Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
February 12, 2020
Institute News
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June 7–13, 2020
The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The Institute's annual summer seminar provides a rigorous discussion of both theoretical and applied aspects of Minsky's economics, and is geared toward recent graduates, graduate students, and those at the beginning of their academic or professional careers. Applications are now being accepted. For further information, visit the seminar website at levyinstitute.org.
 
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Research Scholar Thomas Masterson Receives The Journal of Economic Issues' 2019 Editor's Prize

Research Scholar Thomas Masterson received the 2019 Editor's Prize for his paper, "The Great Recession and Racial Inequality: Evidence from Measures of Economic Wellbeing," coauthored with Senior Scholar Ajit Zacharias, Research Scholar Fernando Rios-Avila, and Research Associate Edward N. Wolff (Journal of Economic Issues, Volume LIII, Number 4). An earlier version of the paper was published as "The Great Recession and Racial Inequality: Evidence from Measures of Economic Well-Being" (Working Paper No. 880, January 2017).
Save the Date
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April 16, 2020
The 29th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the US and World Economies
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.


The Levy Institute's 29th Annual Conference on the State of the US and World Economies, originally organized by Hyman Minsky, will be held at Blithewood on April 16. The theme of this year's conference will be "Financial Instability and Its Implications for Growth and Employment," and features sessions on the evolution of the US economy in the run up to the national presidential election, the recent legal and regulatory environment, the impact of financial innovations on monetary policy, and the financing of environmental challenges.

Additional details will be posted on the conference website as they become available.
New Publications
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Strategic Analysis, January 2020
Prospects and Challenges for the US Economy: 2020 and Beyond
Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Michalis Nikiforos, and Gennaro Zezza

Institute President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, and Research Scholars Michalis Nikiforos and Gennaro Zezza report that the already-weak trajectory of the US economy—they project an average growth rate of 1.5 percent in their 2020–23 baseline—is facing a number of downside risks. The slowdown of the global economy, an overvalued stock market, and historically fragile corporate balance sheets are among the identified factors that could derail the aging recovery.

Read complete text (pdf)
 
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Greek Strategic Analysis, January 2020
Greece: In Search of Investors
Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Michalis Nikiforos, and Gennaro Zezza

In this Strategic Analysis for the Greek economy, Papadimitriou, Nikiforos, and Zezza report that the current Greek expansion has been driven mainly by net exports, with tourism playing a dominant role, and that household consumption and investment are still too far below their precrisis levels. The authors evaluate the current government's promise to achieve 4 percent GDP growth in 2020 and 2021, and find that this scenario would require an increase in investment that is highly unlikely to materialize, given current adverse trends in the eurozone and elsewhere.

Read complete text (pdf)
 
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Public Policy Brief No. 148, January 2020
Can We Afford the Green New Deal?
Yeva Nersisyan and L. Randall Wray

The question of whether we can "afford" the Green New Deal requires an exercise in real resource budgeting, not a mere tally of all new spending increases, argue Yeva Nersisyan and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray. Following the model of John Maynard Keynes's How to Pay for the War, they compare the net real resources required to implement each major element of the Green New Deal with the resources available, in order to ascertain whether inflationary pressures would require tax increases or other measures to reduce aggregate demand.

Read complete text (pdf)
 
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Congressional Testimony, November 2019
Reexamining the Economic Costs of Debt
L. Randall Wray and Yeva Nersisyan

On November 20, 2019, Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray testified before the Budget Committee of the US House of Representatives. In this written testimony submitted to the committee, Wray and Yeva Nersisyan argue for a reexamination of the economic impact of public debt and deficits—explaining how deficits have become the norm for the US economy and why they are helpful in the current environment—and respond to a Question for the Record submitted by Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on the matter of the Green New Deal and the benefits of targeted public spending.

A video of the testimony is available on the House Budget Committee's website.

Read complete text (pdf)
M.A. Program in Economic Theory and Policy Now Accepting International Students
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We are pleased to announce that both our M.A. and M.S. programs are now accepting international students for fall 2020.

Designed as preparation for a professional career in economic research and policy formulation, the Levy Economics Institute Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy offer an alternative to mainstream programs in economics and finance.

Our diverse student body comes from Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, Gambia, Germany, India, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Nepal, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with research interests focusing on banking regulations, monetary policy in Europe, trade, financial regulations, economic forecasting, poverty, unemployment and exclusion, modern monetary theory, and stock-flow-consistent modeling. To find out more about our innovative programs that combine a rigorous course of study with exceptional opportunity to participate in advanced economics research alongside the Institute's global network of researchers, visit bard.edu/levygrad or follow the program's Facebook page.

Applications for fall 2020 are now open. Interested students should contact the program recruiter, Martha Tepepa ([email protected]), to discuss their options. Scholarships are available.
Media and Web Coverage

In his discussion of Senator Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax, The Week's Jeff Spross cites One-pager No. 60, "Fighting Inequality Can Strengthen the US Economy," by Institute President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, and Research Scholars Michalis Nikiforos and Gennaro Zezza, in which they find that the tax will foster growth, arguing that a "1 percent of GDP increase in tax revenues from the richest households, paired with an equivalent increase in public spending, generates a 1.7 percent increase in GDP."

Reporting on Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray's testimony before the House Budget Committee, Yahoo Finance calls it "a watershed moment [...] that captured the drastic change in economic thought over the past decade," while The Fiscal Times and Newsmax Finance note that the consensus among those testifying was that debt and deficits do matter, but so too does the need to "differentiate between good deficits—those that contribute to economic growth and productivity—and bad or wasteful ones."

Wray also joined The Mint for an interview titled "Theoretically Speaking," in which he explains the origins of Modern Money Theory and discusses how it can be applied to solving today's social and economic problems.

At a November meeting on Prince Edward Island marking the 30th anniversary of the Canadian House of Commons' unanimous resolution to end child poverty in Canada by 2000, Research Associate Pavlina Tcherneva offered a talk on "Good Jobs for All: Fighting Poverty with a Job Guarantee." In January, she traveled to Paris to give a public lecture with the general secretaries of Greenpeace and the French union Confédération générale du travail (CTG), as well as participate in a hearing before a parliamentary group (La France insoumise) of France's National Assembly. Both events focused on the Green New Deal and the job guarantee.
 
         
In This Issue
Institute News: Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar
Institute News: Levy Scholar Wins JEI's 2019 Editor's Prize
Save the Date: 29th Annual Minsky Conference
Strategic Analysis: Prospects and Challenges for the US Economy
Strategic Analysis: Greece: In Search of Investors
Can We Afford the Green New Deal?
Reexamining the Economic Costs of Debt
Levy Graduate Programs
Web and Media Coverage
Read Our Blog
Multiplier Effect
Levy Book Series
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