Report November 1999

In a Special Report, Distinguished Scholar Wynne Godley argues that the long expansion of the American economy has been propelled by forces that cannot be sustained into the medium term. These forces include a wholly exceptional rise in private expenditure relative to disposable income: at no time during the last 40 years has private expenditure exceeded income by such a large amount or for so long a time.

Contents: Conference: "The Macrodynamics of Inequality in the Industrialized and Developing Countries" * Editorial: "Overcoming America’s Infrastructure Deficit" * New Working Paper topics include: Minsky’s Analysis of Financial Capitalism * A Central Banker’s Perspective on the Asian Crisis * The Stock Market and Psychology * Open Economy Macroeconomics Using Models of Closed Systems * A New America with Less Government * Monetary Policy in an Era of Capital Market Inflation * Special Report: Seven Unsustainable Processes * Levy Institute News: Lectures by Leon Levy, Joan R. and John L. Rodgers, Leonard Greene, and Christopher Magee