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BlogOne less worry
June 01, 2010 The world has its usual cornucopia of troubles, but if you were worried about federal deficits, you can at least set those aside and focus on unemployment, oil spills and other here-and-now concerns. That’s the message of Levy Senior Scholar James K. Galbraith in this lively interview with Ezra Klein. Galbraith offers this historical perspective: [...] Blog -
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Greek for “default”
June 01, 2010 As the European financial crisis continues to percolate, by now a few irreducible facts are distressingly clear: First, Greece has no hope of repaying its debts as they are now constituted. Thus, the much-contested 110 billion euro bailout plan and the wider subsequent trillion-dollar bailout proferred by the Eurozone countries and the IMF are doomed [...] Blog -
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A plague of debt
June 01, 2010 The Financial Times reports that the European Central Bank (ECB) has warned of a “financial contagion” risk from concerns about the debt of some European governments. Many readers of this blog will recall that a similar concern was important in the late 1990s, when debt and currency problems seemed to spread among Asian and Latin [...] Blog -
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Wynne Godley, continued
May 30, 2010 The Economist has published this obituary of the late economist, whose career included a lengthy stint as head of the Levy Institute’s Macro-Modeling Team. In the small world dept.: After a spell in business and a few years at the Treasury, he was enticed to King’s College, Cambridge, which 61 years earlier another economist-aesthete, John [...] Blog -
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Why do women earn less?
May 28, 2010 In a paper called “Gender Segregation by the Clock,” Casey B. Mulligan of the University of Chicago has come out with some interesting new research on gender inequality in the labor market. It is a fascinating study showing that women are more likely to choose a regular 9 to 5 job. Prof. Mulligan says this may contribute [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 600Time and Poverty from a Developing Country Perspective
May 26, 2010 This study is concerned with the measurement of poverty in the context of developing countries. We argue that poverty rankings must take into account time use dimensions of paid and...more Publication -
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The rain in Spain
May 25, 2010 A new report from the International Monetary Fund has turned attention, at least temporarily, from Greece to the larger potential problem of Spain, where unemployment is roughly 20 percent. A nice (if unsettling) summary: Spain’s economy needs far-reaching and comprehensive reforms. The challenges are severe: a dysfunctional labor market, the deflating property bubble, a large [...] Blog -
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Promises, promises, and more promises
May 21, 2010 From today’s NY Times: The cost of public pensions has been systemically underestimated nationwide for more than two decades, say some analysts. By these estimates, state and local officials have promised $5 trillion worth of benefits while thinking they were committing taxpayers to roughly half that amount. As Dimitri Papadimitriou said on this blog recently, we [...] Blog -
One-Pager No. 3“The Spectre of Banking”
May 20, 2010 A year and a half after the collapse in the financial markets, the debate about necessary “reforms” is still in its early stages, and none of the debaters seriously claims...more Publication -
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Funding child labor
May 19, 2010 The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth has issued a report on an unintended consequence of women-empowering microfinance: an increase in child labor. The report underscores the importance of unpaid work–work performed mostly by women. A development program, small or big, should consider the constraint that unpaid care duties impose on women, and provide assistance through [...] Blog -
One-Pager No. 2
Reforms Without Politicians
May 19, 2010 Congress is currently debating new regulations for financial institutions in an effort to avoid a repeat of the recent crisis that brought the banking system to the brink. Some of...more Publication -
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Promises, promises
May 19, 2010 An earlier Levy post outlined America’s multi-dimensional pension crisis. Now comes this paper from economist Joshua Rauh, who says that at least seven states may be unable to pay their public-pension obligations during the next decade–and by 2030 that number could reach 31 states. Barring reforms, Rauh says, a federal bailout could be needed, possibly [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 599
Racial Preferences in a Small Urban Housing Market
May 18, 2010 This paper use spatial econometric models to test for racial preferences in a small urban housing market. Identifying racial preferences is difficult when unobserved neighborhood amenities vary systematically with racial...more Publication -
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A gloomy assessment
May 17, 2010 Jan Kregel and Rob Parenteau, respectively senior scholar and research associate at the Levy Institute, offer this analysis of the current crisis in Europe, observing that investor behavior in this case isn’t just moved by animal spirits or orneriness: This is about more than just testosterone counts. Some wing of the professional investing world is [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 598
The Economic and Financial Crises in CEE and CIS
May 17, 2010 This paper looks at the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), where economies have been most dramatically hit by the global crisis...more Publication -
One-Pager No. 1
A Balancing Act
May 17, 2010 Now that America’s financial institutions have been brought back from the brink, the greatest threat to global economic stability is the gigantic trade imbalance between the United States, China, and...more Publication -
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Get it out of the office
May 17, 2010 Getting medical insurance out of the workplace would have been a grand idea. But bowing to practicality, the Obama administration pushed through a good-enough plan that leaves it there. Let’s not make the same mistake twice when it comes to pensions. America and its retirees are facing a multi-dimensional pension crisis—one that, even more than [...] Blog -
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How many economists are out there?
May 14, 2010 The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its occupational employment and wages summary today. With a surge of interest in economics in the general public, I wondered how many of us are hired to work (search Economists and Economics Teacher, Postsecondary). What is your guess? (Hint: for every 5,021 hired workers, one economist is at work) Blog -
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Wynne Godley
May 14, 2010 Distinguished Scholar Wynne Godley, longtime head of the Levy Institute’s Macro-Modeling Team, died on May 13. He was 83. At the time of his death, Godley was professor emeritus of applied economics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of King’s College. He was formerly a senior visiting research fellow at the Cambridge Endowment [...] Blog -
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What if women ran Wall Street?
May 13, 2010 Michael Scherer at Time has a fascinating story on three women in Washington–Sheila Bair, Elizabeth Warren and Mary Schapiro–who have risen from the ashes of the financial meltdown. If nothing else, the crisis has at least helped put some women in charge of Wall Street. Blog -
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Dean Baker on the ‘credit squeeze’
May 13, 2010 Dean Baker debunks the myth that banks are failing to lend money. Long story short: it's the recession! Businesses are looking less like good credit risks because they have less revenue. What bank would be lending more in this atmosphere? A foolish bank. Blog -
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Prometheus bound
May 11, 2010 Any time you talk about a contagion, it’s sensible to ask: where did the infection come from? The European debt crisis may look like it started in Greece, but really it began with the Stability and Growth Pact, the final framework of the European Monetary Union (EMU) that gave us the euro. That agreement is [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 597
Bretton Woods 2 Is Dead, Long Live Bretton Woods 3?
May 11, 2010 This paper sets out to investigate the forces and conditions that led to the emergence of global imbalances preceding the worldwide crisis of 2007–09, and both the likelihood and the...more Publication -
Public Policy Brief No. 111Επιστροφή στην υστερία του ελλείμματος στις ΗΠΑ;
May 11, 2010 Στο κείμενο αυτό, οι Yeva Nersisyan και ο L. Randall Wray υποστηρίζουν ότι τα ελλείμματα δεν επιβαρύνουν τις μελλοντικές γενεές με χρέη και δεν περιορίζουν τις ιδιωτικές δαπάνες. Οι συγγραφείς...more Publication