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Public Policy Brief No. 154Another Bretton Woods Reform Moment
This policy brief explores a route to remaking the international financial system that would avoid the contradictions inherent in some of the prevailing reform proposals currently under discussion. Senior Scholar Jan Kregel argues that the willingness of central banks to consider electronic currency provides an opening to reconsider a truly innovative reform of the international […] -
BlogJiu-Jitsu Comes to the Stock Market
The core philosophy of this Japanese defensive art used by the weak against the stronger Samurai is to mobilize the opponent’s greater force to your own advantage. Many have criticized the run-up in the quotation of the GameStop shares as a violation of market principles or regulations. Far from it, it simply represents the fact [...] -
Working Paper No. 982The Economic Problem: From Barter to Commodity Money to Electronic Money
The success of alternative payment systems has led to discussion of various proposals to replace money with a new technology-based system, though many lack a clear idea of what exactly is the “money” they seek to replace. We begin by presenting the explanation of money’s role in the economy embraced by most mainstream economists and […] -
Policy Notes No. 1Keynes’s Clearing Union Is Alive and Well and Living in Your Mobile Phone
While governments may consider implementation of John Maynard Keynes’s original clearing union proposal for the international financial architecture too difficult or radical, Senior Scholar Jan Kregel notes that the private sector has already produced a virtual equivalent of an international global monetary system. Currently, this system is employed as an extension of the international mobile […] -
Working Paper No. 981
What Jobs Should a Public Job Guarantee Provide?
The job guarantee is a viable policy option for tackling both unemployment and underemployment. Hyman P. Minsky was one of the seminal writers on this subject. The first part of this working paper provides a survey of Minsky’s writings to identify what kind of jobs he had in mind when recommending employer-of-last-resort policies. Minsky favored: […] -
Blog
Why “Output Gap” Is Inadequate
by Lekha Chakraborty and Amandeep Kaur[1] The macroeconomic uncertainty during the Covid-19 pandemic is hard to measure. Economists and policymakers use the “output gap” variable to capture “slack.” It is a deviation between potential output and actual output, which is a standard representation of a “cycle.” The potential output is an unobserved variable. There is [...] -
Blog
Increasing Diversity in Economics Is Not Only a Moral Obligation
November 3rd, 2019, I delivered remarks on the closing panel of The New School/UMASS Amherst Graduate workshop held in New York City. The panel theme was “Broadening the boundaries of political economy”. I have since graduated and successfully gone through the job market. I hope my remarks from last year can serve as encouragement for [...] -
Strategic Analysis
What’s Ahead for the Greek Economy?
While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been broadly similar for individuals, families, societies, and economies globally, the policy responses have varied significantly between countries. In the case of Greece, the pandemic abruptly ended the country’s fragile recovery and threw its economy into a dramatic contraction beginning in 2020Q2. Fiscal stimulus programs financed by […] -
Blog
The Pandemic, “Flexible” Work, and Household Labor in Brazil (Interview)
[The following is an interview by Paula Quental of Lygia Sabbag Fares, one of my coauthors for this post on how home quarantine has impacted domestic violence. The interview originally appeared in Portuguese and is posted here with permission.] Labor market deregulation is bad for all workers and even more perverse for women, says [...] -
Working Paper No. 980
Balance Sheet Effects of a Currency Devaluation
This working paper empirically and theoretically analyzes the exchange rate’s role in Mexico’s development for the period 2004–19. We test the hypothesis of the re(emergence) of the balance sheet effect due to an increase in external debt in the nonfinancial corporate sector; higher foreign debt would affect private investment after episodes of real currency depreciation, […] -
Working Paper No. 979
Is It Time to Eliminate Federal Corporate Income Taxes?
As the nation is experiencing the need for ever-increasing government expenditures to address COVID-19 disruptions, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, and many other worthy causes, conventional thinking calls for restoring at least a portion corporate taxes eliminated by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, especially from progressive circles. In this working paper, Edward Lane and […] -
Working Paper No. 978
Potential Impact of Daycare Closures on Parental Child Caregiving in Turkey
Daycares closed on March 16, 2020 in Turkey to prevent the spread of COVID-19. At the same time, the two most common nonparental childcare arrangements in Turkey—care of children by grandparents and nannies—became undesirable due to health concerns and in some cases also unfeasible due to the partial lockdown for individuals under the age of […]