Policy Briefs

Former Roosevelt Institute senior research Sunny Malhotra and BESI Capitalism and Democracy affiliate Steve Vogel and analyze the American political economy past and present through the lens of predistribution.

In this essay for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, BESI director Paul Pierson and his frequent collaborator, Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, describe the shifting coalitional bases of America’s two major parties and how relate to the political-economic geography of the U.S.

Liberal-leaning states governed by Democrats have faced criticism in recent years for their high cost of living. This policy brief draws on rigorous data and evidence to analyze the blue-state cost-of-living problem. We show that the red-blue cost-of-living divide is driven primarily by high housing costs in blue states, which are in turn driven primarily by restrictions on growth in blue-state metro areas.