June Sekera is a Research Associate at IIPP and a public policy practitioner and researcher whose work and publications are focussed on the public economy and public goods production.
Author of The Public Economy in Crisis; A Call for a New Public Economics (Springer, 2016), June has published a wide range of papers on public goods and public non-market production. Her recent studies have concentrated on the systemic dynamics and drivers of the public economy, and on the problems of outcomes measurement in non-market environments.
June is a public policy practitioner and researcher whose work and publications are focussed on the public economy and public goods production.
Founder of the independent Public Goods Institute, June is also a Research Fellow at the Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University, where she established and leads GDAE’s Public Economy Project. Initiatives and projects at GDAE have included: a conference in 2017 on “Restoring Public Control of Public Goods,” funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and sponsored by GDAE; a study of government outsourcing in the U.S.; and organiser and co-editor of a special issue of the Real World Economics Review on the public economy and public economics Real-World Economics Review, The Public Economy and A New Public Economics. As Director of the Public Goods Institute, and in collaboration with the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Association, June has organised and led two colloquia on “Thinking About Public Goods.” June is also a Visiting Scholar at the New School for Social Research, Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies, where she is leading a project on “Climate, Capitalism and Collective Needs.”
For over twenty years June held programmatic, leadership and management positions at federal, state and local levels of government in the United States. Her areas of content specialisation include workforce training and development, labor exchange, adult education, employee ownership and economic development. As Vice President for Performance Management at Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Corporation she led the agency in establishing and managing a performance planning and outcomes measurement system. As President of the Sonhomish County Workforce Development Council, her leadership focussed on increasing the public value of the agency’s workforce training and economic development programs.
June has been a consultant to national, state and local government and non-profit organisations on policy formulation, programme design, performance measurement and management, programme evaluation and strategic planning. Her economics training was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (MPA, 1984).
Selected publications
- Academic working papers
- Sekera, J. (2020). The public economy: Understanding government as a producer. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2020-01). Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/wp2020-01
- News articles
- "Subventionen für CO2-Abscheidung sind verschwendetes Geld" Handelsblatts," 20 August 2020. Download PDF of the article in English
- “An Invisible Crisis,” with Charles Derber; Boston Globe; January 22, 2014.
- “Local Governments and Sustainability: The Power of Public Goods,” with Sarah James; Public Administration Times; July 2013.
- “Public Goods: The Hidden Products of Public Service”, Public Administration Times; Vol. 36, No.2; April/May/June 2013.
- Journals
- Outsourced Government – The Quiet Revolution; Examining the Extent of Government-by-Corporate-Contractor, Global Development and Environment Institute Data Brief, September 2017
- Fixing Broken Government; The Need for a New Conceptual Foundation; Public Administration Times; Vol. 1, Issue 3; Fall 2015.
- Reports
- Freedom of Information Act (In)Applicability to Government Contractors, Global Development and Environment Institute Report, September 2017
- "Missing from the Mainstream: The Biophysical Basis of Production and the Public Economy," Global Development and Environment Institute; May 2017.
- Economics and the Near-Death Experience of Democratic Governance , Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, May 2015.
- Books
- The Public Economy in Crisis; A Call for a New Public Economics; Springer; 2016.
- States and Communities: The Challenge for Economic Action, with Nancy Barbe, National Congress for Community Economic Development, Washington, DC; November 1983.
- “Development for Whom? A Critique of Federal Development Policy,” with Roger J. Vaughan, in Public Policies for Distressed Communities, F. Stevens Redburn and Terry F. Buss, eds. Lexington Books; 1982.
- Blogs
“Re-thinking the Definition of ‘Public Goods’,” Real World Economics Review, July 9, 2014.
“The Public Goods Deficit,” with Charles Derber; Tikkun; January 10, 2014.
“Why Aren’t We Talking About Public Goods? – A Proposed Research Agenda;” Real World Economics Review; May 9, 2013
“Why Aren’t We Talking About Public Goods;” PolicyShop, Demos; Sept. 20, 2013.
“Brief History of Public Goods;” PolicyShop, Demos; Nov. 6, 2013.
“Beyond a Narrow View of Public Goods;” PolicyShop, Demos; Nov. 11, 2013.
“A Politics of Public Goods;” PolicyShop, Demos; Nov. 19, 2013.
- Newsletters
- "Public Goods and the Invisibility of Sustainability," Sustainable Community Planning, Sustainable Communities Division, American Planning Assn.; Winter/Spring 2014; pg 9.