About

James Heintz is the Andrew Glyn Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he has been a Research Professor since September 2011. His research interests encompass a broad range of economic policy issues, including job creation, global labor standards, the distributive consequences of macroeconomic policies, and the intersection between economics and human rights. Heintz has collaborated with numerous national and international institutions such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Development Program, the Human Development Report Office, the South African Human Rights Commission, the International Development Research Center (Canada), and UN-Women. His policy work has primarily focused on developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, the Gambia, Madagascar, and South Africa. His current research concentrates on employment policy and poverty outcomes, economic policy choices and human rights, financialization, and informal and atypical employment. Heintz has also contributed extensively to academia through teaching courses such as Intermediate Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Theory, and has authored numerous publications, including books, journal articles, and reports, addressing issues related to global labor standards, economic inequality, and employment in developing countries.

Research topics

• Economics
• Political Science
• Geography
• Development economics
• Market economy
• Microeconomics
• Macroeconomics
• Financial economics
• Demographic economics
• Economic growth
• Political economy

Selected publications

• The New Face of Unequal Exchange: Low-Wage Manufacturing, Commodity Chains, and Global Inequality

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2022-05-02 · 15 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The institutional structure of global commodity chains and cross-border production networks has a profound impact on how the benefits of globalized production are distributed. This paper engages with this issue by developing a model that combines the insights of earlier unequal exchange theorists and new work on global commodity chains to clarify the distributive dynamics of the expansion of low-wage manufacturing in the developing world. In this framework, the ability of productivity-led development to raise employment incomes in low-wage manufacturing is constrained and depends on how the benefits of productivity improvements are captured – as lower prices for consumers or higher rents for brandname multinationals. In contrast, consumption-led growth in relatively affluent consumer markets will contribute to income convergence when demand for manufactured consumer imports is sufficiently income elastic. However, in the long-run, labor market, macroeconomic, and environmental constraints will likely compromise this form of export-led employment growth.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Employment, Poverty, and Gender in Ghana

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2022-05-02 · 28 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper examines the connections among gender, employment, and poverty in Ghana using data from the fourth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey. The relationships are explored through a series of tabulations that shed light on how labor force segmentation, different forms of employment, and gender dynamics influence poverty rates and earnings of individuals and households. The estimates suggest that substantial labor force segmentation is evident in Ghana. Women are disproportionately represented in more precarious forms of employment. In addition, poverty and earnings differ markedly from one employment status category to the next. These results have important implications for “pro-poor” employment policies in Ghana.

  PublisherDOI

• Is There a Case for Formal Inflation Targeting in Sub-Saharan Africa?

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2022-05-02 · 5 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper examines the question of whether inflation targeting monetary policy is an appropriate framework for sub-Saharan African countries. The paper presents an overview of inflation targeting, reviews the justification for the regime, and summarizes some major critiques. Monetary policy responses to inflation depend on the source of inflationary pressures. Therefore, the determinants of inflation in African countries are investigated, using dynamic panel data, and the implications for inflation targeting are discussed. These issues are examined in greater detail for the two African countries which have formally adopted inflation targeting, South Africa and Ghana. The analysis is placed in the context of the global economic crisis. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative approaches to monetary policies and the institutional constraints that would need to be addressed to allow central banks to play a stronger developmental role in sub-Saharan African countries.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Work Environment Index: Technical Background Paper

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2022-05-02 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The vast majority of Americans work for a living. The track record of different states varies widely when it comes to providing decent opportunities for working people. The Work Environment Index (WEI) captures these differences and provides a basis for evaluating how well each state does in creating an economy that supports its working population. The purpose of this article is to detail the construction of the WEI and to explain the design of the Index. This paper serves as a technical companion to the report Decent Work in America: The 2005 Work Environment Index.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Stalled Progress

  2021-02-03 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In recent decades, there have been dramatic improvements in certain dimensions of gender equality in many countries, including better educational outcomes for women, higher life expectancy, lower maternal mortality rates, falling fertility rates, larger shares of women being elected as political representatives, and stronger laws regarding intimate partner violence. However, these indicators of gender equality do not always translate into general improvements in labour market outcomes for women or, more broadly, women’s economic empowerment (WEE). This chapter synthesises the findings of research funded by the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme to better understand how labour markets affect gender inequalities and WEE. For instance, opportunities for paid employment are shown to affect the timing of marriage and childbearing, educational attainment, women’s access to independent sources of income, and involvement in social networks. Over time, changes in women’s labour force participation may change norms and gender roles that influence what women can do and what they can become in the course of their lives. These research findings provide guidance to designing new policies that could address the unevenness between women and men related to labour force participation, employment opportunities, and the quality of paid work.

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond dualism: Multisegmented labor markets in Ghana

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2021-09-20 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Using estimates of earnings functions in Ghana, this paper examines patterns of labor market segmentation with regard to formal and informal employment. Persistent earnings differentials are used as indicators of limited mobility across segments of the employed labor force. We find evidence of labor market segmentation between formal and informal employment and between different categories of informal employment which cannot be fully explained by human capital, physical asset, or credit market variables. We argue that dualist labor market models may not be appropriate for understanding employment dynamics in all circumstances and an approach that recognizes the multi-segmented character of labor markets may be preferable.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Don't Let Another Crisis Go to Waste: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Imperative for a Paradigm shift

  Feminist Economics · 2021 · 64 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Political economy

  The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how globalized, market-based economies critically depend on a foundation of nonmarket goods, services, and productive activities that interact with capitalist institutions and impact market economies. These findings, long argued by feminist economists, have profound implications for how we think about our economic futures. This paper shows how lessons from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic can inform how people think about the future of our economies and, specifically, how to address a trio of interlocking crises: care work, environmental degradation, and macroeconomic consequences. Drawing on these lessons, this paper argues for a necessary paradigm shift and discusses the implications of such a shift for social and economic policies.HIGHLIGHTS The pandemic highlights the interlocking crises of care, the environment, and macroeconomics.COVID-19 underscores the centrality of care in our economies.The intensifying environmental crisis illustrates the neglect of nonmarket processes in dominant policy approaches.The biggest contradictions in our economic systems result from the interactions between capitalist institutions and the nonmarket sphere.

  PublisherDOI

• Human rights and feminist economics

  2021-04-08

  book-chapterSenior author

  The human rights approach allows for a complex interaction between individual rights, collective rights, and collective action. It offers feminist economics a widely accepted ethical language with which to assess economic policies without limiting the answers to a consideration of a handful of core variables, such as gross domestic product (GDP), and without neglecting ethical concerns, such as various types of inequality. While economic policy analysis often focuses on a select set of narrow goals, such as the growth of GDP or keeping inflation low, the human rights approach represents an alternative evaluative framework that stresses a broader range of objectives, emphasizing the substantive freedoms and choices people enjoy. Meaningful rights require corresponding duties, and there are a number of principles and obligations that underpin the human rights framework. In May 2012, in the wake of the global economic crisis, human rights considerations were drawn to the attention of governments of states that were party to the ICESCR.

  PublisherDOI

• Unemployment in South Africa

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Geography
  • Economic growth

  Abstract South Africa has exhibited sustained high rates of open unemployment since the end of apartheid, when reliable statistical measurements became available. The lack of decent employment opportunities contributes to ongoing social and economic inequalities. This chapter examines the reasons behind the country’s high unemployment rates. After a brief analysis of unemployment trends and patterns, it discusses alternative explanations of South Africa’s employment problems, with a focus on structural causes arising from historical and institutional factors. The chapter also examines how policy choices post-apartheid have affected employment outcomes, including macroeconomic policies, trade policies, and labour market policies.

  PublisherDOI

• Endogenous Growth, Population Dynamics, and Economic Structure: Long-Run Macroeconomics When Demography Matters

  Feminist Economics · 2021 · 16 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Demographic economics
  • Macroeconomics

  Even long-run macroeconomic growth models that allow for endogenous growth rely on simplistic assumptions regarding demographic regimes. This paper develops a model with more realistic variation in such regimes, including both excessively high and excessively low levels of average fertility. Variations in the structure of the market economy shape these population dynamics, and these trends in turn affect macroeconomic outcomes. Like early overlapping generations models of the type proposed by Paul A. Samuelson, our approach points to market failures and the importance of social institutions and nonmarket relationships that influence transfers between the old and the young, and the costs of childbearing. It also highlights current demographic imbalances at the country level and points to the need to develop open-economy extensions of this model that can capture the effects of population redistribution through immigration.HIGHLIGHTS Demographic trends affect macroeconomic outcomes, and vice versa.These dynamics challenge the assumption that individual decisions generate sustainable outcomes.In the long run, below-replacement fertility can have serious economic consequences.The macroeconomic model outlined here suggests that costs of caring for dependents should be more equitably shared.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert Pollin

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  87 shared

• Léonce Ndikumana

  24 shared

• Gerald Epstein

  23 shared

• Mwangi wa Gĩthĩnji

  19 shared

• Heidi Garrett-Peltier

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  11 shared

• Radhika Balakrishnan

  10 shared

• Mwangi we Githinji

  8 shared

• Jeannette Wicks‐Lim

  7 shared