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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)
Blog
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 [...]
Blog
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 [...]
Public Policy Brief No. 111
Deficit Hysteria Redux?
This brief by Yeva Nersisyan and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray argues that deficits do not burden future generations with debt, nor do they crowd out private spending. The authors base their conclusions on the premise that a sovereign nation with its own currency cannot become insolvent, and that government financing is unlike that of […]
Working Paper No. 597
Bretton Woods 2 Is Dead, Long Live Bretton Woods 3?
This paper sets out to investigate the forces and conditions that led to the emergence of global imbalances preceding the worldwide crisis of 2007–09, and both the likelihood and the potential sustainability of reemerging global imbalances as the world economy recovers from that crisis. The “Bretton Woods 2” hypothesis of sustainable global imbalances featuring a […]
Public Policy Brief No. 111
Επιστροφή στην υστερία του ελλείμματος στις ΗΠΑ;
Στο κείμενο αυτό, οι Yeva Nersisyan και ο L. Randall Wray υποστηρίζουν ότι τα ελλείμματα δεν επιβαρύνουν τις μελλοντικές γενεές με χρέη και δεν περιορίζουν τις ιδιωτικές δαπάνες. Οι συγγραφείς βασίζουν τα συμπεράσματά τους στην υπόθεση ότι ένα κυρίαρχο κράτος με δικό του νόμισμα δεν μπορεί να χρεοκοπήσει και στην άποψη ότι η κρατική χρηματοδότηση […]
Blog
European Union’s mega-loan fund is no panacea
From the way markets reacted, the trillion-dollar rescue package hurled by European leaders at the continent’s growing debt crisis might well have been code-named Panacea. Stocks rose all over the place while Greek bond yields tumbled on Monday. But this is far from the end of the story. The rescue package alleviated the growing Eurozone [...]
Blog
Not just jobs, but the right kind
The good news on U.S. employment is that we added 290,000 nonfarm jobs in April. The bad news is that unemployment rose as well, to 9.9%, because more people entered the labor force and many more returned to seeking work. So unfortunately, the employment picture remains grim, with a level of unemployment we might have [...]