17th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference: Credit, Markets, and the Real Economy Is the Financial System Working?

Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

April 17–18, 2008

The focus of this year’s conference was the current economic and financial crisis in the United States and its effects on the world economy. Topics included the causes and consequences of the “Minsky moment”; the impact of the credit crunch on the economic and financial market outlook; dislocations and policy options; the rehabilitation of fiscal policy; margins of safety, systemic risk, and the US subprime mortgage market; lessons from earlier times to rehabilitate mortgage financing and the banks; financial markets regulation-reregulation; the inefficiency of computer-driven markets; currency markets fluctuations; and exchange rate misalignment.

Program

 

 

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM (as of 4/14/08)
Thursday, April 17
9:00–10:00 a.m.	BREAKFAST AND REGISTRATION
10:00–10:30 a.m.	WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
	Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, The Levy Economics Institute
10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.	SESSION 1 — HISTORICAL PRECEDENT AND SOLUTIONS TO THE MORTGAGE MARKET CRISIS
	MODERATOR: Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, The Levy Economics Institute “Broken Systems: Agendas for Financial and Monetary Reform” Jane D’Arista, Financial Markets Center “Wizards of Oz? The Politics and Economics of Bailouts in the New Deal and Now” Thomas Ferguson, University of Massachusetts Boston“The Logic of the Bubble, the Logic of the Bust” Alex J. Pollock, American Enterprise Institute“Plans from the 1930s to Rehabilitate Both Mortgage Financing and the Banks” Walker F. Todd, American Institute for Economic Research
12:30–2:30 p.m.	LUNCH
	SPEAKER: Paul McCulley, PIMCO “A Reverse Minsky Journey”
2:45–4:15 p.m.	SESSION 2 — MINSKY AND THE CRISIS
	MODERATOR: Greg Hannsgen,The Levy Economics Institute “Using Tools from the Financial Instability Hypothesis to Understand the Subprime Crisis” Jan Kregel,The Levy Economics Institute and University of Missouri–Kansas City “Minsky for More Than a Moment: Why You Can’t Get There from Here” Robert W. Parenteau, MacroStrategy Edge “Financial Markets Meltdown: What Can We Learn from Minsky?” L. Randall Wray, The Levy Economics Institute and University of Missouri–Kansas City
4:15–4:45 p.m.	COFFEE BREAK
4:45–6:15 p.m.	SESSION 3 — IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
	MODERATOR: W. Ray Towle, The Levy Economics Institute “Money and Credit Markets: Dislocations and Policy Options” Richard Berner, Morgan Stanley “Economic and Financial Market Outlook” James W. Paulsen, Wells Capital Management“Financial Crisis: Prospect of a Second Wave” Frank Veneroso, Veneroso Associates, LLC
6:30–7:15 p.m.	RECEPTION
7:15 p.m.	DINNER
	SPEAKER: Edward Chancellor, Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo, LLC “Hyman Minsky and the Great Moderation”

 

Friday, April 18
9:00–9:30 a.m.	BREAKFAST
9:30–10:15 a.m.	SPEAKER
	James K. Galbraith, The Levy Economics Institute and University of Texas at Austin “The Generalized Minsky Moment”
10:15–11:00 a.m.	SPEAKER
	Robert Barbera, ITG “Has Greenspan’s Conundrum Morphed into Bernanke’s Calamity?”
11:00–11:15 a.m.	COFFEE BREAK
11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.	SESSION 4 — FINANCIAL MARKET REGULATION-REREGULATION
	MODERATOR: Jan Kregel,The Levy Economics Institute Why Greenspan’s and Bush’s Regulatory Failures Allowed a “Criminogenic Environment” William Kurt Black, University of Missouri–Kansas City “Unintended Consequences: The Inefficiency of Computer-driven Markets” Martin Mayer, Brookings Institution
12:30–2:30 p.m.	LUNCH
	SPEAKER: Maurice Hinchey, U.S. House of Representatives (New York) “Weapons of Mass Economic Destruction”