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  Working Paper No. 60

  Who Are the Truly Poor?

  In this paper we study changes in the prevalence and composition of poverty in the United States over the 1973–1988 period, focusing on the first and last years. Over this period, official poverty rose from 23.6 million people (11.4 percent of the population) to 31.9 million (13.1 percent), passing over a peak in the recession […]
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  Working Paper No. 59

  The Health, Earnings Capacity, and Poverty of Single-mother Families

  Approximately 1.4 million single mothers have substantial health problems. Even if they were to work full time, they would be unlikely to earn enough to adequately provide for themselves and their children. Many of these women are not likely to find employment that offers health insurance coverage for themselves or their children. Employment is thus […]
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  Working Paper No. 58

  Social Security Annuities and Transfers

  The division of social security (OASI) benefits into an annuity portion and a transfer portion has been well documented. I have discussed this issue extensively in previous work (1987b, 1988, 1990, and forthcoming), as did Burkhauser and Warlick (1981) previously. My methodology is quite similar to theirs. The annuity portion is defined as the benefit […]
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  Working Paper No. 57

  Why Were Poverty Rates So High in the 1980s?

  This paper explores the unexpectedly slow decline in poverty that occurred over the expansion of the 1980s. We present evidence on the "stickiness" in the poverty rate in the past decade, compared to earlier decades. The following section investigates several potential non-earnings-related explanations for this fact. There is little evidence that the slowdown in the […]
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  Working Paper No. 56

  W(h)ither the Middle Class?

  Research using cross-sectional survey ‘snapshots’ of household income taken over the past quarter century reveals a growing inequality in the distribution of annual money income of households in the United States (Thurow, 1987; Levy, 1987; Levy and Michel, 1991; Michel, 1991; Karoly, 1990; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1990; Easterlin, MacDonald and Macunovich, 1990), […]
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  Working Paper No. 55

  The Measurement of Chronic and Transitory Poverty; with Application to the United States

  This paper proposes a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty based on any additively-decomposable index of aggregate poverty. Chronic poverty and transitory poverty in the United States are measured using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1987 interviewing year). In an attempt to identify the most impoverished subpopulations, poverty indices are decomposed […]
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  Working Paper No. 54

  Why the Ex-Communist Countries Should Take the “Middle Way” to the Market Economy

  The ex-communist countries of Europe as well as Soviet Union want to find a way out of the command economy to a market system. The common advice (e.g., Lipton and Sachs, Kornai) has been to go quickly “all the way” to a fully capitalist economy. The difficulties of this policy are now becoming clear. This […]
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  Working Paper No. 53

  A Critical Analysis of Empirical Studies of Transfers in Japan

  No further information available.
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  Working Paper No. 52

  Debt, Price Flexibility, and Aggregate Stability

  In conventional macroeconomic thought, price flexibility stabilizes thc economy. The more quickly prices fall (or inflation decreases) in a demand-induced recession, the faster output returns to its full-employment level. An alternative tradition, however, suggests that price flexibility can be destabilizing. If a recession reduces expectations of Jitlzre prices, this can raise current real interest rates […]
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  Working Paper No. 51

  Financial Crises

  The presentations at this conference are by economists from Academies and economists who professionally confront real world problems, either in private finance or in public policy. As economists we accept that the remarks made by Keynes in the closing passage of The General Theory are true: "… the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both […]
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  Working Paper No. 50

  How Useful Are Comparisons of Present Debt Problems with the 1930s?

  My assignment for this Conference on the Crisis ln Finance, as I understand is, is in the first instance to bring to bear the debt experience of the Great Depression of 1929/1940. I summarize first the record as shown in a Twentieth Century Fund report, which I prepared in 1938 for the Fund’s Committee on […]
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  Working Paper No. 49

  The Role of Banks Where Service Replication Has Eroded Institutional Franchises

  Over the past decade forces of competition and adverse economic conditions—combined with regulatory forbearance and the moral hazards generated thereby—have contributed to severe erosion of bank profitability and a mounting number of insolvencies. At least three implications of this erosion may be identified. First, in response to pressures on capital and profits bank business strategies […]