The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is pleased to announce that it will hold the second annual Minsky Summer Seminar June 18�26, 2011. The Seminar will provide a rigorous discussion of both the theoretical and applied aspects of Minsky�s economics, with an examination of meaningful prescriptive policies relevant to the current economic and financial crisis.

The Summer Seminar will be of particular interest to graduate students, recent graduates, and those at the beginning of their academic or professional careers. The teaching staff will include well-known economists concentrating on and expanding Minsky�s work.

Applications may be made to Susan Howard at the Levy Institute ([email protected]), and should include a current curriculum vitae. Admission will include provision of room and board on the Bard College campus. A limited number of small travel reimbursements of $100 for U.S. fellows and $300 for foreign fellows, respectively, will be available to participants.

Due to limited space availability, the deadline for applications is March 31, 2011.

The summer seminar program will be organized by Jan Kregel, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, and L. Randall Wray.

Research Associate Sunanda Sen examines gender-related issues in the context of globalization, official statistics, the workplace, and intrahousehold relations. She finds that sweeping economic reforms have actually contributed to the gender gap, and that prevailing stereotypes have to be confronted before the gender imbalance that pervades official policies and social norms can be redressed.

Women�s contribution in terms of unpaid work in the (care) economy continues to be ignored, while gender gaps in employment, wages, and working conditions produce a vicious circle of gender discrimination. There is no evidence, says Sen, that trade liberalization and foreign direct investment have reduced the gender gap.

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Most official statistics on poverty are based solely on household income. Francisco Azpitarte examines the implications of multidimensional approaches to measuring poverty based on income and wealth for the United States and Spain.

The author finds that the incidence of poverty varies by definition and that poverty is greater in the United States than Spain, regardless of the poverty measure or income-poverty line. Nevertheless, poverty profiles in the two countries are similar. He also finds a high level of poverty misclassification between the measures.

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Jesus Felipe of the Asian Development Bank analyzes how Asia has been affected by the global economic crisis, Asia�s prospects for recovery, and the key factors determining the region�s performance in the medium and long term. He finds that Asian countries are not decoupling from the rest of the world, and that countries such as China need to rebalance their economies.

The notion that Asia will shift to a domestic demand�led growth model is more myth than reality, says Felipe. The key challenge for policymakers is to rebalance China�s economy and maintain a growth model that generates employment and avoids an underconsumption crisis.

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A Levy Institute project with support from the Sloan Foundation analyzes economic well-being at the international level. In association with Working Paper No. 615, Research Scholar Thomas Masterson describes the construction of synthetic datasets used in estimating the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for the United States in 1992 and 2007.

No single dataset has all of the required information about demographics, income, transfers, taxes, wealth, and time use. Masterson therefore combines various surveys, and is able to accurately preserve the distribution of household production and wealth in the matching process.

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China, along with its renminbi-dollar exchange rate, has been cited as the primary cause of global trade imbalances. According to Research Associate J�rg Bibow, this notion is misguided. China has led the global recovery by boosting domestic demand to offset the slump in exports, and it is rebalancing its economy without affecting the global economy.

What remains in the Chinese rebalancing process is the redirection of domestic demand toward private consumption using policies that boost household disposable income. Renminbi stability and capital account management should continue, so that the government can implement heterodox macroeconomic policies for domestic growth and development.

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The overall complexity of a country�s productive structure is the key variable that explains growth and development. In association with Working Paper Nos. 609, 611, and 613, these authors from the Asian Development Bank determine the most complex products and economies, and find that there is a positive relationship between income level and product complexity.

The significance of the complexity of an economy�s productive structure for development suggests the need to implement policies that foster the accumulation of capabilities, and to diversity into new, more complex, products.

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The Summary updates current Levy Institute research, with synopses of new publications, accounts of professional presentations by the research staff, and an overview of Levy Institute events. This issue leads off with coverage of the 19th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference, followed by papers that address the financial crisis, global rebalancing, government stimulus programs, fiscal deficits, the organization of the European Union, gender-related policies, and other issues.

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