On October 10, 2025, the Center for a New Economy and the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale University will host a special event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the landmark Tobin Report on Puerto Rico.
Commissioned in 1975 by the governor of Puerto Rico and authored by Nobel laureate and Yale professor James Tobin as well as a team of renowned economists, the report offered an independent, research-driven assessment of Puerto Rico’s economic challenges.
Join leading economists, policymakers, scholars, and civic leaders to reflect on the report’s legacy, assess how its recommendations shaped Puerto Rico’s development, and consider the implications for today.
Friday, October 10, 2025
1:00 PM
Tobin Center at Yale University
87 Trumbull St.
New Haven, CT
Confirmed Speakers
Laura Arnold
Founder & Co-Chair
Arnold Ventures
Hon. Pablo José Hernández
Resident Commissioner
for Puerto Rico
Hon. Sebastián Negrón Reichard
Secretary
Puerto Rico Department of Economic Development and Commerce
Richard C. Levin
Beinecke Professor Emeritus of Economics
22nd President
Yale University
Heidie Calero
President
H. Calero Consulting Group
Steven T. Berry
Sterling Professor of Economics
Inaugural Faculty Director
Tobin Center
Yale University
Dave Wilkinson
Executive Director
Tobin Center
Yale University
Historical Spotlight
The Road to the Tobin Report
In the decades after World War II, Puerto Rico pursued rapid industrialization by attracting U.S. firms with tax incentives and access to a low-cost labor force. This strategy fueled impressive economic growth and improved living standards, but left key issues unresolved: persistent unemployment, regional disparities, and heavy reliance on external capital.
By the early 1970s, an oil shock and deepening fiscal crisis exposed the fragility of the island’s development model. In 1974, Governor Rafael Hernández Colón commissioned a team led by economist James Tobin to assess the situation. The resulting 1975 Tobin Report offered a frank evaluation of Puerto Rico’s economic dependence and warned about overreliance on outside investment and federal aid.
It urged greater fiscal discipline, reduced public spending, and caution around policies that inflated labor costs, recommendations that foreshadowed later austerity measures. The Report remains a key document in Puerto Rico’s economic history for its clarity and candor about the limits of the existing economic model.
Fifty years later, the Tobin Report’s insights still resonate. As Puerto Rico grapples with debt burdens, federal oversight under PROMESA, and debates over economic sovereignty, its warnings about external dependence and the need to develop internal productive capacity are more urgent than ever.