Policymakers’ Incubator
Overview
The Policymakers’ Incubator is a central component of The New School’s Towards a New Democratic Political Economy initiative. It provides an international forum for policymakers to exchange experiences, share challenges, and explore progressive approaches to economic policy at a time when many governments face pressures from neoliberal constraints and resurgent authoritarianism.
Objectives
- Support Progressive Policymaking: Address the constraints imposed by decades of neoliberal policy – such as restrictions on fiscal space, industrial policy, and financial regulation.
- Foster Peer Exchange: Create a safe space for honest discussion of policy challenges across regions and political contexts.
- Build a Global Network: Connect policymakers from Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa who are committed to building more equitable and democratic economies.
- Strengthen Capacity: Equip participants with innovative policy ideas to navigate today’s economic and political transitions.
Activities
As part of the Towards a New Democratic Political Economy initiative, the team will engage in:
- Annual Convenings: Small-group meetings that bring together policymakers for intensive, off-the-record exchanges.
- Cross-Regional Dialogue: Opportunities to compare lessons from diverse political and economic contexts.
- Knowledge Sharing: Integration with the program’s scholarly activities to bridge practical challenges and theoretical innovation.
- Networking: Expansion of a global network of progressive policymakers, beginning with alumni of The New School’s heterodox economics program.
Participants
The contributors to the Policymaker’s Incubator include the following list of scholars (see full bios below):
- Julie Froud and Karel Williams (Manchester University)
- Guillaume Hébert (Institut de Recherches et d’Informations Socioéconomiques)
- Gerald Koessl (Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations)
- David Madland (Center for American Progress)
- Lenore Palladino (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
- Robert Pollin (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
- Jennifer Sherer (Economic Policy Institute)
- Engelbert Stockhammer (King’s College London)
- Sol Trumbo Villa (Transnational Institute)
Outcomes
The Incubator aims to build a lasting network of policymakers equipped to craft progressive, democratic alternatives to neoliberal and illiberal economic models. By fostering dialogue across regions and disciplines, it strengthens the foundations for a new democratic political economy.
Meet the team
Jim Stanford
Principal Investigator
Jim Stanford is Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work, a labour economics think tank based in Vancouver, B.C.. Jim is one of Canada’s best-known economists. He served for over 20 years as Economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers). He is quoted frequently in the print and broadcast media, and contributes a regular column to the Toronto Star. He is also the Harold Innis Industry Professor in Economics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, Senior Fellow at the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York, and an Honorary Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. Jim received his Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York. He also holds an M.Phil. in Economics from Cambridge University, and a B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from the University of Calgary. Jim is the author of Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism (second edition published by Pluto Books in 2015), which has been published in six languages.
Jasper Andrée
nssr Research assistant
Jasper Andrée is an MA student in Economics at The New School and a Research Assistant at the Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies. His work focuses on political economy, labor markets, and development; he supports the “Towards a New Democratic Political Economy” project and consults with the World Bank’s S4YE on youth-employment programs. His mentored research examines how electrification shapes gendered labor supply and structural transformation in Ethiopia.
Julie Froud
Contributor
Julie Froud is a professor at Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester UK. Her current research interests focus on the development of the foundational economy approach, essentially how to improve the provision of everyday services and infrastructures. This builds on previous work on financialisaton and business models.
Guillaume Hébert
Contributor
Guillaume Hébert is a researcher with IRIS (Institut de recherches et d’informations socioéconomiques), where his research focuses on issues related to Québec’s health and social service system, public finances and housing. He is widely published in Québec’s progressive media outlets and is also a frequent guest commentator in the mainstream media. He holds a master’s degree in political science from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).
Gerald Koessl
Contributor
Gerald Koessl is a sociologist at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations in Vienna, where his work focuses on affordable housing, housing finance, and European affairs. He previously worked at the National Housing Federation in London and studied Sociology and Political Sciences at the Universities of Vienna, Copenhagen, and London. In 2013, he completed his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he also contributed to research projects on affordable housing and regeneration.
David Madland
Contributor
David Madland is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He has been called “one of the nation’s wisest” labor scholars by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. He is the author of Re-Union: How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States (Cornell University Press, 2021), which helped put sectoral bargaining on the political agenda, and Hollowed Out: Why the Economy Doesn’t Work without a Strong Middle Class (UC Press, 2015), a pioneering critique of trickle-down economics which has helped policymakers understand that the economy grows from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.
Lenore Palladino
Contributor
Lenore Palladino is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and School of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a Research Associate at the UMass Amherst Political Economy Research Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. She holds a PhD from the New School University in economics and a JD from Fordham Law School.
Robert Pollin
Contributor
Robert Pollin is Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His books include The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (co-authored 1998); Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (2003); An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa (co-authored 2007); A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co-authored 2008), Back to Full Employment (2012), Green Growth (2014), Global Green Growth (2015), Greening the Global Economy (2015), and Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (co-authored 2020). He was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers for 2013.”
Jennifer Sherer
Contributor
Jennifer Sherer is Deputy Director of State Policy and Research and Director of State Worker Power Initiatives at the Economic Policy Institute. In these roles she supports the work of EPI’s Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN)—a nationwide network of nearly 60 state and local organizations in 45 states and DC fighting, state by state, for an economy that works for everyone. Prior to joining EPI in 2021, Sherer served as director of the University of Iowa Labor Center and has been active in the labor movement for over 25 years.
Contributor
Prof. Engelbert Stockhammer is professor of International Political Economy at King’s College London. His research areas include financialisation, distribution and growth and economic policy in Europe. Engelbert is co-editor of the Review of Evolutionary Political Economy. He has published more than 80 articles in peer-refereed journals including the Journal of International Money and Finance, Economic Modelling, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Environment and Planning A, and New Political Economy. Books include Wage-Led Growth. An Equitable Strategy for Economic Recovery and a Modern Guide to Keynesian Economics and Economic Policies.
Sol Trumbo Villa
Contributor
My focus is simple: turning bold ideas into collective action. Over the last 13 years, I have worked at the Transnational Institute with a wide variety of social movements, scholars, and policymakers to design advocacy initiatives that expose unaccountable corporate power, strengthen local transformative politics, and advance democratic alternatives.
Since 2012, I have led the Frontiers of Capital Program, which examines and seeks to dismantle the global architecture of trade and investment—particularly the Investor–State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system—while developing a new paradigm of international law to hold transnational corporations accountable for their human rights violations.
Over the years, my research and advocacy have influenced debates from Brussels to the United Nations and have been featured in The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, and El País. I have also provided analysis for national and international broadcasters, including Euronews, DW, and Spanish national TV and radio. I currently serve on the Advisory Council of Corporate Europe Observatory, the foremost watchdog on corporate lobbying in the EU.
Karel Williams
Contributor
Karel Williams was professor at the University of Manchester and for ten years director of an Economic and Social Research Council funded research centre. He exited to work collectively with colleagues as Foundational Economy Research Ltd and is executive chair of Foundational Alliance Wales which promotes practitioner alliances for reform in housing, food and tourism. His identity and engagement is reflected in the research focus on hinterland Wales and bilingual reports for FERL’s Welsh speaking audiences.