Publications

In-progress research by Levy Institute scholars as well as outside contributors

1145 publications found, searching for 'Working Paper '

• Working Paper No. 1100
  November 05, 2025

  The Death of the Social Contract and the Enshittification of Jobs

  Pavlina R. Tcherneva
  Abstract

  This paper employs the concept of “enshittification”—the systematic degradation of a service or product in the pursuit of profit—as a powerful metaphor to analyze the decay of the US labor…more

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• Working Paper No. 1099
  October 22, 2025

  A Stock-Flow Consistent Model of Emulation, Debt, and Personal Income Inequality

  Francesco Ruggeri, Riccardo Pariboni, and Giuliano Toshiro Yajima
  Abstract

  Read the associated blog post here. Divergent trends in income and consumption inequality—with the first increasing substantially more than the latter—are an established, stylized fact for the US economy in…more

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• Working Paper No. 1098
  October 17, 2025

  Creative Destruction Meets Financial Instability: Toward a New Synthesis

  Leonardo Burlamaqui
  Abstract

  This paper reconstructs Joseph Schumpeter’s major works to propose a coherent new departure point for analyzing economic and social change. I argue that Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) (CSD) marks…more

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• Working Paper No. 1097
  October 08, 2025

  How Fiscal Policy Matters: An Empirical Analysis of the “Crowding-In” Effects of Public Infrastructure Investment in India

  Venkat Hariharan Asha, Ajay Ojha, Sutharson T., and Lekha S. Chakraborty
  Abstract

  Using high-frequency data, the paper analyzes the link between public infrastructure investment and private corporate investment in India for the decade ending 2023–24. We adopt the ARDL model to investigate…more

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• Working Paper No. 1096
  October 07, 2025

  Gender Norms and Women’s Employment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from India

  Amit Basole, M. K. Shravan, and R. Vijayamba
  Abstract

  We examine the role of household-level social norms regarding women’s mobility in determining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s employment. The shock of the pandemic containment measures, such…more

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• Working Paper No. 1095
  October 06, 2025

  A Short History of MGNREGA: Twenty Years in Ten Charts

  Jean Drèze and Rahul R.
  Abstract

  India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), enacted in 2005, is an experiment of major significance. Drawing on official statistics, this paper presents a broad-brush retrospective on MGNREGA’s…more

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• Working Paper No. 1094
  October 01, 2025

  Lebanon’s Eventual Transition to a Floating Exchange Rate System

  Roudy Sassine
  Abstract

  Lebanon’s longstanding fixed exchange rate regime collapsed in the wake of the country’s 2019 financial crisis. This paper examines the underlying monetary factors that contributed to the collapse, offering a…more

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• Working Paper No. 1093
  September 19, 2025

  “Trapped Inside a World of Labor”: Gender Gaps in Agricultural Productivity and Reproductive Labor in Malawi

  A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi
  Abstract

  This paper investigates the relationship between the work of reproductive labor and the efficiency of gender-segmented farm production in Malawi. It starts by presenting quantitative estimates of the gender gap…more

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• Working Paper No. 1092
  September 19, 2025

  Recent Initiatives in Improving the Collection of Time-use Data for Measuring Work: Some Issues

  Indira Hirway
  Abstract

  Time-use data are expected to help in understanding and addressing critical socioeconomic concerns including gender inequalities in a country. The data also help in integrating gender into economic analysis and…more

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• Working Paper No. 1091
  September 04, 2025

  Banking on Payments?

  Jörg Bibow
  Abstract

  For the past hundred years or more, payments have been primarily associated with banking, and banking as we know it today—being the result of many centuries of evolution—features a bundling…more

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• Working Paper No. 1090
  August 14, 2025

  Education and Economic Isolation

  Yousuf Daas, Sameh Hallaq, Danilo Leite Dalmon, and Jennifer Olmsted
  Abstract

  This study examines the impact of the Gaza blockade on private returns to education, with a focus on regional and gender disparities in the Palestinian territories. Using data from the…more

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• Working Paper No. 1089
  August 07, 2025

  Rising Temperatures, Falling Yields: The Effect of Climate Shocks on Olive Oil Production in Palestine

  Yousuf Daas, Sameh Hallaq, Kenichi Kashiwagi, and Keiichi Ogawa
  Abstract

  This study investigates the effect of climate shocks on olive oil production in Palestine, a region acutely vulnerable to both environmental change and political instability. We estimate the influences of…more

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• Working Paper No. 1088
  August 01, 2025

  The Job Guarantee: Lessons from Argentina’s Jefes Plan and Its Reform

  Agustín Mario
  Abstract

  According to current macroeconomic models, there is a need to maintain a natural rate of unemployment to contain inflation. Put simply, unemployment is considered an (inevitable) cost of price stability….more

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• Working Paper No. 1087
  July 30, 2025

  A Model of External Debt Sustainability and Monetary Hierarchy

  Nicolás M. Burotto
  Abstract

  The author develops a dynamic macroeconomic model of a small open economy to identify two key vulnerabilities that prevent emerging markets from fully integrating into global markets: high financial integration…more

  Download Working Paper No. 1087 PDF (509.36 KB)
• Working Paper No. 1086
  July 29, 2025

  Financial Fragility Without Financial Instability

  Leonardo Burlamaqui
  Abstract

  Between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, China’s banking sector underwent a profound yet largely underappreciated transformation—arguably one of the most consequential episodes of financial restructuring in recent economic history. This…more

  Download Working Paper No. 1086 PDF (702.26 KB)
• Working Paper No. 1085
  July 17, 2025

  Fiscal Deficit and Term Structure of Interest Rate Links on Corporate Investment

  Lekha S. Chakraborty and C. Prasanth
  Abstract

  Using high-frequency macro data from a financially deregulated regime, this paper examines whether there is any evidence of financial crowding out in India. The macroeconomic channel through which financial crowding…more

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• Working Paper No. 1084
  July 09, 2025

  MMT: Heuristics versus Paradigm Shift?

  L. Randall Wray
  Abstract

  This is a revised version of the keynote address presented at the FDR library for the Levy Institute Summer Seminar on Money, Finance, and Public Policy on June 20th, 2025.

  Download Working Paper No. 1084 PDF (222.28 KB)
• Working Paper No. 1083
  June 26, 2025

  Integrating the Social Reproduction of Labor into Macroeconomic Theory: Unpaid Caregiving and Productivity in Paid Production

  Mark Setterfield
  Abstract

  The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the integration of unpaid caregiving in the household into short- and long-term macroeconomic theory and, in particular, the theoretical structure of…more

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• Working Paper No. 1082
  May 12, 2025

  Growth vs. Discipline: Italy’s Fiscal Dilemmas in a Stock-Flow Consistent Model

  Francesco Zezza and Gennaro Zezza
  Abstract

  This paper investigates the implications of the European Union’s revised fiscal governance framework for Italy, a country facing the dual challenge of high public debt and persistent economic stagnation. Using…more

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• Working Paper No. 1081
  April 21, 2025

  The Rise and Rise of Feminist Macroeconomics: Who’s Recognizing?

  Günseli Berik and Ebru Kongar
  Abstract

  Macroeconomics is arguably the most male-dominated field within the discipline of economics. Since the mid-1990s, feminist economists have thoroughly and meticulously challenged this field through empirical and theoretical analyses and…more

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• Working Paper No. 1080
  April 04, 2025

  Protecting Social Security: The Case Against Extending the Full Retirement Age

  Edward Lane
  Abstract

  The Social Security “full retirement age” (FRA) is the age at which retirement income benefits are available without reduction for early commencement. Presently, that age is 67 for those born…more

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• Working Paper No. 1079
  April 04, 2025

  Job Allocation in the Levy Institute Microsimulation Model

  Brandon Istenes
  Abstract

  The Levy Institute Microsimulation Model (LIMM) is a tool used for policy simulations to estimate ex-ante the employment and income effects of sectoral investments. In Istenes (2023), a simple implementation…more

  Download Working Paper No. 1079 PDF (736.48 KB)
• Working Paper No. 1078
  April 01, 2025

  “A Concentration of Private Power without Equal in History”

  William Van Lear and Daniel Hutchinson
  Abstract

  This manuscript presents a detailed summary and reassessment of the 1941 final report of the Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC). We portion the manuscript into four major parts: background, major…more

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• Working Paper No. 1077
  February 11, 2025

  A Critical Examination of the “China Collapse” Narrative

  Yan Liang
  Abstract

  Western media and academia have heralded the China collapse narrative. This paper provides a critical and balanced examination of the four challenges facing the Chinese economy—namely, deflation, debt, demographics, and…more

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