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BlogShould tax credits for homebuyers be extended?
The clock is ticking and right now first-time buyers have to close the deal in six days. The incentive is sweet: up to $8,000 from Uncle Sam. The Internal Revenue Service reported that $12.6 billion was credited to 1.8 million home buyers (the final toll will be higher as transactions in 2010 have not been filed [...] -
Working Paper No. 603Does Excessive Sovereign Debt Really Hurt Growth?
The worst global downturn since the Great Depression has caused ballooning budget deficits in most nations, as tax revenues collapse and governments bail out financial institutions and attempt countercyclical fiscal policy. With notable exceptions, most economists accept the desirability of expansion of deficits over the short term but fear possible long-term effects. There are a […] -
Blog
Indecent exposure
The Bank for International Settlements has released its quarterly review (hat tip EconBrowser). In it, you will find an interesting graph on page 19 (or page 23 including cover pages), titled “Exposures to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain by nationality of banks”. It’s reproduced here on the left (click on it for a larger view). [...] -
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A phony war on spending
The Economist takes a look at European austerity plans and finds…not much. Substantial cuts are happening mainly in the smallest Eurozone countries. Overall the impact is slight, although of course cutting anything at all is still the opposite of stimulus. -
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Interns and inequality
Levy public policy scholar Daniel Akst argues in this op-ed that the rise of unpaid internships is exacerbating income inequality. These internships are perceived to offer important professional experience and contacts. Yet young people without money can’t afford to take them, which means kids without money are at a further disadvantage in applying later for [...] -
An economist’s economist
Copyright 2010 The Economist; Letters, June 10, 2010 Sir, Your obituary of Wynne Godley (May 29th) did an injustice to his considerable intellectual achievements in macroeconomics and his courage in going against the orthodoxy that has ruled the economics profession for the past three decades. That very orthodoxy is now under attack all across the […] -
Blog
It’s not about the money
About a year ago, supply-side economist Arthur Laffer (known for the “Laffer curve,” a graph that depicted tax revenue first rising, then falling as tax rates increased) published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal predicting sharply higher inflation and nominal interest rates over the next four to five years. The justification given for [...] -
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Solidarity in book form
Levy research scholar Thomas Masterson has co-edited a new book about the Solidarity Economy, a form of economic organization that emphasizes cooperation over competition and communal well-being over individual gain. From the back cover: “So many of us wish for something more, something different—an economy that we can feel a part of, not that makes [...] -
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A spectre is haunting Europe
This posting is by Levy senior scholar Philip Arestis, University of Cambridge and University of the Basque Country, and Theodore Pelagidis, European Institute, London School of Economics and University of Piraeus. A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of austerity. All the powers of old Europe have entered into an unholy alliance to exercise this spectre, [...] -
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Forget about deficits. Fix the banks
Levy senior scholar James K. Galbraith argues in the Los Angeles Times this morning that deficit hawks are pursuing the wrong prey. In a nutshell: The real cause of our deficits and rising public debt is our broken banking system. The debts our economic leaders deplore were largely due to the collapse of private credit, [...] -
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Wynne Godley, continued
The Economist’s obituary for the late Wynne Godley generated a couple of worthwhile letters. A key passage: Your obituary of Wynne Godley (May 29th) did an injustice to his considerable intellectual achievements in macroeconomics and his courage in going against the orthodoxy that has ruled the economics profession for the past three decades. You can read [...] -
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Review: Plumbing the Squam Lake Report
The Squam Lake Report (Princeton University Press) is a set of recommendations by 15 leading economists on reforming the financial system. Considering the magnitude of the recent financial crisis, it is surprising how little change the book proposes. Certainly, the first step in devising a set of recommendations for reform is to understand what went [...]