Washington Center for Equitable Growth, 2014 Team, March 25, 2014

Equitable Growth Team Memo April 15, 2014

This memo details the current state of hiring at Equitable Growth and the staff’s respective duties. The purpose of the memo is to demonstrate the overlapping responsibilities and complementary skills of the team necessary to take the center from a fledgling start up to focused think tank capable of developing and publishing original research on inequality and economic growth as well as engaging policymakers so that broad-based income growth and sustained economic growth are recognized together as self-defining equitable growth.

The Center for Equitable Growth’s long-term aspiration is to transform the U.S. narrative about the relationship between income inequality and economic growth and stability. Our mission is to ground the idea of equitable growth in policy choices that reduce inequality, grow the middle class, and boost the broader economy and its many different participants, including workers, managers, executives, shareholders, and investors.

To achieve this meta-goal requires establishing credibility with several key audiences. Our 2014 plan focuses on engaging the top tier of the economics profession, identifying new talent, and changing the conversation on a set of important issues. Specifically, in 2014, Equitable Growth will:

• Improving our understanding of equitable growth and inequality by supporting new academic research and bringing together scholars to share their work. • Building a stronger bridge between academics and policymakers to help ensure that research on equitable growth and inequality is relevant, accessible, and informative to the policymaking process. • Shaping a rigorous, fact-based national debate on equitable growth and inequality by facilitating scholars’ participation in the media and through investing in a sophisticated in-house communications and social media effort.

Our in-house team—the subject of this memo—reflects our commitment to these goals. But before turning to the Equitable Growth staff, we must briefly detail other members of our team.

We have a deep bench of experts helping us pursue our mission. A Steering Committee, made up of Nobel and John Bates Clark Award winning economists and policymakers, will help us achieve our mission and goals. A Research Advisory Board of top-tier academics from across the social sciences will shape our research agenda. And an informal group of high-level advisors will connect us with top policymakers and help us run our organization efficiently and effectively. Key strategic guidance will come from Herb Sandler, Susan Sandler, and Steve Daetz.

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Our Center for American Progress colleagues will be invaluable to Equitable Growth. Direct support from the Legal team, the Tech team, and the Finance team, as well as at least in 2014, the Events and Email teams, will enable us to punch above our weight as a startup think tank in Washington. And sustained informal input from the policy teams will help us decide upon research tracks that are relevant to current political discussions and debates while maintaining our independent brand.

We turn now to who we are at Equitable Growth and how we will work collaboratively to achieve our goals this year. We close with a visual of our organizational chart. Senior team

This team executes on the goals of the organization, working collaboratively, but with defined roles and responsibilities for leading their respective units. The Executive Director and Chief Economist sets the overarching strategies in collaboration with the Steering Committee and Chair. The Executive team is structured specifically to serve the needs of a startup think tank, taking on a variety of roles and responsibilities that are immediately pressing while laying the groundwork for further development as our grant- making and in-house research reach completion and our immediate outreach efforts bear fruit. The Executive team is comprised of:

• Heather Boushey, Executive Director and Chief Economist. She is the owner of the vision for what Equitable Growth will achieve. She builds and manages the senior team to execute our plan. She is the main spokesperson and high-level relationship-builder/keeper. And, in this start up phase, she focuses on ensuring the research is compelling and policy-relevant. • Elisabeth Jacobs, Senior Policy Director. She oversees strategies to influence and engage policymakers, including the translation of the academic research so that it influences policymakers and helps shape the research agenda and production. • Ed Paisley, Senior Director of Communications and Publications. He develops and promotes our brand via editing, messaging, and analytics. He also takes on much of the administration of the organization and our budget, working with the Legal, Tech, and Finance teams at the Center for American Progress. • Carter Price, Senior Mathematician. He helps to build out our in-house research and analytic capacities, ensuring that our in-house research team is focused on the goals of the organization and meets the needs of the communications team and policy and academic outreach team, including the grant-making selection and review process.

Below are the biographies and more details on the roles of the Executive team.

Heather Boushey

Executive Director and Chief Economist

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Heather Boushey is Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Her research focuses on economic inequality and public policy, specifically employment, social policy, and family economic well-being. has called Boushey one of the “most vibrant voices in the field” and she testifies often before Congress on economic policy issues. Her research has been published in academic journals, she writes regularly for popular media, including The New York Times’ “Room for Debate,” The Atlantic, and Democracy, and she makes frequent television appearances on Bloomberg, MSNBC, CNBC, and PBS. Boushey previously served as an economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the Economic Policy Institute. She received her Ph.D. in economics from for Social Research and her B.A. from Hampshire College.

Heather provides the intellectual and policy leadership at Equitable Growth, She is responsible for guiding the center with the advise and direction of the Steering Committee and funders, and for working with the Research Advisory Board to ensure our research is compelling and policy relevant. Heather is the main spokesperson and high- level relationship-builder. As Chief Economist, she directs the research program. And she manages the senior team to execute our plan, which includes her role in helping to shape the grant program, the academic outreach program, the policy outreach program, and the communications program. Heather also is the principal foundation fundraiser.

Elisabeth Jacobs (starts May 2nd)

Senior Director, Academic and Policy Outreach

Elisabeth Jacobs is Senior Policy Director. Her academic background includes research in economics, political science, and sociology in order to inform domestic social policy, with a particular focus on the government’s role in fostering a balance of economic security and opportunity for American families, most recently at the Brookings Institution. Her policy background includes work on the Hill – first as the American Sociological Association’s congressional fellow with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and then as a senior policy advisor to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Her portfolio encompassed a wide range of economic and social policy matters, including the economic stimulus package and health care reform. Elisabeth has degrees from Harvard University and Yale University. During her tenure at Harvard, Jacobs was a Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy as well as the co-founder and director of a new think tank at the university, New Vision: An Institute for Policy and Progress. Her work has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Harvard University Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, the Harvard University Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and other sources.

Elisabeth is responsible for translating our academic research so that it influences policymakers. She shapes the research agenda and production to ensure it is policy relevant, connecting academics and their research to policymakers and ensuring that the

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research ideas we pursue (both in-house and with our network of academics) meets the needs of policymakers and reframes the debate over what makes the economy grow. Elisabeth and her team will work with the communications team to prepare products by academics and the in-house research team for policymakers, the media, and the general public. Her team will build out Equitable Growth’s fellowship program, working with the in-house research team and communications team, and will collect unmet research and information needs from policymakers to route through the grant-making process and the in-house research team.

Ed Paisley

Senior Director, Communications and Publications

Ed Paisley is the Senior Director for Communications and Publications at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Prior to joining Equitable Growth, Ed was a senior director of communications at The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Vice President for Editorial at American Progress. Ed was previously a business and finance journalist for more than two decades, successfully launching the specialist Wall Street print and web publication The Deal as its managing editor in New York. He worked as an editor and journalist covering business, finance, and politics for the Far Eastern Economic Review, a Dow Jones & Company publication, and Institutional Investor magazine throughout Asia. He began his journalism career with American Banker in Washington, D.C. Ed holds a master’s degree in East Asian history from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in American studies from George Mason University.

Ed develops and promotes our brand via editing, messaging, and analytics. Ed establishes and maintains our brand as serious and credible, ensures all of our materials are crafted to communicate effectively with our target audiences about the importance of inequality and growth, and builds relationships among academics, the media, and policymakers. He and his team seek to expand our communications networks to make our ideas “go viral,” working with the policy and academic outreach and in-house research teams to shape products for target audiences and foster community building and public awareness around the concept of equitable growth. He also takes on much of the administration of the organization and our budget, working with the Legal, Tech, and Finance teams at the Center for American Progress.

Carter Price

Senior Mathematician

Carter Price is a Senior Mathematician focusing on quantitative analysis of U.S. economic policy. Prior to joining the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Carter was a Mathematician at the RAND Corporation where he worked on policy issues related to health, defense, the environment, and domestic security. While at RAND, he worked on the COMPARE microsimulation model studying the United States health insurance

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system. Carter earned a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park and earned a B.A. in Mathematics and Physics from Hendrix College.

Carter oversees our in-house research and analytic capacities under the direction of Heather, ensuring that our in-house research team is focused on the goals of the organization and meets the needs of the communications team and policy and academic outreach team, including the grant-making selection and review process and the crafting of policy ideas and proposals. Carter helps develop our portfolio of the in-house research that includes short-term responsive work based on input from the policy and academic outreach and communications teams, longer term research products targeted toward academic audiences but always with relevant policy considerations in mind, and periodic research products designed to attract significant external attention developed in close consultation with the academic and policy and communications teams.

Executive team support

Alexandra Mitukiewicz

Research Associate

Alexandra Mitukiewicz is a research associate on the Executive team. Prior to joining Equitable Growth, Olenka—she goes by her nickname—was a research assistant with the economic policy team at the Center for American Progress. She previously worked at Abt Associates and interned at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Alexandra graduated from Wellesley College in 2011 with a B.A. in economics. She supports Heather’s research agenda. She helps with all aspects of research and preparation for media and speeches, and assists in the grants review process.

Bridget Ansel

Special Assistant

Bridget Ansel is Special Assistant to the Executive team. Prior to joining the team, Bridget worked as a research assistant for the Georgetown University History Department and held internships at the Treasury Department and with Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Bridget graduated from Georgetown University in 2013 with degrees in History and Government. She provides administrative and logistical support to the Executive team. The Academic and Policy Outreach team

This team, led by Senior Director Elisabeth Jacobs, directs our efforts at translation and connection. She seeks ways to engage in and drive policy debates by connecting academics and their research to policymakers and ensuring that the research ideas we pursue (both in-house and with our network of academics) meets the needs of policymakers and reframes the debate over what makes the economy grow.

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This team will work with the communications team to prepare products by academics and the in-house research team for policymakers, the media, and the general public. The team will build out Equitable Growth’s fellowship program, working with the in-house research team and communications team, and will collect unmet research and information needs from policymakers to route through the grant-making process and the in-house research team.

Robert Lynch (starts in June)

Visiting Fellow

Robert G. Lynch is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at Washington College, where he has taught since the fall of 1998. From 1983 to 1998, he taught at the State University of New York at Cortland where he served as Chair of the Department of Economics between 1991 and 1993. He also taught at Huanghe University (1985-86) in the People’s Republic of China. Robert has served as a consultant to numerous organizations including private businesses, governments, labor unions, and research organizations. His areas of specialization include international economics, public policy, public finance, economic development and comparative economics. He holds masters (1981) and doctoral (1984) degrees in Economics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a bachelor’s (1979) degree in International and Development Economics from Georgetown University.

Robert will bring his experience to our academic and policy outreach of more than 20 years evaluating the adequacy and effectiveness of various state and local government economic policies and reviews of government economic growth strategies. His studies of the efficiency, fairness, and stability of state and local tax systems, including his 2004 publication “Rethinking Growth Strategies: How State and Local Taxes and Public Services Affect Economic Development” and his various papers on income inequality and early childhood development, including his important 2004 paper “Exceptional Returns: Economic, Fiscal, and Social Benefits of Investment in Early Childhood Development,” will help guide our thinking and messaging to statehouse policymakers around the country. Robert will also help ensure our in-house research team focuses on gaps in our policy driven research being generated by our grantees.

Nick Bunker

Policy Research Associate

Nick Bunker is a Policy Research Associate with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Prior to joining Equitable Growth, he was a Research Assistant with the economic policy team at the Center for American Progress. He graduated from Georgetown University in 2010 with a degree in International Economics. Nick is responsible for assisting the policy outreach and research teams on relevant policy initiatives on Capitol Hill, in the administration, and in statehouses, working closely with

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Heather and the senior directors of academic and policy outreach and communications to ensure our message is part of all our policy outreach efforts. He supports the organization’s efforts by cataloging relevant academic research and conversations in the popular press. He also provides preparation for media appearances and speeches, will be the team leader for “Quick Hits” on the website, and assists in the grants review process.

Academic Programs Director

Now in the hiring process

This position helps design and implement all of Equitable Growth’s academic programs that will ultimately connect academics and their research to policymakers. This currently includes grantmaking and in the future will include commissioned research, a fellows program and/or an awards program.

Policy Outreach Director

Vacant

This position will help craft a set of activities to engage policymakers with the ideas of Equitable Growth and our network of academics. The position will connect the research team with the needs of policymakers to ensure that the research agenda is informed by and is equipped to understand how to drive policy debates.

Communications team

This team, led by Senior Director Ed Paisley, establishes and maintains our brand as serious and credible. They ensure all our materials are crafted to communicate effectively with our target audiences about the importance of inequality and growth. They build relationships among academics, the media, and policymakers, working to expand those networks to make our ideas “go viral.” The communications team will work with the policy and academic outreach and in-house research teams to shape products for target audiences and foster community building and public awareness around the concept of equitable growth.

Brad DeLong

Author of “The Equitablog”

Brad DeLong is professor of economics at U.C. Berkeley, a research associate of the NBER, and was from 1993-1995 a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He teaches economic history, macroeconomics, economic growth, and occasionally finance, political economy, and principles of economics. He writes, mostly, about the changing nature of the business cycle, the mainsprings of economic growth, the current economy in historical perspective, and the past economy in contemporary perspective. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1987.

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Brad is excited to be best known as a blogger rather than a Berkeley professor or economist or economic historian or “the ex-Treasury staffer.” His blog is well-read by academics and policymakers alike, enabling Equitable Growth to build direct and lasting ties to these two core audiences. His role is to push the debate about equitable growth in the economics blogosphere, connecting other economists, the media, and policymakers on a daily basis. This key communications venue for the think tank will be refined and upgraded as part of our website soft launch, particularly in terms of graphic presentations that are more easily shared via social media and more relevant to the needs of policymakers on the Hill and in the administration. Ed and the still-to-be-hired Editor will work with Brad and the Art Director on these upgrades.

Casey Schoeneberger (starts April 28)

Senior Manager, Communications

Casey Schoeneberger is currently Press Secretary for Faith in Public Life, rising up from Media Relations Associate and Media Relations Assistant since starting there in September 2012. Previously she was Lobby Associate with the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby. She received her B.A. in economics from St. Joseph’s University and studies abroad at the University of Business and Economics, The Beijing Center, in China.

Casey’s role is to work tirelessly to promote the ideas of equitable growth with key audiences, making use of our network of academics and our in-house research team. She will make sure that all our spokespeople are well-trained and that are messages are finely honed to change the debate. And she will oversee our social media outreach and analytics to ensure we are using a variety of messaging tools, including events and email marketing, to best effect.

David Evans (offer made March 21)

Design and Multimedia Director

David Evans is an award-winning graphics designer and currently head of graphics design at Bloomberg Government, the global wire service’s dedicated U.S. government policy research and analysis unit, working with analysts and reporters to create interactive and static data visualizations and new apps, animations, videos, and other data-driven multimedia products. Previously he worked at USA Today, the pioneer in web graphics design, for more than a decade. He received his BFA in Communications Arts and Design fro Virginia Commonwealth University in 1995, and furthered his design education at the Corcoran College of Arts and Design and the University of North Carolina’s Interactive Graphics Boot Camp.

David’s role is to design our web and print publications and graphics as well as work with our in-house research team and outside researchers to create knock-em-dead infographics and interactives that will illustrate the ideas behind equitable growth to help

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them go viral. David will work with Ed and Sarah to design marketable graphics for social media and with Ed and Elisabeth to design policy relevant graphics for policymakers.

Editor

In the process of hiring

This person’s role will be to ensure that all our written products are readable, with a consistent style and tone, and develop, step-by-step, our primary arguments about equitable growth. This role will also include the daily and weekly production of news- relevant and policy relevant content for the website and the blog to ensure our messaging penetrates the economic and political narrative in Washington and statehouses.

Editorial Assistant

Vacant

This role will be defined in light of our experience in 2014 after we roll out new products and launch the new front page of the website.

In-house research team

This team, led now by Senior Mathematician Carter Price, drives our in-house research agenda and advises our academic outreach program. They generate high-quality research that addresses whether and how inequality affects growth. They support our engagement with academics and policymakers by identifying cutting edge research (and researchers) that helps us understand whether and how inequality affects growth and addresses questions that will inform and educate policymakers. Working with the outreach and communications teams, they will connect with policymakers, the media, and funders.

The portfolio of the in-house research team will include short-term responsive work based on input from the policy and academic outreach and communications teams, longer term research products targeted toward academic audiences, and periodic research products designed to attract significant external attention developed in close consultation with the academic and policy and communications teams. The research team will assist the academic outreach team in assessing grant proposals.

Marshall Steinbaum (starts in June)

Economist

Marshall Steinbaum will receive his Ph.D. in Economics during the summer of 2014 from the University of Chicago. His dissertation is titled “Migration and Geography in a Search-and-Matching Labor Market,” which examines the local and regional make up of the U.S. labor market and work-related migratory patterns. Marshall received his B.A. in

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Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (Honors), at Oxford University (UK) in 2005. He has worked previously as a research assistant at the Center for Population Economics in Chicago and the Institute for Education Law and Policy in Newark, N.J., and as a financial analyst at Prager and Co. in San Francisco.

At Equitable Growth, Marshall’s will develop a research agenda exploring whether and how economic fluctuations can be a channel through which inequality affects growth. His focus will be on the analysis of labor and migration data that characterize local and regional labor markets, including quantity variables such as unemployment, tightness, non-employment duration, and migration as well as wage variables such as household earnings and payroll per employee. His research on the economic geography of the labor market and migration and immigration patterns will enable the center to engage in policy debates in Washington and statehouses on issues ranging from the minimum wage to immigration reform. He will also identify and engage with top-tier academic researchers and connect with policymakers, the media, and funders. Marshall will work with the in- house research team, with guidance from the academic and policy outreach team and communications team.

Ben Zipperer (starts in June)

Economist

Ben Zipperer will receive his Ph.D. in Economics during the summer of 2014 from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His dissertation is on the effects of the minimum wage on overall wage distribution and productivity in the restaurant industry. Ben received his B.S. magna cum laude in Mathematics in 2001 from the University of Georgia-Athens. He has worked as a research assistant at U-Mass at the Political Economy Research Institute as well as the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, and the Environmental Defense Fund in New York City.

Ben’s focus at Equitable Growth will be on extending his research on the minimum wage and conducting other data-driven analyses to support policies that reduce inequality and increase economic mobility. His prior and ongoing research and previous experience at policy-focused think tanks will enable Equitable Growth to bring to bear micro-data analyses of primary household and employer surveys in the current policy debate about income inequality and economic growth. Ben will develop a research agenda focusing on how specific labor market policies affect the income distribution, productivity, and employment. He will also identify and engage with top-tier academic researchers and connect with policymakers, the media, and funders. Ben will work with the in-house research team, with guidance from the academic and policy outreach team and communications team.

Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez

Junior Economist

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Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez is a Junior Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Prior to joining WCEG, he was a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where he completed an MPhil in Development Studies. He has worked as a John Gardner Fellow and as a Research Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Pedro graduated from UC Berkeley in 2010 with degrees in Economics and Political Economy.

Pedro provides support for research projects, including researching, writing, and translating academic research, as well as preparation for media appearances and speeches, blogging, and assisting in the grants review process. Pedro will assist Heather, the in-house research team, and Visiting Fellow Robert Lynch in their research and policy papers. Pedro also will work with the academic and policy outreach team and communications team on research and policy pieces relevant to the policy debates in Washington and statehouses.

How we operate: Equitable Growth’s values

We are optimistic that we can reshape the national debate over what makes our economy grow because we understand how the economy works, rely on the best empirical evidence, and have credible messengers.

We are politically and policy relevant. We know what drives the national economic debate, where we want it to go, and how to connect our research activities to outreach opportunities. Our work will provide rigorous support for policy discussions.

We have a research-driven “war room” mentality. We only engage in debates where our arguments are bolstered by the best-available research and consistent with research and data.

We understand that serious economics research is our core competency and are dependent upon being well regarded by academic community.

We are focused on issues of economic inequality and growth. We say “no” to activities that do not advance this mission.

We have an optimistic, aggressive, entrepreneurial mind-set. We have a “get it done” attitude. We push back against academic timetables and inertia by providing support using in-house research capabilities, without alienating academics.

We aren’t afraid to shake things up if they aren’t working and we seek to learn from those who are having an impact.

We set the bar high. Our staff and our advisory boards are of the highest quality. We attract the best researchers and fund only high quality, cutting edge research that requires all outputs are supported by rigorous data-oriented thinking. And we conduct effective

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outreach activities to build expanding communities of equitable-growth supporters in the academic, policymaking, and media arenas.

We believe that equitable growth is possible—and, indeed, the better route forward.

Washington Center for Equitable Growth Organization Chart, March 2014

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