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BlogDid problems with SSDI cause the Output-Jobs Disconnect?
May 06, 2011 In a New York Times blog, Nancy Folbre recently discussed the alarming disconnect between economic growth and job creation in the United States. While the economy has been growing since the Great Recession’s end in 2009, the employment rate remains stuck at its December 2009 level of 58 percent. This percentage had reached 65 percent [...] Blog -
Policy Note No. 2Is the Federal Debt Unsustainable?
May 04, 2011 By general agreement, the federal budget is on an “unsustainable path.” Try typing the phrase into Google News: 19 of the first 20 hits refer to the federal debt. But...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 668The Freedom Budget at 45
May 02, 2011 Forty-five years ago, the A. Philip Randolph Institute issued “The Freedom Budget,” in which a program for economic transformation was proposed that included a job guarantee for everyone ready and...more Publication -
Blog
Is Stockman right about deficits, after all?
April 25, 2011 Many Americans interested in economics will recall David Stockman as the controversial White House budget director who swam against a tide of increasing deficits during Ronald Reagan’s administration in the first half of the 1980s. Ultimately, while Reagan supported many high-profile cuts to social benefits and regulatory budgets, he vastly increased military spending and cut [...] Blog -
Blog
Who has the lowest labor costs?
April 23, 2011 (Clicking on picture will make it larger.) Floyd Norris has an interesting column in this morning’s New York Times. Earlier this week, I was getting ready with some observations similar to his, though I am sure I could not have done as good a job as he has in getting across the gist of the [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 667
The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being, Great Britain, 1995 and 2005
April 20, 2011 We construct estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being for Great Britain for the years 1995 and 2005. We also produce estimates of the official British measures HBAI...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 666
Hegemonic Currencies during the Crisis
April 20, 2011 This paper suggests that the dollar is not threatened as the hegemonic international currency, and that most analysts are incapable of understanding the resilience of the dollar, not only because...more Publication -
Blog
20th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference about to begin!
April 13, 2011 Many Levy Institute scholars and staff members are in New York City for this year’s conference on the late Institute scholar and author. Breakfast should be ending now, with the conference about to begin. The conference’s theme is “financial reform and the real economy.” More information about the conference, including the program, are available at [...] Blog -
Research Project ReportMinsky on the Reregulation and Restructuring of the Financial System
April 12, 2011 This monograph is part of the Institute’s ongoing research program on Financial Instability and the Reregulation of Financial Institutions and Markets, funded by the Ford Foundation. This program’s purpose is...more Publication -
Public Policy Brief No. 118Will the Recovery Continue?
April 11, 2011 In this brief, Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen and President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou focus on the risks and possibilities ahead for the US economy. Using a Keynesian approach and drawing from...more Publication -
Blog
How much food will a week’s earnings buy?
April 06, 2011 (Click graph to expand.) Recent months have seen double-digit increases in energy prices and the prices of many important agricultural commodities. Because of the recent inflation in various raw materials, fuels, and foods, many ordinary Americans have been finding it increasingly difficult to afford basic necessities. The figure above shows just how severe this trend [...] Blog -
Public Policy Brief No. 117
It’s Time to Rein In the Fed
April 05, 2011 Scott Fullwiler and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray review the roles of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury in the context of quantitative easing, and find that the financial crisis...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 665
Causes of Financial Instability
April 04, 2011 Given the economy’s complex behavior and sudden transitions as evidenced in the 2007–08 crisis, agent-based models are widely considered a promising alternative to current macroeconomic practice dominated by DSGE models....more Publication -
Blog
How many Americas are there?
April 04, 2011 The new edition of The Atlantic contains this interesting map, showing how changing median incomes and demographics have divided the United States into 12 distinct geographic areas, each contributing to an overall picture of increasing economic inequality. (It may be helpful to use your browser’s “zoom” feature as you look at the map.) For example, [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 664
Can Portugal Escape Stagnation without Opting Out from the Eurozone?
March 31, 2011 The creation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has not brought significant gains to the Portuguese economy in terms of real convergence with wealthier eurozone countries. We analyze the...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 663
Quality of Match for Statistical Matches Used in the 1995 and 2005 LIMEW Estimates for Great Britain
March 29, 2011 The quality of match of four statistical matches used in the LIMEW estimates for Great Britain for 1995 and 2005 is described. The first match combines the fifth (1995) wave...more Publication -
Blog
More on real interest rates in Europe
March 29, 2011 Charts in last week’s entry, which contained approximations of real interest rates for various European countries, were unfortunately incorrect. The problem resulted from a silly mathematical error in the formula used to calculate the figures shown in the graphs. Accordingly, the author has recently uploaded a new version of the post, including corrected diagrams. He [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 662
The Financial Crisis Viewed from the Perspective of the “Social Costs” Theory
March 28, 2011 This paper examines the causes and consequences of the current global financial crisis. It largely relies on the work of Hyman Minsky, although analyses by John Kenneth Galbraith and Thorstein...more Publication -
Blog
Krugman, Galbraith, and others debate MMT
March 28, 2011 Paul Krugman slugs it out with our colleague Jamie Galbraith and many other “modern monetary theory” partisans at Krugman’s New York Times blog website. Jamie’s most recent retort is at the top of this page of the blog site. Many of the points raised in the discussion there are central to our work here at [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 661
Minsky’s Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis
March 26, 2011 The world’s worst economic crisis since the 1930s is now well into its third year. All sorts of explanations have been proffered for the causes of the crisis, from lax...more Publication -
Blog
How Tight Have ECB Policies Been in Real Terms?
March 24, 2011 (Click picture to enlarge.) Readers may have seen two charts that are part of a column by David Wessel published last week. For five European countries, they compare actual interest rates with those prescribed by a standard policy rule. Wessel’s charts provide some interesting evidence that European Central Bank monetary policy has been either too [...] Blog -
Blog
Some Interesting Charts and Arguments on the Deficit Issue
March 21, 2011 Some more thoughts on the federal debt, which I blogged about last week: First, at Barry Ritholtz’s blog, there are some other interesting figures: one portraying the gross federal debt in three different ways and another breaking the gross debt down by holder. Ritholtz’s figures use data from the U.S. Treasury Department. Note that the [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 660
Financial Markets
March 21, 2011 This paper provides a brief exposition of financial markets in Post Keynesian economics. Inspired by John Maynard Keynes’s path-breaking insights into the role of liquidity and finance in “monetary production...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 659
Minsky Crisis
March 16, 2011 Stability is destabilizing. These three words concisely capture the insight that underlies Hyman Minsky’s analysis of the economy’s transformation over the entire postwar period. The basic thesis is that the...more Publication