Research

Research Interests

My research is in feminist political economy and the welfare state. My academic research analyzes the processes and institutions in which labor power—the human capacity to work—is reproduced daily and generationally.

The broad questions that frame my research agenda are: How is the responsibility for social reproduction distributed among economic institutions such as households, firms, and states—and between people of different genders and socio-economic groups? What contradictions have emerged in the neoliberal era with respect to social reproduction and economic policy? When and how does the state intervene to address real or perceived threats to social reproduction? How are threats to social reproduction—including those resulting from conflicts over the length of the working day—articulated, mitigated, and/or exacerbated through social struggle and economic policymaking?

My research explores these questions through a variety of political economy methods: historical case studies, institutional analysis, as well both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Current Book Project

I am currently working on my first book, The End of Feminism: How the Economy Derailed Women’s Liberation, under contract with the University of Chicago Press. This book is a sweeping examination of the contradictions and confusions of contemporary mainstream feminism. Written as a book in feminist political economy for a general audience, The End of Feminism argues that the demands and doctrine of the market economy weakened U.S. feminism as a social movement and fueled the anti-feminist backlash.

Refereed Publications

• “Investigating Overwork, Work-Life Conflicts and Work-Time Reduction for Massachusetts Teachers.” co-authored with Noé M. Wiener. The Economics and Labour Relations Review, 2025, 36(2): 480 – 505.

• “A Comparison of the Socioeconomic and Gendered Organization of Social Reproduction in the United States and United Kingdom, 1973-2013.” co-authored with Pilar Gonalons-Pons. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2024, 31(3): 502-530. Editor’s Choice

• “The Distribution of the Cost of Cuban Social Reproduction in 2016: the Relative Contributions of Domestic and Diasporic Households, the Private Sector, and the State.” co-authored with Anamary Maqueira Linares. (2024) New Political Economy 2024, 29(5), 819–833.

• “The State’s Response to the Crisis of Neoliberalism: A Comparison of the Net Social Wage in China and the United States, 1992-2017,” co-authored with Hao Qi. International Review of Applied Economics, 2023, 37(1): 23-49.

• “Coronavirus Fiscal Policy in the United States: Lessons from Feminist Political Economy,” Feminist Economics, 2021, 27(1-2): 419-435.

• “The Political Economy of State Regulation: The Case of the British Factory Acts,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2021, 45(1): 61-84.

• “The Historical Evolution of the Cost of Social Reproduction in the United States, 1959-2012,”, Review of Social Economy, 2021, 79(1): 51-75. Winner of the 2022 Association of Social Economics Helen Potter award for best paper

• “Neoliberal Redistributive Policy: The US Net Social Wage in the Early 21st Century”, Review of Radical Political Economics, 2019, 51(4): 581-605. Lead article.

• “The Facts and the Values of the Lucas Critique”, Review of Political Economy, 2019, 31(1): 1-25. Lead article.

• “Stabilization Policy – Phillips before the Phillips Curve,” co-authored with K. Vela Velupillai. Global and Local Economic Review, 2014, 18(1):5-19.

Other Publications

• “What’s Class Got to Do with It? Comparing the Impacts of the Great Recession and Covid-19 Pandemic on Economic Well-Being,” co-authored with Ajit Zacharias and Fernando Rios-Avila. Levy Institute Public Policy Brief, 2023. Prepared as part of the “Interrogating Austerity: An Intersectional Political Economy Perspective” project, funded by the Groundwork Collaborative.

• “Making the Case for Equitable Growth: Comments on the 2020 David Gordon Memorial Lecture,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 2020: 52(4).

• “Care Work,” Routledge Handbook of Feminist Economics (eds Günseli Berik and Ebru Kongar), invited chapter, pp.90-98.

• “Teorias Da Competição E As Crises Do Capitalismo,” (“Theories of Competition and the Crisis of Capitalism,”) co-authored with Anwar Shaikh. Rubra Revista. Winter 2015, 21(13): 13-14. Available in English or Portuguese upon request.

Book Reviews

• Review of “Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict” by Heather Boushey, Review of Political Economy, 28(3) and Feminist Economics, 22(4).

Dissertation

My dissertation “Essays on the Theory and Political Economy of Economic Policy” received the Edith Henry Johnson Memorial Award in Economics, Civil Affairs and Education from The New School for Social Research, 2017.