Since 2000, nearly 11,500 companies—representing almost 8 million employees—have been purchased by private equity (PE) firms. Are these firms financial innovators that save failing businesses or financial predators that bankrupt otherwise healthy companies and destroy jobs?

In Private Equity at Work, a groundbreaking analysis of a hotly contested business model, Economist Eileen Appelbaum and Professor Rosemary Batt provide an unprecedented analysis of the little-understood inner workings of private equity and of the effects of leveraged buyouts on American companies and workers.

As their role in the economy has increased, PE firms have come under fire from labor unions and community advocates who argue that the proliferation of leveraged buyouts destroys jobs, busts unions, causes wages to stagnate, saddles otherwise healthy companies with debt, and leads to subsidies from taxpayers.

Join IPS’ Inequality & The Common Good, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Teaching for Change Bookstore, and Busboys and Poets as we host a cutting edge talk and book signing with Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt, co-authors of the new book Private Equity at Work: When Wall Street Manages Main Street.

This event will be moderated by William Greider, National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation.

Also co-sponsored by Campaign for America’s Future and Americans for Financial Reform.