2023 marks the 15th anniversary of the creation of the App Economy, which has played a significant role in France’s economic growth. Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report “The French App Economy: 2023” finding that the App Economy is responsible for 611,000 jobs in France as of May 2023. That accounts for roughly 23% of the total net gain in French jobs since 2008,when the Apple App Store and the Android Market, precursor to Google Play, first opened.
Report authors Michael Mandel, Vice President and Chief Economist, and Jordan Shapiro, Director of the Innovation Frontier Project, outline the new estimates of the job growth created by the App Economy, as well as how the App Economy has provided a route into the digital workforce for people who come from varied backgrounds.
“The App Economy has helped drive job growth in France for the past 15 years,” said Dr. Michael Mandel. “These positive trends seem to be continuing and it’s important to continue to expand the digital workforce to reflect these new opportunities.”
As digital jobs continue to grow, so does the demand for new digital skills. But supply for these skilled jobs continues to lag as workforce shortages persist across the tech industry. To address this issue, Taylor Maag, Director of Workforce Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, released a new report titled “Closing the Digital Skills Gap: Unveiling Insights for Four Countries.” The report outlines the barriers confronting workers who want to acquire skills and examines four countries’ efforts to address the digital skill divide.
By the numbers:
● 611,000 jobs in the French App Economy, up 41% since 2019
● Across Europe and the U.S., job requirements for digital skills have increased by 50%.
On Thursday evening, PPI and its Mosaic Project will host a panel event celebrating the 15th anniversary of the app economy and discussing these new reports. Prisca Thevenot, MP, will give the keynote address to discuss the importance of digital skills in the workforce.
Read and download the “French App Economy” report here and the “Closing the Digital Skills Gap” report here.
One of the hottest social media apps these days is Paris-based BeReal. Released in 2020, BeReal encourages users to share a photo of themselves and their immediate surroundings at a random time every day.
BeReal is more than a fun app: It’s also part of France’s dynamic App Economy, which is helping to drive the country’s job growth and the development of core IT skills. For example, as of May 2023, BeReal was looking to hire a QA Engineer to create automated testing for the company’s iOS and Android apps.
But the French App Economy is not just light-hearted entertainment. The Directorate General for Armaments (DGA), a directorate of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, was advertising for an “Ingénieur développeur iOS ou Android cybersécurité.” Indeed, such cybersecurity skills are essential to every part of the modern economy.
From social media to defense and health and manufacturing, and everything in between, the French App Economy includes 611,000 jobs. That’s according to the Progressive Policy Institute’s latest estimate, and it’s up 41% from our pre-pandemic 2019 estimate.
None of these jobs existed 15 years ago, when Apple first opened the App Store on July 10, 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis. Android Market (which later became Google Play) was announced by Google shortly after. These app stores created a new route through which software developers could write programs for smartphones. These mobile applications — called “apps” — could then be distributed to the rapidly growing number of smartphone users around the world.
The jobs generated by the app stores became an important part of the recovery from the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the subsequent economic expansion, and the response to the pandemic. More than that, app development and the app stores became a key route by which young people can develop tech skills and became an integral part of the digital economy.
This report describes some important aspects of the French App Economy. We also give some examples of App Economy jobs and skills development.
A first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation high school model is making such a tremendous impact in Texas that the Texas State Legislature has just passed a bill to incentivize its replication in rural school districts statewide. The “Rural Schools Innovation Zone” (RSIZ) is a formal collaboration between three rural school districts. Focused on college attainment and career pathways for the 21st-century job market, the RSIZ is opening doors to postsecondary opportunities for rural students in ways previously impossible.
In an effort to amplify the success of this groundbreaking, rural school collaborative ⎯ and to bring the RSIZ to the attention of state and federal policymakers nationwide who represent rural families and industries ⎯ Progressive Policy Institute’s (PPI) Reinventing America’s Schools Project (RAS) today released a detailed report titled “Reinventing Rural Education: The Rural Schools Innovation Zone,” specifying the unique challenges rural schools face and how the RSIZ meets those challenges while expanding career pathways and workforce preparation for students. Report author Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools, outlines designing and implementing RSIZ and discusses how this model could be successful in other rural parts of the country.
“Traveling to southern Texas, I saw firsthand how the Rural Schools Innovation Zone prepared its students for success, said Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of Reinventing America’s Schools. “The RSIZ collaboration in Texas should be a blueprint for other rural school districts across the country that aspire to give their students the opportunity to graduate with college credits and industry certifications that qualify them for jobs with family-sustaining wages. The RSIZ model is also designed to help rural communities keep up with the demand for skilled workers and revitalize rural communities.”
Nearly one in five U.S. students attend a rural school, but rural schools are often left behind in policy discussions due to their unique challenges. Seeking to rectify that, the Reinventing America’s Schools Project today hosted a delegation of students, educators, and administrators from the RSIZ to travel to Capitol Hill and host a panel discussion where the students shared their experiences possible through the RSIZ. The panel also included Alyssa Morton, CEO and Partner at Empower Schools, who discussed how her organization has played a vital role in launching and continuing to support ongoing success at the RSIZ.
During their visit to Capitol Hill with PPI, the attendees from the RSIZ also had the opportunity to directly engage with members and staff from their local congressional delegation. Alicia Seagraves, Senior Legislative Assistant for U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (TX-28), attended the event and provided welcoming remarks on behalf of the Congressman’s office. After the event, the RSIZ group and PPI met with U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34). Both Representatives Cuellar and Gonzalez represent areas of the RSIZ in Congress.
Educators, students, and administrators from the RSIZ, along with report author Tressa Pankovits, stand with U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34).
The Reinventing America’s Schools Project inspires a 21st century model of public education geared to the knowledge economy. Two models, public charter schools and public innovation schools, are showing the way by providing autonomy for schools, accountability for results, and parental choice among schools tailored to the diverse learning styles of children. The project is co-led by Curtis Valentine and Tressa Pankovits.
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.
FACT: World carbon emissions are at 37.8 billion tons annually.
THE NUMBERS: World surface temperature average* –
2022 14.8 C
20th-century average 13.9 C
1880 13.7 C
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, www.climate.gov
WHAT THEY MEAN:
In PPI’s newest policy paper, PPI’s Paul Bledsoe and Ed Gresser look at global industrial carbon emissions, commiserate over transatlantic climate policy arguments (European carbon fees vs. American subsidies and local-production tax breaks) that though (a) steadily more fractious are (b) steadily less relevant to the main question of how to reduce global carbon emissions, and suggest a way forward. This is an “Alliance for Clean Trade” in which the U.S. and EU (or the G7, or the OECD members generally) agree on standards for emissions levels by industry, and fees for locally produced and imported goods whose production entails emissions above this standard. The hope would be to cool the arguments, speed up emissions reductions, and create more effective incentives for big middle-income countries to participate.
Background, and then a quick summary:
Humans now put just under 38 billion tons of carbon into the air per year. This compares to 0.2 billion tons in 1850 as Victorian steam technology took off; 6 billion tons in 1950; and 25 billion tons in 2000. The rise in emissions, especially in the last 50 years, has unbalanced a natural cycle in which volcanoes, forest fires, etc. put about 100 billion tons into the air annually, while carbon sinks such as oceans, forests, and phytoplankton pull it back. As a result, the “average surface temperature” worldwide is up by 1.1 degrees Celsius so far. Beleaguered climate scientists hope to stabilize this rise at 1.5 C, which entails bringing the current +38 billion tons to ‘net zero by 2050, and warn that failure to do so risks impacts ranging from the elimination of the 4-million-year-old Arctic sea ice and steadily escalating flood and fire impacts, to drier agricultural lands, alterations in ocean currents, and “feedback” effects from tundra melt that can accelerate the whole thing.
“Net zero” obviously requires reducing emissions by tens of billions of tons annually (and to the extent of possibly amplifying natural “sinks” and creating artificial ones that remove more carbon from the air). A look at current emissions by country provides a starting point for thinking about figures on this scale. Per “Our World in Data”, country totals in 2021 (counting the European Union as a single economy) looked like this:
World 37.1 billion tons
China 11.5 billion tons
U.S. 5.0 billion tons
European Union 2.8 billion tons
India 2.7 billion tons
Russia 1.8 billion tons
Japan 1.1 billion tons
Iran 0.7 billion tons
Saudi Arabia 0.7 billion tons
Indonesia 0.6 billion tons
Korea 0.6 billion tons
Canada 0.6 billion tons
Brazil 0.5 billion tons
South Africa 0.4 billion tons
Turkey 0.4 billion tons
Mexico 0.4 billion tons
All other 7.3 billion tons
Looking ahead, European and American emissions (along with Japanese, Canadian, Australian, etc. emissions) are falling. The U.S. for example peaked at 6 billion tons in 2005, and with a push from last year’s Inflation Reduction Act are likely to drop to 3 billion by 2030. Nonetheless, the divergence between the EU’s carbon price programs, and the more recent U.S. subsidies and tax credits, are sparking steadily angrier trans-Atlantic debates, with retaliations and countervailing duty cases possibly ahead. Meanwhile, China’s 12 billion tons are about a third of the world’s total and rising. Emissions from the four other “BRICS” (Brazil, India, Russia, and South Africa) added 5.4 billion tons more, and are also rising. If these countries — or more abstractly, big middle-income countries and oil exporters — do not start cutting emissions very soon, the world in general will not only fail to hit net-zero on the scientists’ hoped-for schedule but may not cut emissions at all.
So the steps “developed” economies are taking are important but insufficient, and they should try to settle their quarrels over diverging national reduction strategies, improve them to the extent possible, and find ways to induce large middle-income countries to join. This is the point of the paper’s “Alliance for Clean Trade” idea and its hopefully catchy ACT acronym. The goal would be to reduce worldwide emissions from industrial sources, which in total produce about a quarter of world emissions. The basic points:
(1) ACT participants would set a common “standard” for carbon emissions released in the course of producing selected relevant goods (beginning with the six products chosen to launch the EU’s carbon border adjustment program — steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizer, hydrogen, and electricity) and collect identical fees for emissions above the standard. This would apply to both locally produced and imported products, and so be consistent with the WTO “national treatment” principle.
(2) The ACT would supersede the European Union’s CBAM, while the U.S. would authorize full participation in tax credits for minerals and automobiles (as Canada and Mexico now receive) produced in ACT-compliant countries, and consider eligibility for participants in additional clean energy subsidies.
(3) Original participants would at minimum be the U.S. and EU, or in more ambitious versions the G7 countries or the 37 OECD members. Once launched, the group would consider creating “on-ramps” for countries at different stages of development.
FURTHER READING:
Gresser/Bledsoe’s report on climate change, trade, and a different approach.
Background and data:
NOAA’s summary of worldwide surface temperature change since 1880.
The International Energy Agency reports on carbon emissions in 2022.
Our World in Data tracks emissions by country, industry sector, etc.
And the Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook 2021 looks ahead with projections by region and major country through 2050 (now a bit dated; EIA will publish a new version in September).
And some science:
NASA explains the natural “fast” (air to plants) and “slow” (rocks to air) carbon cycles, and the impact of human-caused emissions. Dates to 2011, so the human emissions totals are badly dated, but the basic science remains useful.
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.
The Federal Reserve recently announced it was skipping another interest rate increase for the first time in 15 months to assess the impact of its efforts to quash inflation.
Apparently, one of the reasons for the pause was disagreement among the 12 members of the Federal Open Markets Committee about what to do next. The hawks—who want to raise rates at least twice more this year—argue that inflation is still above the Fed’s target of 2% to 3%, and that core inflation (sans volatile gas and food prices), remains stubbornly high at 5.3% year-over-year.
Other committee members want to leave things where they stand for now. They point out that consumer prices rose a modest 4% in May from 12 months earlier—the smallest increase in more than two years—and that the full impact of the central bank’s 10 previous rate hikes is still not known.
But despite their differing views on interest rates, both the hawks and the doves on the FOMC think the Fed has the economy heading for a soft landing, in which inflation levels are reduced without sending the economy into a tailspin.
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS WORKING TOGETHER TO MAXIMIZE STUDENTS’ COLLEGE AND CAREER PATHWAYS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. students attend rural schools. That’s about 9.3 million kids. Yet, during policy discussions, rural schools’ unique challenges are often eclipsed by those of their urban and suburban counterparts. This report is a case study of an innovative, replicable public education experiment at three rural Texas high schools called the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ). This first-of-its-kind experiment is a collaboration between three rural school districts focusing on college attainment and career pathways for the 21st-century job market.
It is proving so successful that the Texas state legislature passed a bill designating funding to incentivize more school districts to adopt the model. The bill became law on June 2, 2023. Texas’ significant step forward for equity and rural workforce development deserves national attention.
By raw numbers, Texas is responsible for educating more rural students than any other state, given its vast metropolises, but it isn’t even among the top 10 states with the largest percentage of rural students. The 2018-2019 Report of the Rural Schools and Community Trust found that rural public schools account for more than half of schools in 12 states. In Vermont (55%) and Maine (54%), more than half of students live in non-metro areas. In 18 other states, rural students account for 30% to 49% of the student population. Those states are spread through every geographic region in the country. More American students attend rural schools than the largest 85 school districts combined.
And, rural schools are becoming more diverse, gaining more English as a second language (ESL) and special education students in recent years, while seeing White rural students decrease by 3%. Today, nearly one-in-three rural students are non-White.
While rural demographics are changing, rural poverty is stubborn. According to the most recent estimates from the 2019 American Community Survey, the non-metro poverty rate was 15.4% in 2019, compared with 11.9% in metro areas. Poverty is more severe for rural children and minorities. Almost 23% of rural children under the age of 18 live in poverty, compared to just under 17.7% of non-rural children. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 30.7% of rural Black Americans, 29.6% of American Indian/Alaska natives, and 21.7% of rural Hispanic Americans live in poverty, compared to 12.7% of White rural citizens. The Rural School and Community Trust report found that nationwide, the communities surrounding schools in rural districts on average had a household income of just 2.68 times the poverty line.
Those statistics point to the urgency of the need to improve school systems that serve rural students. Providing regionally relevant career and technical education (CTE) is especially important, as 42% of rural Americans say finding a job is a major concern, while only 39% of them are willing to move from home to find work. Innovating to provide rural high school students with equitable access to college and/or career readiness opportunities for regionally available jobs is a national imperative that requires us to think in new ways and to try new things. Traditional, one-size-fits-all school districts must yield to more flexible programming.
This is why it is worthy to discuss the successful experiment just codified into state law in Texas. The goal of this case study is to explain and publicize the initiative, called the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ), in the hopes that other states with significant rural populations may consider it as a tool for combating challenges, including institutional stagnation, isolation, underfunding, and generational poverty, that prevent rural school students from graduating college or career ready.
The report is organized into the following sections:
• Presenting the Rural Schools Innovations Zone (RSIZ) as a 21st-century model for expanding career pathways and preparation, including early credit and industry certification components;
• Quantifying the challenges rural schools experience;
• Understanding the RSIZ career pathways and early college “academies”;
• Designing and implementing the RSIZ collaboration between three independent school districts:
– Structuring the governance and leadership framework;
– Aligning career pathways to the local economy;
– Student recruitment;
– Student outcomes
• Operating the RSIZ:
– Finance and funding streams;
– Human capital;
– Scheduling and transportation;
– Data sharing;
• Codifying the RSIZ collaborative and conclusion.
After one presidential defeat, two impeachments, two criminal indictments and, possibly, two more to come, Donald Trump has learned nothing. He still insists he won the 2020 election – by a landslide – and that he’s the victim of a vast deep-state conspiracy bent on his destruction.
It’s hard to believe: A plainly delusional 77-year old is making a third run for the White House on an explicit platform of wreaking revenge on his political enemies. Yet somehow he’s outpacing his saner Republican rivals and, in some polls, is even with President Joe Biden.
This is nuts, and it poses a riddle for Biden and the Democrats: Why aren’t they 20 points ahead? Why can’t they rally a solid majority of Americans to protect our constitutional democracy against an incendiary demagogue?
Part of the answer lies in Trump’s hold on white working-class voters, who believe he’s fighting to preserve their idea of America. Another is found in Democrats’ leftward march over the past two decades, which has made it hard for them to win across America’s pragmatic center.
2023 marks the 15th anniversary of the creation of the App Economy, which has played a significant role in the United Kingdom’s economic growth. Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report “The UK App Economy: 2023” finding that the App Economy is responsible for 667,000 jobs in the United Kingdom as of May 2023. That accounts for roughly 20% of the total net gain in U.K. jobs since 2008, when the Apple App Store and the Android Market, precursor to Google Play, first opened.
Report authors Michael Mandel, Vice President and Chief Economist, and Jordan Shapiro, Director of the Innovation Frontier Project, outline the new estimates of the job growth created by the App Economy, as well as how the App Economy has provided a route into the digital workforce for people who come from varied backgrounds.
“The App Economy has helped drive job growth in the United Kingdom for the past 15 years,” said Dr. Michael Mandel.“These positive trends seem to be continuing and it’s important to continue to expand the digital workforce to reflect these new opportunities.”
As digital jobs continue to grow, so does the demand for new digital skills. But supply for these skilled jobs continues to lag as workforce shortages persist across the tech industry. To address this issue, Taylor Maag, Director of Workforce Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, released a new report titled “Closing the Digital Skills Gap: Unveiling Insights for Four Countries.” The report outlines the barriers confronting workers who want to acquire skills and examines four countries’ efforts to address the digital skill divide.
By the numbers:
667,000 jobs in the U.K. App Economy, up 75% since 2019
Across Europe and the U.S., job requirements for digital skills have increased by 50%
On Tuesday evening, PPI and its Mosaic Project will host a panel event with the British Computer Society and Women Who Code London, celebrating the 15th anniversary of the app economy and discussing these new reports.
Read and download the “UK App Economy” report here and the “Closing the Digital Skills Gap” report 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.
What is the future of the U.K. App Economy? According to the Progressive Policy Institute’s latest estimate, the United Kingdom App Economy includes 667,000 jobs.
None of these jobs existed 15 years ago, when Apple first opened the App Store on July 10, 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis. Android Market (which later became Google Play) was announced by Google shortly after. These app stores created a new route through which software developers could write programs for smartphones. These mobile applications — called “apps” — could then be distributed to the rapidly growing number of smartphone users around the world.
The jobs generated by the app stores became an important part of the recovery from the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the subsequent economic expansion and the response to the pandemic. More than that, app development became a key route by which young people can develop tech skills and became an integral part of the digital economy.
This report describes some important aspects of the U.K. App Economy. We also give some examples of App Economy jobs and skills development.
Just decades ago, the internet was an entirely new concept, but it’s become second nature for billions of people and is now embedded into daily life across the world. While the internet is old news, there are recent technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and the cloud that have gone from niche, specialized roles in the global economy to the mainstream. This rapid and widespread digitalization has changed the nature of work, and as a result, digital skills are now regarded as essential for the modern workforce — across Europe and the U.S., job requirements for digital skills have gone up by 50%.
While this transformation has been underway for decades, the pandemic accelerated it. Not only did the crisis change how businesses operate and the way we work, but it also influenced people’s reliance on technology. Individuals and businesses were suddenly dependent on the internet, their smartphones, and their mobile applications for critical daily activities like work, shopping, and communication with loved ones. A 2022 report from PPI found that the App Economy became an increasingly indispensable part of the U.S. economy during the pandemic. Existing mobile applications were able to respond to soaring demand without significant outages and app developers were also able to quickly create new apps to meet the human and economic needs.
Additionally, this year’s World Economic Forum Jobs report — which lifted up perspectives from 803 companies that collectively employ more than 11.3 million workers across 27 industry clusters and 45 economies across the world — found that technology adoption will remain a key driver of business transformation for the next five years, with over 85% of organizations identifying that increased adoption of new and frontier technologies and broadening digital access will be priorities for their organization. Eighty-six percent of companies surveyed also stated that digital platforms and apps are the technologies most likely be incorporated into their operations in the next five years.
It’s clear the reliance on technology from individuals and business is not going away anytime soon and will continue to grow as emerging technologies and solutions are developed and adopted. To keep pace with this demand — while also ensuring business has the skilled talent to remain competitive — digital and tech-related skills will be increasingly necessary for workers to succeed in the global labor market.
While demand for digital skills is growing, unfortunately supply is lower than it needs to be. Workforce shortages persist across the tech industry with employers struggling to find skilled talent that is prepared for digital roles. And this gap continues to widen. A 2021 Rand Corporation report found that the global digital skills gap was widening due to the following factors: tech talent outpacing an already short supply (in fact, 54% of American workers believe technology will advance faster than workforce skills); high costs and disorganized approaches to traditional education that increase barriers to learning; access to digital infrastructure and skills limited by socio-economic status (76% of global workers don’t feel they have the resources needed to learn digital skills).
These findings highlight the barriers confronting workers who want to acquire digital skills. The report also estimates that because of digital skills gaps, 14 of the G20 countries could miss out on $11.5 trillion in cumulative GDP growth. Policymakers around the world need to tackle this problem, both to ensure their industries and businesses can keep pace with the rate and scale of technological innovation, but also to ensure current and future workers will have more opportunities to develop the skills needed to succeed in changing labor markets.
As Labour starts to set out its policy agenda for the next election, Anoosh Chakelian speaks to one of the people who helped shape it.
Claire Ainsley worked in Starmer’s policy team from 2020 to 2022 – before that she was at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and is now a director at the Progressive Policy Institute. They discuss how radical or conservative Starmer needs to be to win the election, what lessons can be learned from other centre-left successes around the world, and how to build a broad coalition with working-class and middle-class voters.
As crypto assets have gained mainstream popularity, most industry leaders have been vocal about the need for a defined regulatory framework for decentralized finance in the United States. Now, in lieu of a successful legislative effort from Congress, the SEC has taken matters into its own hands. Crypto exchange platforms Coinbase and Binance are both facing lawsuits filed by the SEC as of last week, with the agency alleging that the companies are guilty of operating unlicensed securities trading platforms in the United States.
The suits represent a sort of regulation by enforcement, penalizing exchange platforms that have struggled to find where they exist in the current financial system. It is the responsibility of the SEC to protect investors where necessary and, with a robust history of fraud, the industry has not done its credibility any favors. However, considering the dynamism of still-developing crypto markets, the SEC must ensure that their aggressive enforcement efforts, absent clear laws or guidance from Congress, don’t throttle the entire crypto industry, effectively punishing good actors alongside the bad ones while paralyzing innovation.
The cases against Coinbase and Binance rest on a hotly disputed question: Do crypto assets qualify as a security under U.S. financial regulation, and if so, which ones? The SEC seems to think yes in many cases, with Chair Gary Gensler leading the charge toward defining them as such. But even in the eyes of the SEC not every crypto asset is a security, and the lack of clear legal definitions makes it impossible for exchanges to ensure complete compliance laws not written with crypto in mind.
In the past, courts have applied the Howey test, a common framework for determining whether an asset is a security, to crypto assets. The test has four basic requirements. A security is defined in instances in which there (1) must be investment of money, (2) in a common enterprise, (3) with reasonable expectation of profit, (4) derived from the efforts of others. Under this test, it is generally agreed upon that Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized enough — meaning that they are detached from any collective effort or organization promoting them — that they are not considered securities. But in other cases, such as Balestra v. ATBCOIN LLC, courts have determined that certain crypto coins do in fact qualify as securities, because the model of the organization behind the coin acted more like a centralized investment fund than a decentralized system.
Though they have lost momentum since the last congressional session, efforts have been made to codify the differences between an asset’s classification as a security or commodity. Senators Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand’s Responsible Financial Innovation Act, for example, established that under the Howey test some assets should qualify as securities based on their level of decentralization. But the bill did not pass–and without clear lines being drawn by Congress, it has been up to companies and the SEC to provide their own guesses as to which is which. While the SEC’s stance has been made clear, there is also currently no way for crypto exchanges to register with the SEC, meaning these companies couldn’t avoid these suits even if they happen to independently arrive at the same conclusions as the agency.
Within this uncertain environment, Coinbase has been adamant that based on the Howey Test crypto assets are not securities, as explained in their February 2023 blog post on the matter. This is consistent with the company’s many statements insisting their compliance with the law to the best of their abilities, though this a moot point if their legal interpretation doesn’t match the one now touted by regulators.
With legislation stalled in the United States and slow rollout of regulation in the European Union, the recent filings by the SEC represent some of the first widespread attempts for a government to act on defining crypto assets around the globe. As such, the SEC should do so in a way mindful of the impact it will have on crypto’s ability to innovate in U.S. markets. Without policy changes, crypto exchanges will be left with three options if the SEC finds success with its recent filings: shut down crypto exchanges in the US entirely, find another legal avenue to register with the SEC, or only allow trading of coins which have been accepted as being decentralized enough to not qualify as a security–likely excluding everything but Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The crypto space has not been without its problems, but current efforts by the SEC may undermine the ability for an honest, robust industry to thrive in the United States. Though crypto trading platforms should be held to a high level of scrutiny to protect investors, the SEC must balance this with an approach that still allows Congress to move forward with legislative efforts to regulate the industry in a way that both provides guidance and preserves crypto’s innovative potential.
In August of last year, President Biden announced an ambitious plan to wipe out more than $400 billion of student loan debt for the nation’s borrowers. Individuals with incomes below $125,000 (and couples with combined incomes below $250,000) could receive up to $10,000 of loan forgiveness, with former Pell Grant recipients receiving up to $20,000. Speaking about his plan less than a week before the midterm elections, the president made it clear who he was trying to help.
“I want to state again who will benefit most: working people and middle-class folks,” he declared in a speech at Central New Mexico Community College (CNMCC).
Given the skyrocketing costs of higher education, some borrowers — particularly those with low incomes and those who were scammed by for-profit colleges — genuinely need assistance. But portraying student loan forgiveness as a working-class issue is highly misleading. In fact, data on student borrowing shows that debt relief benefits few working-class families, most of whom never attended college in the first place.
This paper dives deeply into the evidence on the economic impact of student loan forgiveness. As the paper shows, proposals from political progressives to forgive all student loan debt (or large amounts such as $50,000 of debt) overwhelmingly benefit affluent Americans. President Biden departed from these more elitist proposals, yet his decision to forgive even a more limited amount is still puzzling. At a time when the economic returns to education are rising and the Democratic Party is losing noncollege voters, it makes little sense to target government aid to people who attended college.
The noncollege workers who do not benefit from the President’s plan are certainly in greater need of support than student loan borrowers.
The paper goes on to examine the question of why the Democratic Party — traditionally the party of working-class people — has become so focused on canceling student loans. One possibility is that Democratic lawmakers are ensconced in a D.C. bubble. The nation’s highest student loan balances are found in Washington, and these borrowers would benefit more from President Biden’s forgiveness plan than borrowers in 49 out of 50 states. In short, many in the party establishment seem to be conflating the problems of highly educated college graduates — an elite class of Americans — with those of working-class people.
This is not to deny that the cost of college has become a significant problem in recent decades. Over the past 19 years, consumer prices have risen 59%, and per capita personal incomes have doubled (in nominal dollars). By contrast, prices for college textbooks have risen 122%, and college tuition (net of grant aid) has gone up 124%.6 This means that a typical family would have found it more difficult to finance a college education in 2022 than in 2003. Some students understandably forego college entirely, while those who attend are stuck with high bills.
Unsurprisingly, many households have turned to the student loan system. Between the first quarter of 2003 and the fourth quarter of 2022, student loan debt held by consumers increased from $392 billion to $1.6 trillion (in inflation-adjusted dollars).7 Student loans also rose from 3.3% of all consumer debt to 9.4% over the same period.
However, the financial burdens of college do not justify widespread student debt relief. If funded through higher taxes, the costs of student loan cancellation will be borne by taxpayers; if funded through higher borrowing, loan cancellation will increase economic demand, thereby raising prices for consumers. Either way, the cost of student debt cancellation will fall on members of the general public, most of whom do not have four-year degrees.
There are better ways of helping working-class Americans. As the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has advocated, the government should invest more in apprenticeships, job training, and career pathways for noncollege workers, who generally have lower wages than college-educated workers. Lawmakers should also dramatically increase the size of the Pell Grant (thus helping students from low-income families) and craft policies aimed at reducing administrative bloat at universities (which would reduce expenses and thus tuition). These policies would boost the employment and wages of noncollege workers while also making college more affordable for ordinary families.
It’s no secret that Democrats have lost support among working-class voters in recent elections. Forgiving student debt only reifies the image of Democrats as beholden to the interests of the educational elite. Until the party puts forth pragmatic solutions to the pocketbook issues facing ordinary people, they are likely to continue losing ground among the exact voters Democrats claim to support.
FACT: 13.4 billion COVID vaccinations and boosters have been delivered since December 2020.
THE NUMBERS: World under-five mortality rate, per 1,000 births* –
2021
38
2010
52
2000
76
1990
93
1980
132
* World Health Organization for 1990-2021; World Bank World Development Indicators for 1980.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
Trade Fact series editor Ed Gresser, testifying at the House Judiciary Committee last week on COVID-19, the WTO’s intellectual property rights (“TRIPS”) agreement, and the WTO members’ decision to authorize a temporary waiver of some patent rules last summer, was asked whether the COVID pandemic had definitively “ended.” Having been down with a (very mild) COVID bout the previous week, his answer was (i) a rueful but clear “no.” But (ii) with mass vaccinations — 82% of Americans, 70% of the world — the danger COVID posed to life and health has been greatly diminished. So (iii) the Biden administration’s decision to declare the “public health emergency” phase of the pandemic over was the right call.
To get to this point, in three years the world’s science, industry, pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals have moved from:
(a) Not quite a standing start (though close to it): as of early 2020, scientists had some knowledge of coronaviruses generally, and could make use of mRNA and nanotech technologies developed in the 1970s and 1980s and first used in development of an Ebola virus, but had no knowledge of the actual COVID-19 virus before its isolation in December 2019; to
(b) A safe, effective, and transportable vaccine by December 2020; and then
(c) Manufacturing, logistical, and primary-care delivery systems at a scale needed for a patient population comprised of “the whole human race” by mid-2021; and finally
(e) Delivery of 13.4 billion actual vaccinations and booster shots — almost two for everyone in the world — as of mid-2023.
Thus a landmark achievement in a very short time for policy, science, manufacturing, logistics, and public health providers worldwide. Pulling back a bit, the speed in this case was exceptional. But as a large-scale achievement of policy, production, delivery, and public health it wasn’t entirely unique. In fact, it is one with many precedents, and is part of a larger story of remarkable successes in vaccination generally. Polio is a particularly striking case, with complete eradication of the disease now achingly close. Here’s a count of polio cases worldwide over the last 25 years:
1988
350,000 cases
2010
650 cases
2020
6 cases
Measles presents a second example: an easily transmissible disease mostly affecting children, for which large-scale vaccinations began with a U.S. launch in March of 1963, and deaths have dropped by 95% over the last generation, from 2.6 million deaths a year to 600,000 in 2000, 210,000 in 2010, and 128,000 in 2021. Likewise deaths of neo-natal tetanus, after campaigns to vaccinate pregnant women and guarantee antiseptic standards in poor-country maternity clinics, have dropped from 787,000 in 1988 to 309,000 in 2000 and 25,000 in 2018 (the last year for which data is available).
Overall, the invention of new treatments and medicines, worldwide vaccination campaigns, and improving primary-care delivery have helped cut world under-five mortality rates from 132 per 1,000 children in 1980, to 78 per thousand in 2000, and 32 per thousand in 2020, or in overall terms by 70%.
Against this background, the success of the vaccination program for COVID-19 is, again, a remarkable success of focused policy in emergencies, scientific research and development, manufacturing and logistics technologies, and delivery systems. Its speed has been particularly impressive (and the Trade Fact series editor is appropriately grateful). But it’s especially heartening to see that this is not something entirely unique, but more like a representative case in the larger vaccine story.
* More precisely, the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.
FURTHER READING:
COVID-19:
Gresser on WTO intellectual property rules as supporters of research, exceptions in emergency situations, and the Biden administration’s reasonable choices.
… and from the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, the hearing video and testimonies.
Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics maps the international science, manufacturing, and logistical “supply chains” which created COVID-19 vaccines.
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.
The United States and the European Union have recently implemented ambitious domestic greenhouse gas reduction programs. But reducing global emissions will not be possible unless China and other middle-income emitting countries cut their emissions. And the different approaches the EU and U.S. have taken create a risk of policy and trade conflicts that divert both from the larger goal of limiting world emissions.
Report authors Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor at PPI and a former Clinton White House climate official, and Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets and former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics, lay out a policy framework where the U.S., EU, and other G7 countries set emissions standards for high-carbon industries, and impose a fee applying to both local production and imported goods with high emissions rates. This trade agreement would help countries meet their emissions goals, avoid imposing trade penalties on each other, and give China and other large emitting, middle-income countries incentives to follow suit.
“The Alliance for Clean Trade (ACT) proposes that the U.S. and our G7 allies ban together to create powerful trade incentives for China and other nations to cut their emissions, so global emissions can fall and we can prevent the worst of climate change impacts,” said Paul Bledsoe. “Without new economic incentives to reduce emissions, our world will see dangerous climate impacts and rising household costs that will soon swamp our ability to adapt and protect public safety at home and around the world. Our framework helps provide a pragmatic, yet ambitious way forward, while also complying with World Trade Organization rules.”
“The world has just had a shining example of U.S.-Europe-Asian collaboration to develop new technologies and products needed to meet a worldwide threat in the case of the COVID-19 vaccines. We need a similar collaborative effort to meet the challenge of climate change, and to induce the large middle-income economies that are the source of new net emissions to become more efficient,” said Ed Gresser. “This paper is an effort to outline such a program, through trade incentives based on common charges for over-production of carbon in the highest-emissions industrial sectors.”
The framework seeks to address three major problems with current policies and other proposals:
The framework creates powerful economic incentives for China and other large emitting, middle-income countries to cut emissions since they now export to the U.S., EU and other allied countries without penalty for higher CO2 emissions.
The framework also harmonizes increasingly disparate climate policies among US, EU and G7 allies for trade purposes, using low emissions intensity by sector as the key metric.
The framework complies with World Trade Organization principles of national treatment and non-discrimination, avoiding the risk that proposals currently being considered in the U.S. Congress might violate U.S. trade obligations, but without requiring widespread U.S. carbon pricing.
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.
A low-emissions trade deal to help the United States, the European Union, and their allies harmonize approaches to the clean energy transition and incentivize China and other nations to reduce emissions.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
After many years of discord and false starts, the United States, the European Union, and most other major developed economies are implementing ambitious domestic greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs. U.S. and EU emissions, respectively the world’s secondlargest and third-largest flows of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, are likely to continue to fall sharply as a result.
But their efforts won’t be enough. To avert a disastrous rise in global temperatures, the larger, necessary goal is to reduce global emissions. For this, however, China — whose emissions are now greater annually than the U.S., EU, and all other developed countries combined — must reduce its emissions, and so must other major middle-income emitting countries. So far, that isn’t happening.
Here’s a program that can help: An Alliance for Clean Trade (ACT) that minimizes climate and trade policy conflict among low-emissions economies including the U.S. and EU, accelerates the reduction of emissions in some of their major industrial sectors, and creates strong economic incentives for others, including eventually China, to reduce their own emissions.
The core idea is for the U.S. and EU, joined by other G7 countries and eventually OECD nations, to set emissions standards for high-carbon industries, and impose a fee applying to both local production and imported goods with emissions rates above an agreed emissions intensity standard. This would help them meet their emissions goals, avoid counterproductive rivalries and imposition of trade penalties on one another, and give China and large emitting, middle-income countries incentives to do the same.
