Levy Economics Institute Newsletter
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
February 3, 2016
Upcoming Events
25th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference
April 12–13, 2016
25th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference
Will the Global Economic Environment Constrain US Growth and Employment?
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The Levy Institute’s 25th Annual Minsky Conference will take place at Blithewood, on the Bard College campus, in April 2016. Organized with underwriting support from the Ford Foundation, the conference will address whether what appears to be a global economic slowdown will jeopardize the implementation and efficiency of Dodd-Frank regulatory reforms, the transition of monetary policy away from zero interest rates, and the “new” normal for fiscal policy, as well as the use of fiscal policies aimed at achieving sustainable growth and full employment. For a full list of speakers and online registration, click here.
 
The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar
June 10–18, 2016
The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The Institute’s annual Summer Seminar provides a rigorous discussion of both theoretical and applied aspects of Minsky’s economics, and is geared toward recent graduates, graduate students, and those at the beginning of their academic or professional careers. For more information or to apply, visit www.levyinstitute.org.
New Publications
Policy Note 2016/1, January 2016

Levy President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou observes that the Swiss government has responsibly and effectively employed a complementary currency for the better part of a century. Created in 1934, the Swiss WIR was launched to expand liquidity and improve growth in the wake of the Great Depression. It has functioned as both a macroeconomic stabilizer and a countercyclical support for aggregate demand. Papadimitriou argues that the WIR’s long and successful example represents a viable way forward for Greece. By creating a similar complementary financial system to bolster regional development and implement direct job-creation programs, Greece could move quickly to reduce unemployment, restore consumer demand, and begin to rebuild its economy, all while meeting its obligations to its creditors and remaining firmly within the euro.

» Read complete text (pdf)
 
Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Michalis Nikiforos Gennaro Zezza One-Pager No. 52, January 2016
A Complementary Currency and Direct Job Creation Hold the Key to Greek Recovery
President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholars Michalis Nikiforos and Gennaro Zezza present the major findings of their most recent strategic analysis of the Greek economy. They find that while a widely discussed public investment program funded by European institutions would help, it will not provide sufficient stimulus to restore the Greek economy in the near term. They argue for a targeted “employer of last resort” plan offering paid work in public projects, and financed by a nonconvertible “fiscal currency”—the Geuro. This would allow Greece to remain squarely within the euro but with expanded fiscal space to engage in pro-growth policies while honoring its commitments, and thus lift the country out of its current economic and humanitarian crisis.

» Read complete text (pdf)
 
Working Paper No. 859, February 2016
Working Paper No. 859, February 2016
The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and Measuring Gender Inequality: A Technical Articulation for Asia-Pacific
Bhavya Aggarwal and Lekha S. Chakraborty

Bhavya Aggarwal, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and Research Associate Lekha S. Chakraborty critically evaluate several of the United Nations Development Programme’s gender development indices, including the Gender Inequality Index (GII), the Human Development Index, and the Gender-related Development Index (GDI). Noting several strengths and weaknesses of these indices, they propose alternative strategies to analyze gender inequality. The authors test a revised GII for the Asia-Pacific region incorporating new variables, in order to better capture such things as unpaid care work, pay gaps, intrahousehold decision making, exposure to knowledge networks, and women’s participation in government. They also present a decomposed index to show the direction of gender gaps, as well as an alternative index using principal component analysis. Their findings suggest that the GII overestimates some gender disparities, and that a revised GDI may be better suited to capturing changes in gender development.

» Read complete text (pdf)
Media and Web Coverage
Federal Reserve Blog
The Fed Puts Rates on Ice

The world economy looks a bit less healthy than it did in December, when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis. Just last week, the central bank announced that the Fed funds rate would remain unchanged, and the IMF revised its global growth outlook downward, forecasting lower rates of growth in both the US and Europe. Plus, growth in China has slowed more than expected. “There is a correction occurring in China,” says Levy President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou. “Even though their growth rate is very healthy by our standards”—China’s GDP grew 6.9% last year—“by theirs it is very low. So there is some instability in the global economy.”

William J. Bernstein reviews Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray’s latest book, Why Minsky Matters. “The author serves up a rich variety of concepts that will stimulate and inform anyone concerned about the fate of the economy,” writes Bernstein. “If you want to know where we are going, it helps to know where we have come from, and this book provides an essential road map for that journey—past, present, and future.”
         
In This Issue
25th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference
The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar
Complementary Currencies and Economic Stability
A Complementary Currency and Direct Job Creation Hold the Key to Greek Recovery
The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and Measuring Gender Inequality
Media and Web Coverage
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