Filter by
3497 results found
-
BlogCommodities Bubble Reax
September 23, 2011 Wray responds to critics of yesterday’s post, and includes an excerpt from his policy brief on the topic (for a more condensed version, highlights of the brief are here). Blog -
Blog
The Biggest Speculative Bubble of All
September 22, 2011 (Cross posted from EconoMonitor) Back in fall of 2008 I wrote a piece examining what was then the biggest bubble in human history: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_96.pdf. Say what? You thought that was tulip bulb mania? Or, maybe the NASDAQ hi-tech hysteria? No, folks, those were child’s play. From 2004 to 2008 we experienced the biggest commodities bubble [...] Blog -
Blog
Irving Fisher would have supported QE
September 21, 2011 If you haven’t already read Fisher’s 1933 article “The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions,” read it today. It contains his theory of booms and busts that later inspired Hyman Minsky to develop the Financial Instability Hypothesis (HM duly acknowledged his debt to Fisher in his 1986 book). Fisher’s article is unfortunately becoming more relevant by [...] Blog -
Blog
Not Just a Greek Problem
September 21, 2011 Dimitri Papadimitriou was interviewed for Ian Masters’ “Background Briefing” segment regarding Greece’s place in the eurozone debt crisis, the inevitability of default (“… it’s going to happen much sooner than we think”), and other issues. Listen here. Blog -
Working Paper No. 687Access to Markets and Farm Efficiency
September 21, 2011 This paper presents an empirical investigation of the relationship between the spread, spatially and temporally, of market institutions and improvements in the productivity and efficiency of farmers. The data used...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 686
Estimating the Impact of the Recent Economic Crisis on Work Time in Turkey
September 21, 2011 This paper provides estimates of the impact of the recent economic crisis on paid and unpaid work time in Turkey. The data used in this study come from the first...more Publication -
Blog
The End (of the Euro) Is Near
September 19, 2011 Dimitri Papadimitriou writes in the Huffington Post about two different “endgame” scenarios for the euro: The collapse of the euro project will break in one of two ways. Most likely, and least desirable, is that nations will leave the euro in a coordinated dissolution which might ideally resemble an amicable divorce. As with most divorces, [...] Blog -
Blog
Conventional approach to central banking needs revision
September 16, 2011 Brookings issued a report yesterday, called Rethinking Central Banking, by a group of high-profile economists including Eichengreen, Rajan, Reinhart, Rogoff and Shin. The group – called the Committee on International Economic Policy and Reforms – argues that the conventional approach to central banking needs to be rethought. The neat separation between price stability and other [...] Blog -
Blog
A Graphical Play in Three Acts
September 15, 2011 Since graphical information manages to fail less spectacularly at getting people to change their minds, here are three graphs; one addressing what we ought (not) to do, one addressing what we are doing, and the other what we can do. The first comes from the IMF, compiling 30 years of evidence showing that fiscal contraction [...] Blog -
Blog
The power of moral framing
September 14, 2011 Here is an excerpt from the most important article you will read this year, by George Lakoff: Here’s how public intimidation by framing works. The mechanism of intimidation is framing, not just the use of words or slogans, but rather the changing of what voters take as right as a matter of principle. Framing is [...] Blog -
Blog
UK report proposes ring-fencing of retail banking
September 13, 2011 The final report from the Independent Banking Commission (IBC), otherwise known as “the Vickers report,” was published yesterday. There are no big surprises here, and the share prices of UK banks actually increased somewhat. The report supports and strengthens the Basel proposals already underway, and maintains its previous proposal to “ring-fence” the retail part of [...] Blog -
Blog
The American Bits and Pieces Act
September 12, 2011 The AJA is DOA. Via Politico: “House Republicans may pass bits and pieces of President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, but behind the scenes, some Republicans are becoming worried about giving Obama any victories — even on issues the GOP has supported in the past.” For Thomas Masterson’s extensive treatment of the proposed American Jobs Act [...] Blog -
Blog
Off the Charts
September 12, 2011 “Through several recessions and recoveries, inflation-adjusted GDP rose almost in tandem with a line of predicted growth expectations. But in November 2007, something changed. Real GDP dropped down from what was expected by more than 11 percent, and, as this summer’s data has shown, it hasn’t returned to its pre-recession trend. The unusual slump has [...] Blog -
Blog
The American Jobs Act. sigh.
September 09, 2011 Well, I commented last night on President Obama’s speech to Congress on WGXC, my local radio station. I thought it worth putting down my thoughts on silicon, since I’ve already done all the thinking about it. First of all, I thought that the delivery was one of the better that I’ve heard from President Obama [...] Blog -
Blog
Creating Millions of Jobs on a Shoestring
September 08, 2011 Expect one thing from President Obama’s speech on Thursday: a mini ARRA, a smaller version of essentially the same stimulus plan as that of 2009. He will probably call for putting the unemployed construction workers to work on infrastructure projects, he will propose tax incentives to firms to hire the unemployed, he will keep pushing [...] Blog -
Blog
Going Big
September 08, 2011 Leading up to today’s jobs speech the internal debates in the administration (or so the leaks tell us) have been over whether to propose something minimal that might have a chance of passing, or something bold, knowing that nothing has a chance of getting through Congress anyway. Randall Wray and Stephanie Kelton demonstrate what it [...] Blog -
Blog
WaPo on recession gender gap
September 07, 2011 In a post on Ezra Klein’s blog entitled “The recession’s gender gap: from ‘man-cession’ to ‘he-covery’,” Suzie Khimm notes that the recovery is happening for men but not so much for women. She quotes an Institute for Women’s Policy Research paper that refers to our research, found in this policy brief. Early childhood education and [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 685
Quantitative Easing, Functional Finance, and the “Neutral” Interest Rate
September 07, 2011 The main purpose of this study is to explore the potential expansionary effect stemming from the monetization of debt. We develop a simple macroeconomic model with Keynesian features and four...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 684
Central Banking in an Era of Quantitative Easing
September 07, 2011 This paper reviews the key insights of Hyman P. Minsky in arguing why finance cannot be left to free markets, drawing on the East Asian development experience. The paper suggests...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 683
Permanent and Selective Capital Account Management Regimes as an Alternative to Self-Insurance Strategies in Emerging-market Economies
September 07, 2011 Currency market intervention–cum–reserve accumulation has emerged as the favored “self-insurance” strategy in recipient countries of excessive private capital inflows. This paper argues that capital account management represents a less costly...more Publication -
Blog
The world’s debt trap
September 06, 2011 “There’s a 60 percent probability that most advanced economies will fall into a recession, while authorities are running out of options to provide emergency support.” — Bloomberg News today, describing the views of Nouriel Roubini This forecast from a sometimes-prescient and widely quoted economist brings to mind a question that many people now find irrelevant. [...] Blog -
Blog
Hot Porridge and More Fiscal Stimulus
September 06, 2011 Economist: “The economists who studied this were quite surprised to find that fiscal policy in recessions was reasonably effective. It is just that folks tried a first punch that was too light and that generally we didn’t get big measures until well into the recession.” Congressman: “That is precisely my point. That is why I [...] Blog -
Blog
Job Creation Ideas in HuffPo
September 02, 2011 Thomas Masterson and Pavlina Tcherneva were interviewed by the Huffington Post for an article on job creation policy. Tcherneva discussed the idea of a modern-day WPA, echoing a call she made at the outset of the Obama administration (in this policy note) for the government to provide an explicit employment guarantee targeting the unemployed. Masterson [...] Blog -
Blog
Mandelbrot and the August S&P 500 close
September 02, 2011 According to wsj.com, the S&P 500 stock price index stood at 1,218.89 at the close of the trading day on Wednesday afternoon, after a month that saw much turmoil in the financial markets. Combining monthly data from the website for Robert Shiller’s book Irrational Exuberance with the average unadjusted closing value for August (closes from [...] Blog