A conference organized by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College with support from the FORD FOUNDATION

Post-recession exit strategies and the need for a new financial architecture will be the focus of the Levy Institute’s Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference in 2010. More detailed information, including the full conference program, will be posted on our website as it becomes available.

The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar will provide a rigorous discussion of both theoretical and applied aspects of Minsky’s economics, with an examination of meaningful prescriptive policies relevant to the current economic and financial crisis.

Application deadline: March 31, 2010. For more information, visit www.levy.org.

The Minsky Archive is housed at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, where Professor Hyman P. Minsky worked as a distinguished scholar for the last six years of his life (1990–96). The archive is now being made available to scholars seeking a deeper understanding of the work of this influential financial economist.

The Minsky Archive link on the Levy website is the portal to Minsky’s papers, which comprise writings, correspondence, notes, and ephemera. While none of the materials in the archive have yet been digitized, the finding aid is detailed and makes searching the archive easy.

>> Visit the Minsky Archive homepage

The U.S. Congress passed the Banking Act of 1933 (aka Glass-Steagall) to correct the abuses of the national banking system that stemmed from the involvement of commercial banks in securities underwriting, which allegedly contributed to the Great Depression by fueling rampant speculation. A proposed solution to the current financial crisis is to return to the basic tenets of this New Deal legislation. 

Senior Scholar Jan Kregel provides an in-depth account of the Act, and concludes that a return to its simple structure and strict segregation between (regulated) commercial and (unregulated) investment banking is unwarranted. He observes that an alternative source of revenue has to be found for the regulated banks without undermining their protections, and that regulators, legislators, and the judiciary have to agree on a precise definition and the powers to carry out permissible banking activities. One approach is to recognize deposit taking as a public service and to regulate it as a public utility, with a guaranteed return on regulated costs.

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Edited by Research Scholar Rania Antonopoulos and Research Associate Indira Hirway, and published by Palgrave Macmillan, this book offers both theoretical and policy-oriented examinations of the value of unpaid work. The collection of individual chapters resulted from a project undertaken by the Levy Institute in collaboration with members of the International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics, and International Economics (GEM-IWG).

In developing countries, much of the provisioning of basic needs occurs beyond the boundaries of market transactions. This book reveals a need to incorporate unpaid work in economic analysis—specifically, in the context of poverty and gender equality. The research focuses on three significant regions: Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Contributors investigate the intersections of income poverty, unpaid work, and women's overtaxed time, building upon the existing literature and synthesizing diverse strands of time-use survey data to make concrete policy recommendations for development strategies.

The Report is aimed at a diverse general audience interested in policy matters. It summarizes our latest Strategic Analysis, about the medium-term prospects for the U.S. economy; as well as other recent publications (policy notes, public policy briefs, and working papers), conferences, and other events. In addition, it provides news of the Institute and its scholars.

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