Summary Fall 2018

This issue of the Summary features a public policy brief discussing the European Commission’s proposal for regulating sovereign bond-backed securities (SBBS) and presents an alternative approach to addressing the problems that are supposed to be solved by an SBBS scheme. Three policy notes also are included. The first focuses on the nexus between wage employment, consumption poverty, and time deficits, particularly as they affect women’s economic empowerment, while the other two consider the impacts of a federally funded and locally administered Public Service Employment (PSE) program. A research project report provides details on the full scope of the PSE proposal.
 
Working papers included in this issue present a critical discussion of the Sraffian supermultiplier approach to growth and distribution; analyze the macroeconomic implications of corporate debt in Latin America; consider the costs of the failure of state-managed intervention in financial markets and the increase in moral hazard in the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall; investigate the dynamics of bond yields in Japan; employ a historic perspective to evaluate how supposedly stable and efficient markets embark on disequilibrium paths; examine the impetus behind the increase in household debt relative to consumption; evaluate popular New Deal–era programs through the lens of the evolving definition of “liberal democracy”; and suggest a blueprint for implementing a job guarantee program, with an appendix addressing a list of frequently asked questions about the costs and benefits of such a program.
 
INSTITUTE RESEARCH

Program: The State of the US and World Economies
 

• MICHALIS NIKIFOROS, Some Comments on the Sraffian Supermultiplier Approach to Growth and Distribution
• ESTEBAN PÉREZ CALDENTEY, NICOLE FAVREAU-NEGRONT, and LUIS MÉNDEZ LOBOS, Corporate Debt in Latin America and Its Macroeconomic Implications

 
Program: Monetary Policy and Financial Structure
 

• MARIO TONVERONACHI, European Sovereign Bond-Backed Securities: An Assessment and an Alternative Proposal
• W. LEE HOSKINS and WALKER F. TODD, Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Rethinking the Role of Money and Markets in the Global Economy
• TANWEER AKRAM and HUIQING LI, The Dynamics of Japanese Government Bonds’ Nominal Yields
• FRANK VENEROSO, The Economics of Instability: An Abstract of an Excerpt

Program: The Distribution of Income and Wealth
 

• THOMAS MASTERSON and AJIT ZACHARIAS, Wage Employment and the Prospects of Women’s Economic Empowerment: Some Lessons from Ghana and Tanzania
• J. W. MASON, Income Distribution, Household Debt, and Aggregate Demand: A Critical Assessment

 
Program: Employment Policy and Labor Markets
 

• L. RANDALL WRAY, FLAVIA DANTAS, SCOTT FULLWILER, PAVLINA R. TCHERNEVA, and STEPHANIE A. KELTON, Public Service Employment: A Path to Full Employment
• L. RANDALL WRAY, A Consensus Strategy for a Universal Job Guarantee Program
• L. RANDALL WRAY, FLAVIA DANTAS, SCOTT FULLWILER, PAVLINA R. TCHERNEVA, and STEPHANIE A. KELTON, Guaranteed Jobs through a Public Service Employment Program
• JOHN F. HENRY, Reflections on the New Deal: The Vested Interests, Limits to Reform, and the Meaning of Liberal Democracy
• PAVLINA R. TCHERNEVA, The Job Guarantee: Design, Jobs, and Implementation

 
INSTITUTE NEWS
 

• Fernando Cardim de Carvalho