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Working Paper No. 583
November 08, 2009
The Euro and Its Guardian of Stability
AbstractThis paper investigates why Europe fared particularly poorly in the global economic crisis that began in August 2007. It questions the self-portrait of Europe as the victim of external shocks, pushed off track by reckless policies pursued elsewhere. It argues instead that Europe had not only contributed handsomely to the buildup of global imbalances since […]
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Working Paper No. 582
November 04, 2009
Minsky Moments, Russell Chickens, and Gray Swans
AbstractThe recent revival of Hyman P. Minsky’s ideas among policymakers, economists, bankers, financial institutions, and the mass media, synchronized with the increasing gravity of the subprime financial crisis, demands a reappraisal of the meaning and scope of the “financial instability hypothesis” (FIH). We argue that we need a broader approach than that conventionally pursued, in […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 105
October 28, 2009
It Isn’t Working: Time for More Radical Policies
AbstractThe Obama administration has implemented several policies to “jump-start” the American economy—efforts that have largely focused on preserving the financial interests of major banks. The authors of this new policy brief believe that maintaining the status quo is not the solution, since it overlooks the debt problems of households and nonfinancial businesses—and re-creating the financial […]
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Policy Notes No. 10
October 15, 2009
Fiscal Stimulus, Job Creation, and the Economy
AbstractAs the nation watches the impact of the recent stimulus bill on job creation and economic growth, a group of academics continues to dispute the notion that the fiscal and job creation programs of the New Deal helped end the Depression. The work of these revisionist scholars has led to a public discourse that has […]
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Working Paper No. 581
October 14, 2009
Lessons from the New Deal
AbstractSince the current recession began in December 2007, New Deal legislation and its effectiveness have been at the center of a lively debate in Washington. This paper emphasizes some key facts about two kinds of policy that were important during the Great Depression and have since become the focus of criticism by new New Deal […]
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Working Paper No. 580
October 13, 2009
An Alternative View of Finance, Saving, Deficits, and Liquidity
AbstractThis paper contrasts the orthodox approach with an alternative view on finance, saving, deficits, and liquidity. The conventional view on the cause of the current global financial crisis points first to excessive United States trade deficits that are supposed to have “soaked up” global savings. Worse, this policy was ultimately unsustainable because it was inevitable […]
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Working Paper No. 579
October 12, 2009
A Perspective on Minsky Moments
AbstractThis paper aims to help bridge the gap between theory and fact regarding the so-called “Minsky moments” by revisiting the “financial instability hypothesis” (FIH). We limit the analysis to the core of FIH—that is, to its strictly financial part. Our contribution builds on a reexamination of Minsky’s contributions in light of the subprime financial crisis. […]
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Policy Notes No. 9
October 05, 2009
Banks Running Wild: The Subversion of Insurance by “Life Settlements” and Credit Default Swaps
AbstractOblivious to any lessons that might have been learned from the global financial mess it has created, Wall Street is looking for the next asset bubble. Perhaps in the market for death it has found a replacement for the collapsed markets in subprime mortgage–backed securities and credit default swaps (CDSs). Instead of making bets on […]
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Working Paper No. 578
September 24, 2009
Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis
AbstractThis paper applies Hyman Minsky’s approach to provide an analysis of the causes of the global financial crisis. Rather than finding the origins in recent developments, this paper links the crisis to the long-term transformation of the economy from a robust financial structure in the 1950s to the fragile one that existed at the beginning […]
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Working Paper No. 577
September 21, 2009
Explaining the Gender Wage Gap in Georgia
AbstractThis paper evaluates gender wage differentials in Georgia between 2000 and 2004. Using ordinary least squares, we find that the gender wage gap in Georgia is substantially higher than in other transition countries. Correcting for sample selection bias using the Heckman approach further increases the gender wage gap. The Blinder Oaxaca decomposition results suggest that […]
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Working Paper No. 576
September 09, 2009
A Financial Sector Balance Approach and the Cyclical Dynamics of the US Economy
AbstractThis paper investigates the relationship between asset markets and business cycles with regard to the US economy. We consider the Goldman Sachs approach (2003) developed to study the dynamics of financial balances. By means of a small econometric model we find that asset market dynamics are fundamental to determining the long-run financial sector balance dynamics. […]
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Working Paper No. 575
August 30, 2009
Market Failure and Land Concentration
AbstractUtilizing a 2002 household-level World Bank Survey for rural Turkey, this paper explores the link between concentration of land ownership and rural factor markets. We construct a unique index that measures market malfunctioning based on the neoclassical model linking land and labor endowments through factor markets to household income. We further test whether land ownership […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 104
August 28, 2009
The New New Deal Fracas
AbstractA wave of revisionist work claims that “anticompetitive” New Deal legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) greatly slowed the recovery from the Depression; in this new public policy brief, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen review these claims in light of current […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 103
August 21, 2009
Financial and Monetary Issues as the Crisis Unfolds
AbstractA group of experts associated with the Economists for Peace and Security and the Initiative for Rethinking the Economy met recently in Paris to discuss financial and monetary issues; their viewpoints, summarized here by Senior Scholar James K. Galbraith, are largely at odds with the global political and economic establishment. Despite noting some success in […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 102
August 20, 2009
The Global Crisis and the Implications for Developing Countries and the BRICs
AbstractThe term BRIC was first coined by Goldman Sachs and refers to the fast-growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China–a class of middle-income emerging market economies of relatively large size that are capable of self-sustained expansion. Their combined economies could exceed the combined economies of today’s richest countries by 2050. However, there are […]
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Working Paper No. 574
August 19, 2009
A Critical Assessment of Seven Reports on Financial Reform: A Minskyan Perspective, Part IV
AbstractThis four-part study is a critical analysis of several reports dealing with the reform of the financial system in the United States. The study uses Minsky’s framework of analysis and focuses on the implications of Ponzi finance for regulatory and supervisory policies. The main conclusion of the study is that, while all reports make some […]
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Working Paper No. 574
August 18, 2009
A Critical Assessment of Seven Reports on Financial Reform: A Minskyan Perspective, Part III
AbstractThis four-part study is a critical analysis of several reports dealing with the reform of the financial system in the United States. The study uses Minsky’s framework of analysis and focuses on the implications of Ponzi finance for regulatory and supervisory policies. The main conclusion of the study is that, while all reports make some […]
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Working Paper No. 574
August 17, 2009
A Critical Assessment of Seven Reports on Financial Reform: A Minskyan Perspective, Part II
AbstractThis four-part study is a critical analysis of several reports dealing with the reform of the financial system in the United States. The study uses Minsky’s framework of analysis and focuses on the implications of Ponzi finance for regulatory and supervisory policies. The main conclusion of the study is that, while all reports make some […]
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Working Paper No. 574
August 16, 2009
A Critical Assessment of Seven Reports on Financial Reform: A Minskyan Perspective, Part I
AbstractThis four-part study is a critical analysis of several reports dealing with the reform of the financial system in the United States. The study uses Minsky’s framework of analysis and focuses on the implications of Ponzi finance for regulatory and supervisory policies. The main conclusion of the study is that, while all reports make some […]
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Working Paper No. 573
August 15, 2009
Securitization, Deregulation, Economic Stability, and Financial Crisis, Part II
AbstractThis study analyzes the trends in the financial sector over the past 30 years, and argues that unsupervised financial innovations and lenient government regulation are at the root of the current financial crisis and recession. Combined with a long period of economic expansion during which default rates were stable and low, deregulation and unsupervised financial […]
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Working Paper No. 573
August 14, 2009
Securitization, Deregulation, Economic Stability, and Financial Crisis, Part I
AbstractThis study analyzes the trends in the financial sector over the past 30 years, and argues that unsupervised financial innovations and lenient government regulation are at the root of the current financial crisis and recession. Combined with a long period of economic expansion during which default rates were stable and low, deregulation and unsupervised financial […]
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Working Paper No. 572
August 13, 2009
The Unequal Burden of Poverty on Time Use
AbstractThis study uses the first time-use survey carried out in South Africa (2000) to examine women’s and men’s time use, with a focus on the impacts of income poverty. We empirically explore the determinants of time spent on different paid and unpaid work activities, including a variety of household and individual characteristics, using bivariate and […]
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Working Paper No. 571
August 11, 2009
How Well Do Individuals Predict the Selling Prices of Their Homes?
AbstractSelf-reported home values are widely used as a measure of housing wealth by researchers; the accuracy of this measure, however, is an open empirical question, and requires some type of market assessment of the values reported. In this study, the authors examine the predictive power of self-reported housing wealth when estimating housing prices, utilizing […]
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Working Paper No. 570
July 23, 2009
From Unpaid to Paid Care Work
AbstractThis paper considers public employment guarantee programs in the context of South Africa as a means to address the nexus of poverty, unemployment, and unpaid work burdens—all factors exacerbated by HIV/AIDS. It further discusses the need for genderinformed public job creation in areas that mitigate the “time-tax” burdens of women, and examines a South African […]
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