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BlogA Levy scholar on the financial crisis
August 13, 2010 Over the course of the summer, Levy senior scholar James K. Galbraith gave a series of lectures in Europe laying out his view of the financial crisis that originated on this side of the Atlantic. At the most recent of these, in July, he emphasized the role of fraud: It’s important to recognize that at [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 610Investing in Care
August 13, 2010 Massive job losses in the United States, over eight million since the onset of the “Great Recession,” call for job creation measures through fiscal expansion. In this paper we analyze...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 609
Using Capabilities to Project Growth, 2010–30
August 11, 2010 We forecast average annual GDP growth for 147 countries for 2010–30. We use a cross-country regression model where the long-run fundamentals are determined by countries’ accumulated capabilities and the capacity...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 608
Assessing the Returns to Education in Georgia
August 09, 2010 The economic returns to education in transition countries have been extensively evaluated in the literature. The present study contributes to this literature by estimating the returns to education in Georgia...more Publication -
Public Policy Brief No. 114Debts, Deficits, Economic Recovery, and the US Government
August 06, 2010 In this new brief, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen evaluate the current path of fiscal deficits in the United States in the context of government debt...more Publication -
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High unemployment puts poor families at risk
August 06, 2010 Scholars at the Levy Institute have supported the creation of an employer-of-last-resort (ELR) program in the United States for many years. Such a program would provide a government job to any American who needed one and met a few basic requirements. (This readable policy note, along with many other Levy publications, explains the case for [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 607
Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives
August 03, 2010 Employers structure pay and employment relationships to mitigate agency problems. A large literature in economics documents how the resolution of these problems shapes personnel policies and labor markets. For the...more Publication -
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Making jobs Job One
August 03, 2010 On The Daily Beast, Levy senior scholar James K. Galbraith urges action to get people working again, and smites deficit hawks who might oppose it. In the debate over stimulus versus austerity, he warns of two traps: The first is the idea that we need another “stimulus package.” How I hate that phrase! The message [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 606
Changes in Central Bank Procedures during the Subprime Crisis and Their Repercussions on Monetary Theory
August 02, 2010 The subprime financial crisis has forced several North American and European central banks to take extraordinary measures and to modify some of their operational procedures. These changes have made even...more Publication -
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Another call for social-sector jobs
August 01, 2010 In a New York Times column, Yale’s Robert Shiller calls for a federal effort to battle unemployment by creating precisely the kind of socially beneficial jobs that some Levy Institute scholars have been recommending: Why not use government policy to directly create jobs — labor-intensive service jobs in fields like education, public health and safety, [...] Blog -
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Property rules
July 30, 2010 Are we a nation of property owners? Michael Barone, of the American Enterprise Institute, says we are: The fact is that we are once again, as in the days of the early republic and not in the heyday of the Progressives and the New Dealers, a republic of property owners. Most Americans have accumulated — [...] Blog -
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No stimulus is better than negative stimulus
July 27, 2010 In the Wall Street Journal, Stanford’s Robert Hall tells Jon Hilsenrath that last year’s stimulus just about made up for the cuts in state and local government spending forced by the recession (most states have balanced budget requirements, so when tax revenues dip, as they do in a recession, spending must follow). So, there was [...] Blog -
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Levy president appears on Fox among the hedgehogs
July 27, 2010 With apologies to Isaiah Berlin, here is the link. Blog -
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Why creating social-sector jobs is a great idea
July 27, 2010 Writing for the New York Times Economix blog, Nancy Folbre of the University of Massachusetts cites the work of Levy Institute economists in suggesting that Uncle Sam fund more home-care jobs: Four economists at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College – Rania Antonopoulos, Kijong Kim, Thomas Masterson and Ajit Zacharias – have published a policy [...] Blog -
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Cap and trade: a bearish outlook
July 23, 2010 Two news articles from McClatchy that arrived back-to-back in my feed-reader make for an unfortunate combination. The first, detailing the Senate's abdication of responsibility on global warming, is depressing enough. The second story is about increased Polar Bear sightings at the mouth of the Yukon River in Alaska. The irony speaks for itself. But I [...] Blog -
Policy Note No. 2Global Central Bank Focus
July 22, 2010 The developed world faces a cyclical deficiency of aggregate demand, the product of a liquidity trap and the paradox of thrift, in the context of headwinds born of ongoing structural...more Publication -
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Who are these guys?
July 21, 2010 I seem to remember that there used to be a column in a magazine featuring contradictory newspaper headlines. One headline might say, “Fed Chair Says Interest Rates Likely to Rise,” while another in a different newspaper from the very same day would insist, “Fed Chair Says Interest Rates Likely to Fall.” Something like this appears [...] Blog -
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A notable dissent
July 21, 2010 A number of prominent economists have signed a letter calling for more economic stimulus from the United States government in order to put people back to work. Levy senior scholar James K. Galbraith and two other well-known Keynesians chose not to participate, and issued this comment explaining why. A statement from Paul Davidson, James Galbraith and [...] Blog -
Public Policy Brief No. 113
Endgame for the Euro?
July 21, 2010 Critics argue that the current crisis has exposed the profligacy of the Greek government and its citizens, who are stubbornly fighting proposed social spending cuts and refusing to live within...more Publication -
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A case for public direct employment
July 21, 2010 A recent New York Times article highlighted the inadequacy of job training programs in the face of massive unemployment. The programs do not reflect the demand for highly skilled workers, such as those who can handle high-tech equipment and service jet engines. Even highly regarded programs have less than a 60 percent job placement rate. [...] Blog -
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“Deficits Do Matter, But Not the Way You Think”
July 21, 2010 That’s the headline for a defense of Modern Money Theory by Levy senior scholar L. Randall Wray, who complains that “even deficit doves like Paul Krugman, who favor more stimulus now, are fretting about “structural deficits” in the future.” Wray goes on to say: There is an alternative view propounded by economists following what has [...] Blog -
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The promise and peril of regulation, Indian energy version
July 20, 2010 Aside from the new symbol adopted for the rupee, the big economic news in India lately is the national government’s deregulation of petroleum prices. In the face of rising food prices, naturally there are concerns about whether deregulated (read: higher) oil prices will fuel inflation. Is this policy not anti-poor? What will happen if oil [...] Blog -
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A grand bargain
July 19, 2010 In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Princeton’s Alan Blinder suggests a way to increase fiscal stimulus, deliver aid to those who need it most and avoid increasing federal deficits–all at the same time. Here’s his plan, in his own words: Let the upper-income tax cuts expire on schedule at year end. That would save the [...] Blog -
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Are deficits EVER a problem?
July 18, 2010 Paul Krugman and James K. Galbraith agree that this is a time for fiscal stimulus, not austerity. But they differ on a larger question: do government deficits ever matter? Or is the government so special–by virtue of its ability to create money out of thin air–that its spending can exceed income forever, by any amount? In [...] Blog