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One-Pager No. 2
Reforms Without Politicians
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 those proposed changes would be valuable. But what nobody seems to have noticed is that the government already has the power to address some of […]
Blog
Promises, promises
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 [...]
Working Paper No. 599
Racial Preferences in a Small Urban Housing Market
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 composition. We adopt three strategies to redress this problem: (1) we focus on housing price differences across microneighborhoods in the small and relatively homogenous city […]
Blog
A gloomy assessment
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 [...]
Working Paper No. 598
The Economic and Financial Crises in CEE and CIS
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 and its impact is likely to be most long-lasting, especially among poor and vulnerable groups. Using poverty as the main axis, it looks at aspects […]
One-Pager No. 1
A Balancing Act
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 other trading partners. A second big threat to economic stability, in the longer run, is global warming. Both problems are related to America’s addiction to […]
Blog
Get it out of the office
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
How many economists are out there?
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)
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Wynne Godley
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 [...]
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What if women ran Wall Street?
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
Dean Baker on the ‘credit squeeze’
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
Prometheus bound
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 [...]