Thomas Liess
Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs
Personal Details
Focus Areas: Labor economics, development economics, political economy.
Thomas Liess is an economist whose work spans academia, multilateral institutions, and policy research, with a focus on the political economy of inequality, forced labor in global value chains, tax justice, and financing for development. His research combines quantitative methods with institutional analysis to understand how government policy, corporate behavior, and international economic structures shape the distribution of income and opportunities within and between countries.
Liess is completing his PhD in Economics at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. He obtained an MA in Global Political Economy and Finance at the New School for Social Research and teaches undergraduate economics classes at Brooklyn College.
He currently serves as Assistant Director of the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research, where he contributes to a portfolio of research initiatives, one rethinking US–China–India economic relations, and the other rethinking a new democratic political economy agenda.
Liess has worked with the United Nations, most recently as a consultant with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Financing for Sustainable Development Office. In that role, he contributed to the development of Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) guidance and policy materials for governments.
Liess has authored a wide range of academic materials and policy reports. His ongoing projects examine new empirical approaches for measuring and understanding forced labor dynamics using survey data and monopsony-based models, profit shifting by multinational corporations and the design and implications of global minimum tax reforms. He is also contributing to a project on poverty measurement led by Professor Corak at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research and policy work have been presented in academic and multilateral settings, including UN DESA, the ILO, and numerous workshops and conferences.
Education
- PhD Candidate in Economics, CUNY Graduate Center (current, expected graduation 2028)
- MA Economics, The New School for Social Research
- BA Economics, Franklin University Switzerland