Search

">

Filter by

4195 results found

Blog
Galbraith on the Greek Crisis and the “Very Patient and Stubborn Profession”
Last week, James Galbraith was supposed to be interviewed by ERT, the public broadcaster in Greece. Events intervened when the Greek government ordered that ERT be shut down, and so instead of sitting for the interview, Galbraith delivered this speech in Thessaloniki in front of a large gathering assembled in response to the closure (ERT [...]
Blog
A Fiscal Fallacy?
We have been advocates of the theory that fiscal tightening is threatening economic recovery (last week, for example). John Taylor objects to the view that fiscal tightness has been the key to the slowness of growth in the recovery. In his blog, he states, “As a matter of national income and product accounting, it is true [...]
Blog
New Book: The Rise and Fall of Money Manager Capitalism
A new book by the Levy Institute’s Randall Wray and Éric Tymoigne (release date July 31): The Rise and Fall of Money Manager Capitalism: Minsky’s half century from World War Two to the Great Recession The book studies the trends that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, as well as the [...]
Blog
End of Week Links
Boston Fed’s Eric Rosengren on the risk of financial runs and the implications for financial stability* 22nd Annual Minsky Conference (video) *(Link has changed: see below the fold of this post for Rosengren video) Paying Paul and Robbing No One: An Eminent Domain Solution for Underwater Mortgage Debt New York Fed ‘Financialization’ as a Cause [...]
Blog
Papadimitriou: No End in Sight for Greece’s Economic Crisis (Greek)
In the context of the IMF’s latest release in its mea culpa series, this time on the problems with the Greek bailout plan (pdf), Dimitri Papadimitriou appeared on Skai TV to discuss the worsening crisis in Greece, the failure of austerity, and the need to renegotiate the bailout deal. Segment (in Greek) begins at 9:35 [...]
Blog
Has There Been a Fiscal Shock in the United States Recently?
I used a figure like the one above in a talk that I gave at the Eastern Economic Association 39th Annual Conference last month on the topic “Heterodox Shocks.” (The diagram above incorporates data released at the end of last month.) Total government spending in the US, shown in red, continues to fall as a [...]
Working Paper No. 766
Heterodox Shocks
Should shocks be part of our macro-modeling tool kit—for example, as a way of modeling discontinuities in fiscal policy or big moves in the financial markets? What are shocks, and how can we best put them to use? In heterodox macroeconomics, shocks tend to come in two broad types, with some exceptions for hybrid cases. […]
Blog
Why Is the Federal Reserve Talking about “Tapering”?
Ryan Avent wonders why, with unemployment too high and inflation too low — even by the Federal Reserve’s own previously articulated standards — there is so much talk of “tapering” coming from members of the Open Market Committee (talk of slowly drawing down the Fed’s asset purchases). Avent mentions the possibility that considerations other than [...]
Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota speaking at the 22nd Annual Minsky Conference in New York.
Blog
UK Debate and the Facts Moving in Opposite Directions
Today in the Guardian, Philip Pilkington notices the British Labour party potentially inching away from their scaled-down proposal for a “job guarantee,” an idea fleshed out by Hyman Minsky: Minsky’s theories of financial instability suggested that capitalist economies were prone to serious downturns in which huge amounts of the labour force would find themselves unemployed. [...]
Blog
More London Whale Postmortem
The US Senate investigation of JPMorgan Chase’s Chief Investment Office (CIO), and more specifically of the operations of its Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) unit — otherwise known as the “London Whale” trades — concluded with the release of their full report in March. The report alleges that the CIO operated without a clear mandate and [...]
Blog
QE vs the Recovery Act: How Does Our Approach to Stimulus Affect Inequality?
Annie Lowrey recently renewed the ongoing discussion over whether the Federal Reserve’s attempts at reviving the economy through quantitative easing (QE) are exacerbating inequality. The abbreviated version of the argument is that QE operates mainly through boosting asset prices, leading to gains in stocks and housing that largely benefit those at the top. If that’s [...]