Robert Maxim

Robert Maxim is a fellow at Brookings Metro. Maxim conducts research and designs policy proposals exploring how technological change and other economic trends affect people and places. His recent work has focused on measuring federal investments into place-based industrial policy, developing more inclusive state innovation economies, broadening access to highly digital employment, and supporting the missions of regional public universities.

Maxim is an enrolled citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and leads Brookings Metro’s research around Native American communities. His research has focused on the exclusion of Native Americans in U.S. federal government datasets, as well as how federal data misrepresents Native American identity. He has also conducted research on Native Americans’ access to the remote work economy and the role of Native American community development financial institutions in tribal economies. Within Brookings, he has led efforts to resurface the Institution’s historic engagement in tribal communities, including the landmark 1928 Meriam Report, and to engage with Native-led organizations on enabling future research centering Native American people.

Maxim has also written about the effects of automation and artificial intelligence on U.S. workers, ways to encourage economic growth and inclusion in U.S. heartland states, the geography of the COVID-19 recession, the gig economy and contingent work, and the effects of U.S. tariffs and trade policy.