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BlogA Just-So Story About Money
From an intriguing interview with David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, regarding the history of money and debt: Yes there’s a standard story we’re all taught… It really deserves no other introduction: according to this theory all transactions were by barter. “Tell you what, I’ll give you twenty chickens for that cow.” [...] -
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Who Needs Free Lunch Anyway?
There appears to be a standoff brewing over renewal of the federal gas tax. The tax traditionally funds highway infrastructure projects and is due to be extended September 30th. But a group in Congress, led by Senator Tom Coburn, is maneuvering to block the extension. A delay of just ten days, Ron Klain writes in [...] -
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How many Social Security checks fit inside one tax break?
The Congressional deficit reduction committee has numerous government programs on the chopping block, and we may soon see some very severe spending reductions. The committee must agree upon, and Congress must pass, $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and/or tax increases by November 23, or automatic, across-the-board spending cuts will go into effect in 2013. I [...] -
Historically GDP Growth Is Off by 11.9% and Labor Markets Should’ve Already Bounced
Forbes, August 30, 2011. © 2011 Forbes.com LLC™. All Rights Reserved. “[This] recession has turned into a prolonged and very unusual slump in growth, preventing a labor-market recovery,” explained Dimitri Papadimitriou, head of the Levy Economics Institute, in a recent paper called Not Your Father’s Recession. The economist makes the argument that post-crisis GDP growth rates are […] -
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Automatic Stabilizer Fail
If you believe the US political system is incapable of handling counter-cyclical policy and that we need to rely on automatic stabilizers, this CBPP graph is depressing: In other words, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (the result of the 1996 “welfare reform”), for whatever its other merits might be, has not been particularly sensitive to [...] -
Public Policy Brief No. 119The Contradictions of Export-led Growth
The export-led growth paradigm is a development strategy aimed at growing productive capacity by focusing on foreign markets. It rose to prominence in the late 1970s and became part of a new consensus among economists about the benefits of economic openness. According to Thomas I. Palley, this paradigm is no longer relevant because of changed […] -
Public Policy Brief No. 119
Οι αντιφάσεις της εξαγωγικής ανάπτυξης
Το μοντέλο της εξαγωγικής ανάπτυξης είναι μια αναπτυξιακή στρατηγική που στοχεύει σε αυξανόμενη παραγωγική ικανότητα εστιάζοντας στις ξένες αγορές. Κυριάρχησε προς το τέλος της δεκαετίας του ’70 και έγινε μέρος μιας καινούργιας συναίνεσης ανάμεσα στους οικονομολόγους σχετικά με τα οφέλη του διεθνούς «ανοίγματος» της οικονομίας. Σύμφωνα με τον Thomas I. Palley, το μοντέλο αυτό έχει […] -
Press ReleaseProlonged Slump in Growth and Jobs Defies Trend of Previous Recessions, New Levy Economics Institute Paper Says
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Press Release
Overlooked as a Policy Option, Social Care Investment Would Bring Significant Boost to US Economy, New Paper from Levy Economics Institute Says
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Blog
MMT and Hyperinflation
(via EconoMonitor) In last week’s post, I responded to Paul Krugman’s critique of Modern Money Theory (MMT), which argues that a sovereign government that issues its own floating exchange rate currency cannot face an affordability constraint—which means it cannot be forced into involuntary default on its own currency debt. His criticisms really boiled down to [...] -
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A Comment on the Fight against Corruption and Indian Democracy
The author is a Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. His views are his own. An anti-corruption movement in India, run by a set of elites primarily from Delhi, has put poor Anna Hazare out in front and called itself a national movement. Their key demand is an anti-corruption [...] -
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“It’s a classic case of moral hazard.”
Levy Institute President Dimitri Papadimitriou, as quoted in the Huffington Post in reference to revelations of the Fed’s $1.2 trillion in “secret loans” to banks and other companies. Papadimitriou told The Huffington Post that the Fed issued many of its biggest loans during the Bush administration, and that “they didn’t appear to have any difficulty [...]