas of Focus
The Washington Center for Equitable Growth connects economic evidence and policy to promote shared prosperity and growth by funding policy-relevant research, elevating scholars and their work, and translating evidence for policymakers.
How Ideas Move Into Policy Decisions
AI, Tech & Energy
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and the energy transition affect workers, inequality, and broad-based economic growth.
To equip leaders to guide AI toward shared prosperity, our work examines:
- The impact of AI on employment levels, wages, and job content
- How AI drives macroeconomic impacts such as growth and productivity
- Market competition implications of AI use
- The use of algorithms in labor management
Macroeconomics & Economic Measurement
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how macroeconomic policies and better economic measurement can promote stable and broad-based economic growth.
To reduce volatility and strengthen individual and macroeconomic resilience for broad-based growth, we focus on:
- Automatic stabilizers that cushion downturns and promote more even recoveries
- Tools to respond to recessions that quickly stabilize households, boost the economy, and limit scarring
- Ways to encourage private investment and job growth
- Wealth inequality using novel data and analysis
- Policies to strengthen supply chains and support the energy transition
Political Economy & Democracy
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how economic inequality shapes political power and democratic institutions, and how that in turn affects broad-based economic growth.
Taxation
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how tax policies can promote stable and broad-based economic growth.
To provide evidence to policymakers on what effective reform entails, we focus on:
- Distributional analysis, including distributional weighting of benefit-cost analysis
- Pass-through and other business taxation
- Tax enforcement, especially related to large, complex partnerships
- Taxing wealth, including capital taxes on new forms of wealth such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency
Competition & Economic Dynamism
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how strong competition among U.S. businesses affects inequality and broad-based economic growth.
Household Economic Security
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how unequal access to care, 21st century work-life policies, and education undermines stable, broad-based economic growth.
We focus on:
- The efficacy of public benefit and social insurance programs
- Income security and access to wealth-building
- Policy effects on economic mobility
- The value of economic inclusion
- The impacts on workforce outcomes through policies such as schedule stability and childcare
Economic Equity & Opportunity
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how trends in economic inequality and mobility and changes in the economy have affected the concentration of wealth, income, and earnings, and how these distributional shifts have affected the promise of economic security and opportunity.
Labor, Wages & Worker Power
Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how inequalities in wages, bargaining power, and the evolving labor market affect workers’ economic security and opportunity as well as broad-based economic growth.
We focus on:
- Unemployment and wage growth
- Bargaining power and union coverage
- Gender and race pay equity
- Nonwage amenities, job quality, and upward job mobility
How Ideas Move Into Policy Decisions
Disseminate research and policy guidance
Identify policy areas and issues
Conduct original research and identify spaces for effective policy interventions
Identify policy relevant and academically rigorous research questions
Progress depends on a continuous exchange between ideas and action.
Research helps define the questions that matter, while policy challenges shape the direction of inquiry. When these two stay connected, evidence becomes more than insight—it becomes a tool for better decisions.
That connection is powered by people.
At the center of this work is a network of more than 400 researchers focusing on real policy questions—helping explain economic trends, evaluate solutions, and inform decision-making.
16 Results
Research-based perspectives on the connection between economic policy and rising support for authoritarian populism (opens in a new tab)
Essays MAR 19, 2026
In 2025, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth began to explore the evidence behind a link between the effects of economic policies and global support for authoritarian populist candidates for…
By: Melissa Grober-Morrow (opens in a new tab)
Populist voters feel a sense of loss that is reshaping democracies around the world (opens in a new tab)
Essays SEP 11, 2025
Across Europe, populist parties—once relegated to the political fringe—are now mainstays of national politics. Some are even winning power in the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Austria, and beyond. Whether left-wing or…
By: Justin Gest (opens in a new tab)
Threats to social status and support for far-right political parties (opens in a new tab)
Essays SEP 11, 2025
Once on the political fringes, far-right parties have become established actors in many democracies. The European Parliament election in 2024, for example, resulted in far-right parties receiving more than 20…
By: Tarik Abou-Chadi (opens in a new tab)
A place-based economic development strategy to foster rural U.S. prosperity (opens in a new tab)
Essays SEP 11, 2025
Whether one lives in a city of 2 million people or a town of 2,000, we all want to live in healthy and thriving communities, to have the chance to…
By: Gbenga Ajilore (opens in a new tab)
How U.S. tax policies have fueled right-wing populism (opens in a new tab)
Essays SEP 11, 2025
Among the many factors fueling support for right-wing populism in the United States is federal tax policies. The nation’s tax system confuses, frustrates, and angers many citizens in ways that…
By: Andrea Louise Campbell (opens in a new tab)
To restore democracy, end shareholder primacy at U.S. corporations and on Wall Street (opens in a new tab)
Essays SEP 11, 2025
Workers in the United States have no say over business decisions made in their workplaces by corporate America. Unions, of course, are important for workers’ ability to exercise power over…
By: Lenore Palladino (opens in a new tab)
The political implications of bad jobs and the decline of unions (opens in a new tab)
Blog MAY 13, 2025
Bad jobs have become a distinctive feature of the U.S. economy over the past few decades. Globally, a lack of adequate demand, or what economists call “secular stagnation,” has meant…
By: Adam Dean (opens in a new tab), Jamie McCallum (opens in a new tab)
Federal and state governments can help solve the employment problems of people in distressed places to spur equitable growth (opens in a new tab)
Blog MAY 13, 2025
Places in the United States differ greatly in their residents’ access to jobs, including access to good jobs. In economically distressed places, these job problems can be addressed by creating…
By: Timothy Bartik (opens in a new tab)
More accurately measuring economic sentiment will help build a U.S. economy—and democracy—that works for all (opens in a new tab)
Blog MAY 13, 2025
When politicians and members of the media discuss the state of “the economy” in the United States, they often use a small handful of data points. Of all the indicators…
By: Jonathan Cohen (opens in a new tab), Katherine Cramer (opens in a new tab)
Understanding the role of immigration and economic factors in boosting support for far-right political parties (opens in a new tab)
Blog MAY 13, 2025
Far-right and right-wing populist political parties differ in many respects, but nearly all share one common thread: strong opposition to immigration. These parties often push for stricter border controls and,…
By: Sirus H. Dehdari (opens in a new tab)
America’s job-quality crisis and how to revive workers’ pay, dignity, job advancement, and economic well-being (opens in a new tab)
Blog MAY 13, 2025
The poor quality of jobs in the United States is a slow-burning crisis that has been underway for many decades and has eroded many workers’ quality of life. Too many…
By: Erin Kelly (opens in a new tab)
How the China trade shock impacted U.S. manufacturing workers and labor markets, and the consequences for U.S. politics (opens in a new tab)
Blog MAY 13, 2025
In the early 2000s, manufacturing-intensive communities in the United States entered a period of economic upheaval that would reshape their labor markets over the next two decades. China’s dramatic rise…
By: David Autor (opens in a new tab), David Dorn (opens in a new tab), Gordon Hanson (opens in a new tab)