Category: Uncategorized

The Debate Over Liability for AI-Generated Content

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Lawmakers and industry professionals alike are beginning to think about the future implications of artificial intelligence and, specifically, generative AI. Generative AI analyzes and processes existing data patterns to generate new texts, images, and musical compilations. The objective is to mimic man-made results so precisely that the artificially generated content is indistinguishable from that of man-made content. This poses the question, as humans and their actions on the internet are bound by the law — how should we go about establishing rules for generative AI?

An area where the distinction between human and AI-generated content will be particularly important is content liability. Put simply, is the company operating a chatbot liable for generated text and images, or does the liability fall on the user who asked for it to be generated? If ChatGPT writes a blog post full of misleading statements about an individual, is ChatGPT responsible for producing defamatory content? Or, alternatively, is it the responsibility of the user that posts the blog?

Currently, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 prevents a website that displays third-party content from being considered the legal publisher of that content, placing the liability for online content on those who post it. This not only insulates social media websites from liability, but also e-commerce websites and any other platforms that publish consumer reviews. In its application to generative AI, we need to consider the degree to which the user is responsible for the output of the content, and thus how much responsibility should be given to the tool itself.

Two opposing interpretations of whether or not Section 230 liability protections should apply to AI tools exist in the current debate. The first argues that content generated by artificial intelligence applications are driven by third-party input and thus Section 230 protections should apply, while the other maintains that Section 230 protects third party content, not content generated by a platform. The answer to AI’s legal status lies between the two: Do generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Dall-E qualify as material contributors of the content they generate, removing them from Section 230’s scope?

The first legal argument would mean shielding generative AI from liability under Section 230’s safe harbor because generative AI output is fueled by human input, thus the application is not a material contributor to the content. This would be an admission that generative AI is not responsible for the content it produces. Rather the liability falls on the initial third-party input and a wealth of pre-existing data pulled from the web which create the content in question.

Benefits of lending Section 230 protections to generative AI include the freedom to innovate unfettered by costly lawsuits and a healthier competitive market. While larger, established companies have robust legal teams and funds to take on liability litigation, smaller start-ups, and independent developers are not as readily able to take accountability for every statement produced by a program that can be manipulated by users. Holding the companies that develop artificial intelligence technology liable for potential mistakes could produce a chilling effect that prevents smaller entities from entering the market in the first place and allows larger ones to dominate.

Arguments opposing Section 230’s application to generative AI claim that generative AI does not have a passive role in creating the content it produces. Section 230 protects the ability for third parties to post on platforms. Organization and editing of third-party data may transform the AI into a material contributor, therefore not qualifying for Section 230 immunity. Because generative AI creates content rather than hosts content like a Reddit message board or a Twitter timeline, it could be argued that it has decidedly more editorial agency over what is created.

Former Representative Chris Cox and Senator Ron Wyden, the co-authors of Section 230, claim that “Section 230 is about protecting users and sites from hosting and organizing users’ speech” and was never intended to shield companies from the consequences of the products they create. Further, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, testified during a Senate hearing that he believes Section 230 does not provide an adequate regulatory framework for generative AI tools and that innovators must work with the government to formulate new solutions.

Without Section 230 protection, the primary risk associated with holding companies accountable is when users directly prompt AI to generate unlawful conduct. Should authorities view the AI as actively creating those harmful messages or as a passive platform that enables its users to spread violent or false information? If the former is true, developers must anticipate and mitigate all possible inputs that could produce harmful content. Further, free expression will inevitably be limited. Because these platforms would be exposed to a new mass of litigation, curbing legal risk would require censoring both malicious and legitimate speech to reduce the risk of culpability.

While a clear answer to generative AI’s liability has yet to be reached, some policy experts suspect that Section 230 may only shield companies in specific scenarios. Even if each harmful action inflicted by AI is evaluated by its specific facts alone, the amount of creative license that AI has over its output is difficult to measure with reproducible accuracy and precision. Even if section 230 is the appropriate regulatory structure for now, generative AI raises broader theoretical questions about the future of content moderation.

Ritz for Forbes: Why The Fitch Downgrade Should Be A Wake-Up Call To Washington — Even If It’s Wrong

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Ben Ritz

How concerned should policymakers and their constituents be about Fitch Ratings Agency’s decision to downgrade the United States credit rating from AAA to AA+ last week? The White House brushed it off, saying Fitch “defies reality” to downgrade U.S. credit at a time when the country is experiencing “the strongest recovery of any major economy in the world.” Meanwhile, leading Republicans say it’s a “a wake-up call to get our fiscal house in order before it’s too late.” The truth is: they’re both right.

On the fundamentals, this downgrade is perplexing because the federal government is no more likely to miss a bond payment today than it has been for the past decade. As the world’s largest economy and one that borrows in its own currency, there is little doubt the U.S. government has a greater ability to pay back its debts than any other entity on Earth. Both Fitch and Moody’s Analytics reaffirmed the AAA credit rating in 2011 even when formerly unprecedented debt-limit brinkmanship caused S&P to issue the first-ever downgrade of U.S. credit. Little has changed since then from a financial perspective — if anything, the U.S. economy is far stronger than it was 12 years ago, both in absolute terms and relative to other advanced economies.

But in another sense, the lack of any meaningful change in the government’s approach to fiscal policy from 12 years ago is exactly the problem. In 2011, the federal government was running an annual budget deficit equal to 8.4% of gross domestic product. This made sense at a time when the national unemployment rate was roughly 9% and expansionary fiscal policy was needed to support a weakened economy struggling to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. Today, the annual budget deficit is over 6% of GDP — roughly triple what it averaged in the 50 years before the financial crisis, even though unemployment today is lower than it was at any point over that period.

Read more in Forbes.

Building the Next Digital Workforce Generation

Posted on by dcadmin

On this episode of the Mosaic Moment, Jasmine Stoughton sits down with PPI’s Director of Workforce Development Policy, Taylor Maag, and Senior Software Engineer, Eela Nagaraj, to talk about the importance of building a strong digital workforce and how governments and the tech industry are ensuring the next generation of skilled professionals.

Taylor unpacks findings from her research paper, “Closing the Digital Skills Gap: Unveiling Insights from Four Countries,” and Eela shares insights from her experiences as a senior software engineer and as a volunteer instructor teaching technology education to folks from underrepresented and forced-migration backgrounds.

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PPI’s Trade Fact of the Week: National Security Council — Trade policy not ‘at the core’ of ‘international economic policy’

Posted on by dcadmin

FACT: National Security Council — Trade policy not “at the core” of “international economic policy.”

THE NUMBERS: U.S. economy 2022

GDP:                                         $25.5 trillion
Of which, exports:                       $3.0 trillion*
Manufacturing:                            $1.6 trillion
Digitally deliverable services       $720 billion
Energy                                         $380 billion
Agriculture                                   $196 billion

*Census for goods trade, BEA for digitally deliverable services. Definitions of “manufactured goods,” “energy,” and “agriculture” overlap; figures above include NAICS for manufacturing, USDA for agriculture, and HTS-27 for energy. BEA’s “ICT” and “potentially ICT-enabled” services include computer and telecommunication services, intellectual property revenue, finance, and insurance, “cultural and recreational” services such as entertainment and media, business & professional services such as architecture, accounting, advertising, research & development, etc.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

A late-June comment from the National Security Council’s “International Economics” Deputy: Asked at a Carnegie Endowment event what “compelling practical value proposition” the U.S. has to offer developing countries on trade, the NSC officer tells them they should be thinking about something else. Our transcription:

“[W]e’re at a place where average U.S. tariffs are at historic lows, still 2.4% … in a lot of ways we don’t see tariffs as being at the core of trade policy, and we don’t see trade policy as being at the core of international economic policy.  What needs to be at the core of international economic policy? Well, an emerging set of challenges that haven’t been addressed — things like supply chain fragility and resilience, things like climate and clean energy, things like anti-corruption, things like global tax. Those are the kind of pressing economic issues internationally right now.”

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, speaking across the street at Johns Hopkins/SAIS a few months earlier during his January visit, sees a quite different “core.” His counterpoint:

“[T]he core of what creates an economic order in the region [i.e., Asia-Pacific] is a framework with market access for goods and services. In the Asia-Pacific region, we indeed have such a framework, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP was originally initiated by the United States, and then was eventually launched without U.S. participation. Now, the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and others have expressed their intention to join this agreement. Against the backdrop, let me state that the United States’ return is of paramount importance.”

A couple of cautions before over-interpreting anything: While context suggests that the NSC Deputy is making a general statement about the non-“coreness” of trade policy, he is responding to a question specifically about economic relationships with developing countries and perhaps meant something less sweeping. Likewise, it isn’t exactly clear who his “we” includes (the NSC staff as a group?), as policy statements by administration Cabinet departments, by neighboring EOP “components” with economic or trade authority such as the Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Trade Representative Office, and by independent agencies like the Ex-Im Bank, et al, don’t typically reach such a Lao Tzu-like plane of inertness. But these cautions noted, two observations:

1. Foreigners looking at the U.S.: As we noted last month, NSC’s “2.4%” average tariff rate isn’t factually correct and (more important) wouldn’t be very relevant if it were. In general, tariffs as taxation of imported goods are one component of a larger “market access” concept — that is, the policy-induced cost and ease or difficulty of selling something to a foreign customer — which also includes quota limits, import licenses, some types of regulatory approvals and services policies, customs efficiency, and so on.  Foreigners often have good reason to view this set of issues as important, and American policymakers can’t easily disentangle them from ‘core’ issues such as supply-chain fragility and resilience.  As a mini-case study, the ‘average’ U.S. tariff rate on imports from New Zealand was 2022 was a modest 1.0%, but Kiwis are more concerned about restrictive dairy quotas and illogical inspection rules. These, together with tariffs of 17.5% (under quota) and “13.6% + $1.035/kg” (above quota), make it nearly impossible for American grocery stores to buy New Zealand infant formula. This in turn the main reason the U.S. “supply chain” for formula is fragile, non-“resilient,” and prone to shortages and hardships for moms when one of the dozen or so U.S. formula plants runs into trouble.

With respect to tariffs as such, few countries see a “2.4%” average. U.S. tariff rates vary by product (as do those of other countries), from mostly zero or near zero for energy and natural resources, to low to medium for industrial inputs, and high for lots of consumer goods. Thus by country, rates run in a continuum from near-zero for resource exporters (say, Saudi Arabia, Greenland, Kazakhstan) and countries exempted from tariffs through free trade agreements or “preference” programs, to an 8%-15% range for low-income Asian countries specialized in clothing (Cambodia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka).  So foreigners often have reason to view “market access” generally, and sometimes tariffs specifically, as important or even “core.”

2. Americans looking outward: The same applies in the other direction. NSC’s interest in anti-corruption and global tax issues isn’t trivial; neither, however, are more local questions about American job quality, growth sources, and inflation-fighting.  For example, the United States has its own large but troubled export sector, measured at $3 trillion last year.  Among much else this sector provides 20% of American farm income; creates markets for $1.6 trillion in U.S.-produced airplanes, cars, semiconductor chips, MRI machines, and other manufactured goods abroad; sends $720 billion in digitally deliverable services abroad via wire and satellite beam; makes up a ninth of Oregon’s GDP and a fifth of Texas’; supports 21,000 women-owned exporting businesses with over a million employees; and, in macro terms, presents ways to help the U.S. sustain growth as government fiscal stimulus fades and Federal Reserve interest rates cool off U.S. demand.

The export sector has lots of headaches though, and it could use policy help. To draw a few from various government sources:

        • Gloomy statistical trends: The Census Bureau’s tally of exporting U.S. firms has dropped by about 12%, from a peak of 305,000 late in the Obama administration to 278,000 as of 2022. Meanwhile, the U.S. share of world exports has dropped by WTO count from 9.1% to 8.3% in goods, and 15.2% to 12.8% in services.
        • Policy problems not rare: The 2023 edition of the U.S. Trade Representative Office’s 467-page “National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers” recounts objectionable policies whose revision might help a bit, ranging from mandatory Tunisian “import license” rules for automobiles, through Nigerian bans of American chicken and beef, to an Indian “simple average” tariff rate of 18.3%, seven pages of European Union ag policies, Chinese subsidies, and lots more.
        • Foreign tariff and “market access” arrangements: Few foreign governments share the view that trade is not a core part of international economic policy.  As they continue reducing barriers to one another’s products via the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership,” the CPTPP Prime Minister Kishida cites, European and Chinese agreements with South American countries, etc., the policy landscape is tilting against American businesses and their workers.

 

Against this background, P.M. Kishida looks tactful and correct as he gives his own view of what might be at the “core” of international economic policy. The NSC’s approach, whether in terms of international economic order or more local concerns about jobs, inflation, and growth, looks very much in need of its own rethink.

FURTHER READING

NSC’s Deputy at the Carnegie Endowment: The eight-minute exchange on the U.S.’ “practical value proposition” for developing countries, the non-core status of trade policy, etc., begins with a question at about 09:00, with the quoted passage at 16:00.

Six months earlier and across Massachusetts Avenue at SAIS, Prime Minister Kishida’s view of U.S.-Japan relations, Asia-Pacific security, market access, and economic order.

Case study:

Kadee Russ (UC-Davis) and Phillip Dean (Deakin University, in Australia), look at infant formula tariffs, quotas, trade, and shortages.

Elsewhere in the administration, some different emphases: 

The Department of Agriculture reports a record $196 billion in farm exports for 2022.

The U.S. Trade Representative Office’s National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers 2023 spans 467 pages of foreign tariffs, import licenses, objectionable agricultural policies, digital trade barriers, subsidies, and more.

Ex-Im Bank Chair Reta Lewis and the Congressional Black Caucus confer last June on export opportunities for minority-owned businesses.

And the Commerce Department’s blog-site has export promotion goals for 2023.

Dome data:

Census’ main trade data page.

Census and BEA on ownership, pay, markets, and employment for exporting companies.

USDA’s Global Agricultural Trade Statistics database.

BEA’s services trade data.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has U.S. import totals, tariff revenue, and average rates, from 1891’s 25.5%, through 2008’s 1.2%, to 2021’s 3.0%.

The WTO’s World Trade Statistical Review 2023, just out on Monday with data through the first half of 2023.

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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Bledsoe and Sykes for The Hill: Energy permitting is broken: New analytics can fix it

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Paul Bledsoe and Elan Sykes

The energy permitting reforms included in the recent bipartisan budget agreement represented modest progress — but they didn’t fix the problem. The main challenge, and the huge economic opportunity, is the sheer number of energy projects that must be permitted rapidly to save consumers money and limit emissions.

Thousands of these projects — wind power, solar, geothermal, powerlines, pipelines, carbon capture and many more — are pending reviews by federal agencies, electricity grid operators and state and local jurisdictions in every region. These permits cannot possibly be processed rapidly on a one-by-one basis, as the current system demands.

Fortunately, analytic and scoping technologies developed in the half-century since the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can help expedite the process. These advances include a far better understanding of geological, ecological and other scientific conditions as well as the capacity to process and display information through technologies like computationally intensive modeling and Geographical Information Systems programs. These technologies can provide regulators the capacity they need to more comprehensively approve large batches of similar projects together. Only such basic reforms will upgrade our national energy infrastructure quickly and cost-effectively.

Agencies can increasingly use these technologies to conduct programmatic reviews that study groups of projects across wide geographic or technological areas. These systematic reviews can proactively identify, study and map places with significant clean energy potential and recognize issues that may require mitigation measures.

Read more in The Hill.

Members of Congress and Experts Discuss How to Solve America’s Most Pressing Workforce Challenges

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Amidst our tight labor market, our nation is facing pressing workforce challenges that demand urgent attention. Employers of every size and industry can’t find enough workers to fill open jobs — the latest data shows that we have 9.8 million job openings in the U.S. but only 5.9 million unemployed workers; eligible workers remain on the sidelines in need of skills training or support services to enter and advance in the labor market and the adoption of technological innovations continue to disrupt the way we work — creating an increasingly large skills-gap that is undermining our nation’s competitive edge and worker access to economic opportunity. To ensure our nation’s workers and businesses can succeed in today and tomorrow’s economy, policymakers must confront these trials head-on.

And some are. Last week PPI’s New Skills for a New Economy Project, had the privilege of partnering with members of Congress on the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) to convene a roundtable on workforce development.

The roundtable brought together Members of Congress, including Representatives Kathy Manning (NC-06), Salud Carbajal (CA-24), Hillary Scholten (MI-3), Gabe Vasquez (NM-02), Val Hoyle (OR-04), Lucy McBath (GA-06), and Donald Norcross (NJ-01). The event also included expert speakers from across the workforce ecosystem — representing the workforce system, community colleges, industry partners and intermediaries working to expand youth and adult apprenticeships. Roundtable speakers included: Portia Wu, Maryland Secretary of Labor; Steven Partridge, Vice President of Strategy, Workforce, and Innovation at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA); Patrick Combs, Vice President for Apprenticeships and Work-Based Learning at Job For the Future; Lateefah Durant, Vice President of Innovation at CareerWiseDC and Steve Perrotta, Director of Public Policy at Society for Human Resource Management.

The group had a holistic conversation about these pressing workforce challenges and ways in which the public and private sectors can work together to create innovative and effective solutions. Leaders discussed high-quality skill development opportunities; tackling barriers to employment; incentivizing cross-sector collaboration and the critical importance of robust industry partnerships. From this discussion, three themes emerged:

 

  • Build Stronger Career Pathways for Youth & Adults: To address emerging skill gaps and ensure current and future workers are prepared for in-demand employment, Members and experts discussed the need to expand high-quality skill development programs across the U.S. Leaders emphasized the growing degree divide in our country — stating that while degree programs yield strong returns in our labor market, the majority of workers don’t earn degrees. As a result, in addition to ensuring higher education is more accessible, policymakers must commit to creating more high-quality alternatives to college that yield strong returns. The group talked about apprenticeship as a solution and how these effective earn-and-learn models should be expanded to serve more businesses and more people. Lateefah Durant, from CityWorks DC, discussed her work in implementing the CareerWise, youth apprenticeship model which has seen success across the country and has helped to expand opportunity for young people in D.C. through not only the necessary on-the-job training and related instruction but through social capital and network building. Lastly, the group discussed other more rapid reskilling efforts, like short-term credential programs. Steve Partridge, spoke to Virginia’s FastForward program and how state investment in these types of programs has allowed NOVA to help more students get in-demand credentials and jobs across the state.

 

  • Move Toward a Skills-Based Labor Market: For decades, employers have used the degree as a proxy for job preparedness. To break down this barrier to employment, leaders discussed the need to move toward a more skills-based labor market — where someone is assessed by their skill sets and experience rather than their attained credentials. Portia Wu, Maryland’s Secretary of Labor spoke to Maryland’s efforts to remove degree requirements from government jobs as a way to attract diverse talent, expand access to good government jobs and model how this can and should work for other employers. Portia discussed how these efforts along with removing some of the requirements for federal contract work can create more opportunity for workers without degrees, returning citizens and other workers that face increased barriers to employment. Steve Perrotta from SHRM, reaffirmed Portia’s points stating that this is a huge priority for employers across the country. However, as with any new effort, leaders discussed that this will take time to get right. Not only do employers have to change practices and learn how to better market jobs and assess skills but moving toward skills-based hiring will require overhauling our nation’s workforce development system. This means a greater emphasis on industry-responsive education, training, and experience, like career and technical education and work-based learning, across K-12 and postsecondary education. Policies that promote competency-based education, offer prior-learning assessments, and expand career pathways will also be increasingly important so individuals can have more stackable, skills-based learning opportunities while also understanding changing labor market demands. Additionally, innovation around learning and employment records, which provide digital infrastructure to hold information about a person’s academic and industry achievements will be important to design and scale so individuals have a more accessible way to demonstrate their accumulation of skills, knowledge and experiences.

 

  • Increase investment in workforce development efforts: Last but definitely not least, to do any of this effectively there needs to be greater investment in workforce development at the national level. Prior to COVID and recovery spending, the nation spent $149 billion on higher education versus $58 billion for workforce-related education and training. Since the latter figure also includes Pell Grants and veterans’ programs, Washington really only spends about $16 billion, spread across 17 separate federal programs that provide workforce-focused education, employment, and training assistance. Experts at the roundtable discussed how this is not sufficient. In addition, to the general disagreement with our nation’s inequitable funding for workforce, speakers elevated what needs to be invested in. Portia, discussed the importance of sector based investment — highlighting The Department of Commerce’s Good Jobs Challenge — as a way to build career pathways in high-demand fields while supporting the economic development of a region. Steve Patridge spoke to the importance of career guidance and ensuring community college students have access to career counselors as well as better labor market insights to make informed career decisions. And lastly, Patrick and Lateefah spoke to the growth and scale of apprenticeships in our country, for adults and youth alike.

 

Across these major themes, it was made clear that not one system can do this work alone. Instead we must break down silos between public programs and agencies as well as with the private sector to create more collaborative and aligned solutions that serve the needs of employers and workers.

The roundtable facilitated an illuminating conversation — shedding a light on potential federal actions that can solve persisting workforce shortages; our nation’s stagnant labor force participation rate and make it easier for employers and workers to keep pace with our rapidly changing economy. PPI’s New Skills Project looks forward to continued work with these Congressional champions and workforce experts to enact the policy changes needed to create more equitable economic opportunity in America.

Pankovits for The Messenger: How Democrats Can Turn the Tables on Republicans’ Education Politics

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

By Tressa Pankovits

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965. It’s one of the most important education-related pieces of legislation ever passed, in no small part because of its Title I provision.

House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee just voted to gut Title I. Specifically, they want to slash an astonishing 80% of its budget. With a Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden’s veto pen ready, House Republicans have zero chance of enacting this funding cut. Democrats should waste no time making hay out of their maleficence.

Johnson designed Title I as “the” federal funding vehicle to help close skill gaps in reading, writing and math between urban and rural children from low-income households, and middle or upper-class children in suburban school systems. Johnson considered the U.S. poverty level a national disgrace that demanded a national response. He understood that poor children were not at fault for their socioeconomic status and, without resources dedicated to equalizing educational opportunity, many would be condemned to a life of hardship and want.

Now, without the safeguard of a Democratic Senate and White House, Republicans’ proposed Title I budget would kick 220,000 teachers out of classrooms and kneecap learning for millions of children. House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), while arguing in favor of the bill, acknowledged, “While Title I funds are distributed to school districts everywhere, including rural schools in districts like my own, these funds disproportionally support big-city public schools, the same public schools that failed to educate the most vulnerable children entrusted to them by closing their doors for almost two years.”

Read more.

This story was originally published in The Messenger on July 31, 2023.

New IFP Report: Identifying Domestic Trade Vulnerabilities Are Critical to Strengthening Supply Chains and Reducing Dependence on China

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Throughout his administration, President Biden has prioritized improving domestic supply chains and preventing supply chain disruptions. But China remains one of the United States’ biggest threats, as the country is both a strategic competitor and the U.S.’s largest trading partner outside of North America. President Biden’s industrial policy has been one of selective decoupling, rather than a complete decoupling of economic ties. This policy, however, does lead to vulnerabilities in both economic and national security, and managing these vulnerabilities is one of the Biden Administration’s biggest challenges when addressing supply chains.

Today, the Progressive Policy Institute’s (PPI) Innovation Frontier Project (IFP) released a new report, “U.S. Supply Chains and Biden’s China Challenge,” which offers a new approach based on a novel metric to respond to the vulnerabilities in the U.S.’s trade relationship with China. Report author Keith Belton introduces a new supply chain measure called revealed comparative dependence (RCD), which can be used to identify goods and industries where the U.S. is excessively dependent on Chinese imports.

“To fully address and strengthen the United States’ supply chains, we must first understand where the biggest gaps are, which is what the revealed comparative dependence (RCD) metric can help measure. The U.S.’s biggest vulnerabilities come when our domestic manufacturing capabilities are lacking and when our foreign dependence is significant, as well as concentrated in one region or country,” said Keith Belton, Senior Director of Policy Analysis with the American Chemistry Council. “Strategically investing in high vulnerability goods will better reduce the U.S.’ dependence on China and strengthen domestic supply chains.”

The report finds that the highest vulnerabilities in the U.S. over the last decade have been driven by a loss in domestic manufacturing, rather than dependence on China.

The report makes the following policy recommendations:

  • The Department of Commerce should annually identify and publicize high vulnerability goods by calculating the RCD, which will serve to educate and influence the private sector in the management of global supply chains.
  • The comprehensive analysis of traded goods should inform federal implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, which direct together $1 trillion to strengthen U.S. supply chains. The Administration should give greater weight to applications for federal subsidies that reduce high vulnerabilities.
  • President Biden should scale back the Trump 301 tariffs on the vast majority of Chinese goods, which often impose a burden on U.S. manufacturing. The scope of the tariffs should be narrowed to finished goods or high vulnerability goods.
  • Finally, President Biden should make it easier for the U.S. to attract and retain foreign workers that possess tacit know-how that is lacking domestically.

 

Read and download the report here.

Based in Washington, D.C., and housed in the Progressive Policy Institute, the Innovation Frontier Project explores the role of public policy in science, technology and innovation.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

 

U.S. Supply Chains and Biden’s China Challenge

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper introduces a new supply chain measure called revealed comparative dependence (RCD), based on publicly available national and global trade data. The paper shows how high RCD can be used to identify product classes where the United States is excessively dependent on Chinese imports.

The paper suggests that RCD can be used to inform the Biden Administration’s industrial policy. The Department of Commerce can use RCD to publish a list of high-vulnerability goods. Policymakers can pay special attention to goods on the list to reduce dependence on China, while considering rolling back tariffs on goods not on the list.

INTRODUCTION

The Biden Administration wants to improve the resilience of U.S. supply chains — the ability to recover quickly from a supply disruption anywhere in the world. A key element is preventing a supply chain crisis “from hitting in the first place.”

But China is the elephant in the room. It is both a strategic competitor and the United States’ largest trading partner outside of North America. The concern is that China might weaponize its industrial might for geopolitical gain — something it may be doing now (Keeley 2018) and for which the United States is admittedly ill-prepared. The economic damage to the United States from a war with China5 would be considerable, as Babbage (2023) described:

U.S. supplies of many products could soon run low, paralyzing a vast range of businesses. It could take months to restore trade, and emergency rationing of some items would be needed. Inflation and unemployment would surge, especially in the period in which the economy is repurposed for the war effort . . . Stock exchanges in the United States and other countries might temporarily halt trading because of the enormous economic uncertainties.

To avoid such a scenario, some China hawks call for a complete decoupling of economic ties, but President Biden doesn’t want to eliminate the substantial economic benefits arising from international trade. His industrial policy is one of selective decoupling, focusing on foundational technologies, critical/essential goods, and goods made from forced labor.

Selective decoupling, however, implies acceptance of vulnerabilities in economic and national security. Managing these vulnerabilities is arguably Biden’s biggest challenge in enhancing the resilience of U.S. supply chains.

In this paper, we offer an approach, based on a novel metric, to characterize and respond to these vulnerabilities. We apply this approach to a subset of traded goods, advanced technology products — a focal point of industrial policy in both China and the United States. We derive lessons for policymakers and offer some policy recommendations consistent with Biden’s industrial policy. We make no presumption as to the merits of Biden’s policy; we take it as given, and our aim is to improve its effectiveness.

READ THE FULL REPORT.

RAS Reports Podcast Series Lands at Essence Fest!

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Beyoncé is right. Who runs the world? Girls!

Black women are the decision makers at home and a driving force in educational advocacy in our communities so it’s only right that Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) — a project housed at the Progressive Policy Institute — and our RAS Reports podcast traveled to New Orleans to immerse ourselves in the largest collection of Black women in America…Essence Fest.

Black women have always been leaders in the fight for educational equity from the classroom to the courtroom. From educator and school founder Mary McLeod Bethune to attorney and advocate Constance Baker Motley, Black women have led the way in the age-old fight for the right to education in America.

Book banning, anti-diversity training legislation, and the rolling back of Affirmative Action in higher education threatens to reverse much of the progress Black women fought and died for a generation ago. And yet, Black women persist.

The fight continues for women like former DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. Henderson recently founded Reconstruction, an effort to help students see history and education in a broader context that resonates with their culture and identity. For Steph Walters, leading Team Yellow — the brainchild of artist and producer Pharrell Williams — and their Engagement and Communication work is key to growing their network of micro-schools.

It’s no surprise to those who’ve been paying attention…Black women are winning.

Naomi Shelton is no different. As CEO of the National Charter Collaborative, Naomi is changing the game in how to grow a new generation of charter school leaders of color. And for Crystal Gilliam and Tracey Clark of 4.0, the work can’t wait. At 4.0, Gilliam and Clark are a driving force in providing coaching, curriculum, community, and cash to women leaders with the imagination to create a more equitable education ecosystem.

Started in 1995 by Essence Magazine to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the magazine’s first publication, Essence Fest is the single largest festival in America…period! In 2022, Essence Fest recorded a daily attendance rate of 176,000 attendees and welcomed over 500,000 attendees over the course of the 3-day event. In comparison, South by Southwest (SXSW) welcomed less than 300,000 attendees over a five-day period in 2022.

The energy and impact of Essence Fest was the perfect location for our latest podcast series, titled The Future is Woman. The line-up of guests included some of the brightest and most innovative minds in education discussing their organizations, their ideas, and the tremendous impact Black women play in driving their work.

The Future of Woman series is a must for those who need to hear from those at the forefront of innovation in education or for those leading organizations seeking new ideas to the same old issues.

Famed Capital Prep Charter School founder Dr. Steve Perry said it best, “I could not do what I do without Black women.” After listening to our five-part series, I’ll believe you’ll agree.

Guests include:

  • Episode 1: Steve Perry, Capital Prep Charter Schools
  • Episode 2: Steph Walters, Team Yellow
  • Episode 3: Crystal Gilliam and Tracey Clark, 4.0
  • Episode 4: Naomi Shelton, National Charter Collaborative
  • Episode 5: Kaya Henderson, Reconstruction

 

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST SERIES HERE!

Marshall for The Hill: Trump won’t let America move on from his 2020 false reality show

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Will Marshall

Elections are about the future, not the past, as the old cliché has it. But as the 2024 presidential campaign gets underway, U.S. voters can’t seem to escape the noxious aftermath of the 2020 election.

Many would like to move on, but Donald Trump won’t let them. He wants to rerun the 2020 contest next year, only this time with him winning. Complicating his improbable bid is the belated legal reckoning he and his lackeys now face for scheming to steal the last election.

Keep reading in The Hill.

‘Honest Billing’ is a Step Forward, But No Substitute for Site-Neutral Payments

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

One of the greatest contributors to America’s rising high health care costs is bloated hospital bills for simple procedures. We hear plenty of stories about how patients are increasingly confused by the shockingly expensive bills they receive from their providers, especially when their medical care shifts from an outpatient to a hospital-based setting.

Both Medicare and private health insurances pay hospital-owned facilities higher rates than independent medical practices and other outpatient facilities for the exact same services. These higher payment rates create an incentive for hospitals to acquire these independent practices, resulting in higher prices charged to patients. Clinic visits are the most commonly billed service under Medicare, which only reimburses $116 for each visit to an outpatient hospital clinic doctor and $46 for the same level visit for an independent doctor.

Congress is considering two different approaches — site-neutral payment reform and “honest billing” for creating greater price transparency and lowering hospital costs. Both have attracted bipartisan support, but site-neutral payment reform holds greater promise for lowering patients’ medical bills and saving taxpayers money.

Making payments “site-neutral” means reimbursing providers by the same amount regardless of where they provide medical services to patients. For example, several bills would apply that principle to Medicare reimbursements. This would save the federal government billions of dollars and reduce premiums for seniors.

​​Another set of proposals that fall under an “honest billing” category, would not make any changes to Medicare reimbursement and instead focuses on billing hospitals separately for each off-campus outpatient department. While these other “honest billing” proposals present a step forward in advancing site-neutral payment reform to cut costs, they don’t fully move towards equalization of reimbursing hospital versus non-hospital settings and thereby don’t truly implement site-neutral payments. These bills give insurers more transparency about where services are being performed, but they wouldn’t meaningfully reduce costs.

Both the House Education and Workforce (E&W) and House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committees have separate bills that were recently marked up in committee and fall under the “honest billing” category. The House E&W bill, H.R. 4509, the Transparency In Billing Act, would require hospitals and their hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) to provide unique health identifiers to insurers for the location where the service was provided to ensure that insurers can bill appropriately. If not, then insurers wouldn’t be required to pay the claims. However, this would only apply to the group market and would require the Department of Labor to issue rulemaking and establish a process for reporting violations. The House E&C bill, H.R. 3237, would also require each provider’s department to include a unique identifier number for claims and services on any billing and requires hospitals to attest every two years that it is in compliance.

The House Committee on Ways and Means held their markup yesterday to consider their own legislation to implement site-neutral payments, which included consideration of H.R. 4822, the Health Care Price Transparency Act. The bill was approved by the Committee in a party-line vote: Democrats opposed the bill due to a removal of a provision to address private equity acquisitions of hospitals and nursing homes, while Republicans all voted in favor.

Similar to the House E&C proposal, this bill would require all off-campus outpatient departments to have a separate national provider identification (NPI) number to bill Medicare. The bill would equalize payments between off-campus hospital outpatient services and physician practices for only drug administration services. On-campus hospitals would still be able to charge more than physician offices for performing the exact same service, which would leave most of the potential savings from site-neutral payments unrealized.

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) postponed their markup scheduled for this week of a health workforce package that contains several additional health reforms, including a provision that would regulate hospital facility fees. Different from the other “honest billing” proposals, the provision would prohibit hospitals from charging facility fees for services provided by off-site physicians and prohibits both the hospital and physician from separately billing for services. Notably, it would cap both the hospital and physician fees at “the median amount the health plan or issuer pays when those services are provided in a physician’s office.” Hospitals would also be prohibited from charging facility fees for on-site primary care, telehealth, and low-complexity services that could be provided in an ambulatory setting.

This type of proposal is a more promising approach than the “honest billing” policies that are under consideration since it would directly affect patient health care costs since facility fees are billed directly to the patient and “honest billing” only addresses NPI numbers for insurance coding. While there are other issues with the bill that likely make it a nonstarter for Republicans, Senator Bill Cassidy has signaled that he’s open to the facility fee provision in another context which is a hopeful sign for future bipartisan support.

Hospitals have countered attempts by Congressional efforts to curb the rising costs of hospital-based care, claiming that any reform to reduce payment rates for hospital outpatient departments would lead to negatively impacting their financial stability. However, a recent study released by the JAMA Network that evaluated hospital financial performance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that 75% of hospitals had a net positive operating income during 2020 and 2021. This was partly due to the COVID-19 relief funding dedicated to aiding hospital net operating margins, resulting in an all-time high in profitability for those hospitals. The study concludes that the relief funds received during COVID-19 were likely larger than necessary for many hospitals.

Congress needs to focus on implementing targeted policies that equalize payments across the three types of facilities, including outpatient departments, off and on campus departments, and ambulatory surgical centers, to save the most for patients and the federal government. It’s abundantly clear that Americans should not be paying more out of pocket for medical services — like chemotherapy, cardiac imaging, and colonoscopies — because of where they received the services at, especially at a time when most hospital profits are at an all time high.

How to Make UI a Springboard for Entrepreneurs

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

The United States’ Unemployment Insurance (UI) system is a lifeline for jobless Americans, and provides an income-smoothing effect for workers and their families, as well as sustains and stabilizes consumer spending during economic downturns. However, UI also has the potential to spur entrepreneurship through the Self-Employment Assistance (SEA) program. SEA is a program within our system that offers workers the opportunity to build a new business while accessing income support during times of job-loss.

Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new policy brief “Empowering Entrepreneurship: Exploring the Untapped Potential of our Nation’s UI System,” detailing the importance of expanding entrepreneurship opportunities in the U.S. and the transformative role UI can play.

Report author Taylor Maag, PPI’s Director of Workforce Policy and the New Skills for a New Economy Project, recommends updating SEA to cut some of the “red tape” requirements that make it difficult for individuals to access and states to administer. She also suggests creating a new pilot program that can help policymakers understand the true impact of entrepreneurial opportunities for Americans who may not have as much access to means and capital.

“Our nation’s Unemployment Insurance system offers critical support during times of job loss, however it falls short in fostering opportunities for entrepreneurship, which plays a vital role in our country’s economy,” said Taylor Maag. “By enabling dislocated workers to pursue entrepreneurship, we can provide increased economic opportunity for individuals, communities, and the nation at large. Policymakers should not overlook UI’s untapped potential to create more of these economic opportunities.”
Read and download the report here.

The report makes the following policy recommendations:

  • Strike down arbitrary eligibility requirements for SEA, which make it harder for individuals to access this program.
  • Remove requirements that make SEA too costly for states to administer and disincentive states from participating in the program.
  • Create a pilot program to empower UI to support more entrepreneurship.The pilot would be a competitive grant program incentivizing states without active SEA programs to participate.

 

Download the policy brief here.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C., with offices in Brussels, Berlin and the United Kingdom. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Find an expert at PPI.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox, afox@ppionline.org

Ritz for Forbes: College Affordability Requires Cutting Costs, Not Canceling More Debt

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Ben Ritz

The past two months have made clear that President Biden’s approach to making higher education more affordable isn’t working. First, bipartisan majorities of both the U.S. House and Senate voted to block his debt cancellation policies. Then, shortly after Biden thwarted that effort with his veto pen, the Supreme Court ruled that his attempt to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower was an illegal overreach of executive authority.

Biden responded to the setback by announcing two debt-cancellation schemes shortly after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The first was the finalization of a new income-driven repayment (IDR) plan known as the SAVE plan. Biden also announced he would start a new process under the Higher Education Act to cancel more debt “for as many borrowers as possible, as fast as possible” through executive action.

Read more in Forbes.

Empowering Entrepreneurship: Exploring the Untapped Potential of Our Nation’s UI System

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

INTRODUCTION

At present, the United States is enjoying a stunningly low rate of unemployment. The federal government’s most recent report puts that rate at 3.6% and notes that job openings continue to rise. That’s a dramatic rebound from the dark days of Spring 2020, when unemployment skyrocketed to 13%. 

To cope with the flood of laid off workers during the COVID-19 crisis, America relied heavily on our nation’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) system. Its mission is twofold: First, to provide an income-smoothing effect for workers and their families during times of joblessness; and second, to sustain and stabilize consumer spending during economic downturns. The UI system enables unemployed workers to keep paying bills and caring for their families, which, in turn, keeps other workers employed and regional economies vital.

In short, the UI system is a lifeline for jobless Americans in bad economic times that also has the “countercyclical” effect of shortening recessions. However, the system nearly crashed in many states during the pandemic, and experts believe it’s not prepared should the economy start contracting and shedding jobs. U.S. policymakers need to act now, while the system is not under stress, to make it more resilient against future emergencies.

As they do that, policymakers should not overlook UI’s untapped potential to create more opportunities for entrepreneurship. Currently, a small program within America’s UI system seeks to address this need — the Self-Employment Assistance Program (SEA). SEA offers qualifying individuals the opportunity for self-employment by combining income support during periods of unemployment with activities related to starting a business. Only 5 states have active programs and as a result, the SEA program serves a very small, distinctive slice of UI recipients, with less than 1% of UI claimants participating in the program. In fact, in 2022, there were only 1,404 SEA participants nationwide. This is a stark comparison to the number of entrepreneurs across America’s workforce — with some research now showing there are 31 million entrepreneurs in the U.S. making up 16% of the adult workforce.

While UI undeniably offers support during job loss, it falls short in fostering opportunities for entrepreneurship. This policy brief aims to illuminate the importance of creating more opportunities for entrepreneurship in the U.S., the transformative role UI can and should play in creating these pathways to self-employment and outlines actionable policy recommendations for federal leaders to consider. By enabling dislocated workers to pursue entrepreneurship even amidst financial distress, we can provide increased economic opportunity for individuals, communities, and the nation at large.

READ THE FULL REPORT

PPI’s Trade Fact of the Week: The U.S. GSP system has been lapsed for over 2 1/2 years

Posted on by dcadmin

FACT: The U.S. GSP system has now been lapsed for over 2 1/2 years.

THE NUMBERS: Packaged tuna imported from the Solomon Islands – 

2021 – 2023          None
2018 – 2020          440 tons per year

WHAT THEY MEAN:

A passage from State Department a briefing by two “senior official”-types, in the runup to Secretary Blinken’s trip a month back:

“…in competition with China … managing the competition responsibly … America’s ability to outcompete China … major strides … an approach that is competitive without veering into confrontation … as the competition continues … intense competition requires intense diplomacy … working with competitors when our interests call for it … competing vigorously and talking with the PRC on a range of issues … manage the competition, and work together when our interests align from a position of confidence…” 

Point probably made … “competing in noun, verb, and adjectival forms. With that in mind, a depressing story featuring (a) a small Pacific island country currently an object of this “competition,” (b) 500 missing tons of canned tuna, and (c) the also missing U.S. Generalized System of Trade Preferences (“GSP”), a duty-free program for low- and middle-income countries which, launched in 1974, has been “lapsed” in the midst of Congressional arguments over eligibility rules since New Year’s Day 2021:

The country: Home to 708,000 people and one of the GSP’s 119 “beneficiary countries,” the Solomon Islands are geographically a string of six big islands and 986 smaller ones extending southwest from Papua New Guinea toward Vanuatu and Fiji. The Solomons’ economy mostly runs on three things: (a) tourism; (b) exports of rosewood, akua, and other local timber; and (c) fisheries for export and local use. The first pillar, tourism, went down under the COVID shock and has yet to recover.  Since then, and with the caution that GDP data is jumpy for small island countries, the Solomons’ post-COVID economic figures look dire. The International Monetary Fund reports that after shrinking by -3.5% in 2020, the Solomons’ economy contracted again by -0.6% in 2021 and by -4.1% in 2022, though a small +2.5% rebound looks likely this year.

“Competition” (1): Meanwhile, the Solomons have won an uneasy place as a center of attention in the “competition” the two U.S. senior-official briefers were talking up in June. This has featured in sequence an early 2022 “security agreement” with China carrying murky hints of intelligence and naval strategy; controversy over it within both S.I. politics and the 16-country Pacific Forum (the principal regional association for Pacific Islands states); then the rapid opening of a new U.S. embassy in Honiara last February, all accompanied by strings of press releases from the U.S. and China announcing new aid programs, important visits, etc.

“Competition” (2): With respect to the second and third growth drivers noted above, China buys most of the Solomons’ wood exports, valued at up to $200 million a year — half of the Solomons’ annual export earnings and an eighth of their $1.6 billion GDP.  Until 2020, Americans were offsetting this, more in wage-paying employment than in dollars, through purchases of 400-500 tons of packaged tuna a year, from the cannery at Noro in New Georgia. Again noting that small-country economic stats can be blurry, an Australian press analysis asserts that the cannery contributes fully 18% of the Solomons’ national GDP. ILO figures, meanwhile, suggest that its 2,000 employees account for about one in thirty of the country’s 65,000 wage-earning, formal-sector workers.* Canned tuna is normally a very high-tariff product in the U.S., taxed at rates ranging from 12.5% to 35%, but through 2020 GSP was waiving these tariffs for least-developed countries like the Solomons and gave them a regular set of American buyers

The missing tuna: Not for the last three years, though. GSP benefits are not permanent, but have been periodically “reauthorized” by Congress for periods of ten years, three years, 1.5 years, and so forth.  When the program lapsed at the end of 2020, canned tuna ceased moving from Noro to Hawaii and California. Since then, as Congress has argued over how many new eligibility rules to add, no more tuna has come in. Americans are actually buying more than before – about 210,000 tons per year before 2020, now about 240,000 tons — but buyers of the Solomons’ modest shipments appear to have shifted to larger Southeast Asian and Latin American sources.

Final thought: The “competition” in the briefers’ comments above is a metaphor drawn mainly from sports or games. “Competitors” who put only part of their teams on the field are typically at a disadvantage, and often don’t finish first.

* According to the International Labour Organization, the Solomon Islands have a “labor force” of 370,000, of whom 18%, or about 65,000, have wage-paying jobs. The other 305,000 are “own account” workers in agriculture, odd jobs, and temporary work. In American terms, 18% of GDP would translate to “the combined economies of California, Oregon, and Washington”, and 3% of wage-paying employment would be comparable to “all the workers in Georgia” or “all the workers in Michigan.”

FURTHER READING

GSP: 

Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) and Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) with 64 others urge rapid GSP renewal.

The Solomon Islands’ Department of Foreign Affairs and External Trade.

PPI’s Ed Gresser has thoughts on GSP renewal.

… and the Pacific islands, GSP, and a possible regional trade preference program.

“Competition”:

Solomon Islands Prime Minister and opposition parties debate the cost of, and the value of, new China agreement.

… and Papuan analyst Patrick Kaiku, writing for the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, looks at China-Pacific island security agreements.

NSC and State Asia leads preview Secretary Blinken’s Beijing visit.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Honiara has a list of new aid projects.

And the White House outlines a “Pacific Partnership Strategy.”

Tuna & trees:

The Australian Broadcast Corporation tours the Noro tuna plant.

Solomon Islands business analysts on the state of the industry.

A gloomy Guardian report on the Solomons’ shrinking forests.

And a U.S. policy bright spot — the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s sustainable forestry project.

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank Progressive Economy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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