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Connecting the Dots: Debt, Savings and the Need for a Fiscal Growth Policy

Public Debt Project, July 14, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Twice in the second half of the twentieth century, in the midst of a robust economy, economists optimistically talked about the taming and even “the death of the business cycle” based on the belief that advances in macroeconomics had reached a point of perfection. Yet, both […]

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Wray on Revenue, Redemption, and When Austerity Is Justified

L. Randall Wray has an essay in the recent issue of the World Economic Review. Wray’s target is the belief that “government needs tax revenue to pay for most (or even all) of its spending.” According to Wray, a version of this belief distorts our understanding of what are the limits of, say, the US federal government’s [...]

Keep Unemployment From Mushrooming With Preventative Policies

The New York Times, July 11, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Though job growth surged in June, by and large, this recovery has been the slowest in postwar history and 7.8 million people continue to look, unsuccessfully, for work. There is nothing inevitable or natural about jobless recoveries…. Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/07/11/are-we-ready-for-the-next-recession/keep-unemployment-from-mushrooming-with-preventative-policies  

MME, July 3, 2016

 

Η Βρετανία σήμερα, αύριο η Γερμανία;

Kathimerini, 3 Ιούλιος 2016. Με επιφύλαξη παντός δικαιώματος. Ο​πως και με τον γάμο, η συμμετοχή στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ενωση και στην Ευρωζώνη υποτίθεται ότι είναι μακροχρόνια δέσμευση, σε εύκολους και σε δύσκολους καιρούς. Παρ’ όλα αυτά, προκύπτουν διαζύγια—ακόμη και όταν κάποιος έχει παντρευτεί με τις καλύτερες των προθέσεων, συμβαίνουν διαζύγια. Η αναταραχή ξέσπασε πρώτα στα κράτη-μέλη […]

Working Paper No. 869

Have We Been Here Before?

This paper explores from a historical perspective the process of financialization over the course of the 20th century. We identify four phases of financialization: the first, from the 1900s to 1933 (early financialization); the second, from 1933 to 1940 (transitory phase); the third, between 1945 and 1973 (definancialization); and the fourth period begins in the […]

Richard Berner of the Treasury Department speaking at the Minsky Conference in April

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Paul McCulley Has Had It with Orthodox Macroeconomists

Writing in The Hill, Paul McCulley argues that his profession’s fussy obsession with the Fed’s zero-point-whatever monetary policy is leading us into a dead end: “after a financial crisis, itself spawned by bursting of a bubble in private-sector debt creation, the power of monetary policy to generate robust aggregate spending growth is severely truncated.” The policy problem we need desperately to [...]

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Basic Income and the Job Guarantee

Pavlina Tcherneva was interviewed by Joe Weisenthal yesterday to present the case against a universal basic income policy (a proposed version of which was just voted down in Switzerland). Watch: Tcherneva has written about the UBI versus Job Guarantee debate, including this contribution (pdf) to a special issue of the journal Basic Income Studies (paywall). She also spoke about this last [...]

The Argument Against Basic Income

Bloomberg, June 7, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Research Associate Pavlina R. Tcherneva argues against a universal basic income policy and in favor of a job guarantee in this interview with Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal. Click here for the video.

Working Paper No. 868

From Antigrowth Bias to Quantitative Easing

This paper investigates the European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary policies. It identifies an antigrowth bias in the bank’s monetary policy approach: the ECB is quick to hike, but slow to ease. Similarly, while other players and institutional deficiencies share responsibility for the euro’s failure, the bank has generally done “too little, too late” with regard […]

Financial consultant Henry Kaufman speaking at the 25th Annual Minsky Conference