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  Summary No. 2

  Summary Spring 2010

  This issue leads off with an updated Strategic Analysis that confirms the necessity of strong policy action to achieve full employment in the medium term, including a persistently high government deficit in the short term. This implies a growing public debt, which is sustainable as long as interest rates are kept at the current low […]
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  Press Release

  High Unemployment Poses Greater Risk to Future Generations than Growing Government Debt, New Study from Levy Economics Institute Says

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  Public Policy Brief No. 110

  Toward True Health Care Reform: More Care, Less Insurance

  The United States has the most expensive health care system in the world, yet its system produces inferior outcomes relative to those in other countries. This brief examines the health care reform debate and argues that the basic structure of the health care system is unlikely to change, because “reform” measures actually promote the status […]
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  Working Paper No. 591

  Global Imbalances, the US Dollar, and How the Crisis at the Core of Global Finance Spread to “Self-Insuring” Emerging Market Economies

  This paper investigates the spread of what started as a crisis at the core of the global financial system to emerging economies. While emerging economies had exhibited some resilience through the early stages of the financial turmoil that began in the summer of 2007, they have been hit hard since mid-2008. Their deteriorating fortunes are […]
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  Working Paper No. 590

  Determining Gender Equity in Fiscal Federalism: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence from India

  Despite the policy realm’s growing recognition of fiscal devolution in gender development, there have been relatively few attempts to translate gender commitments into fiscal commitments. This paper aims to engage in this significant debate, focusing on the plausibility of incorporating gender into financial devolution, with the Thirteenth Finance Commission of India as backdrop. Given the […]
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  Public Policy Brief No. 109

  The Trouble with Pensions

  Pension funds have taken a big hit during the current financial crisis, with losses in the trillions of dollars. In addition, both private and public pensions are experiencing significant funding shortfalls, as is the government-run Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures the defined-benefit pension plans of private American companies. Yeva Nersisyan and Senior Scholar L. […]
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  Strategic Analysis

  Getting Out of the Recession?

  Research Scholar Gennaro Zezza updates the Levy Institute’s previous Strategic Analysis (December 2009) and finds that the 2009 increase in public sector aggregate demand was a result of the fiscal stimulus, without which the recession would have been much deeper. He confirms that strong policy action is required to achieve full employment in the medium […]
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  Working Paper No. 589

  Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze—an Update to 2007

  I find here that the early and mid-aughts (2001 to 2007) witnessed both exploding debt and a consequent “middle-class squeeze.” Median wealth grew briskly in the late 1990s. It grew even faster in the aughts, while the inequality of net worth was up slightly. Indebtedness, which fell substantially during the late 1990s, skyrocketed in the […]
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  Working Paper No. 588

  Decomposition of the Black-White Wage Differential in the Physician Market

  This paper proposes a difference-in-differences strategy to decompose the contributions of various types of discrimination to the black-white wage differential. The proposed estimation strategy is implemented using data from the Young Physicians Survey. The results suggest that potential discrimination plays a small role in the racial wage gap among physicians. At most, discrimination lowers the […]
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  Working Paper No. 587

  The Global Financial Crisis and the Shift to Shadow Banking

  While most economists agree that the world is facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there is little agreement as to what caused it. Some have argued that the financial instability we are witnessing is due to irrational exuberance of market participants, fraud, greed, too much regulation, et cetera. However, some Post Keynesian […]
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  Holiday from the eurozone would bankrupt Greece

  Friday, February 19, 2010 02:00. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. From Mr Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Sir, Martin Feldstein (February 17) argues in favour of Greece taking a holiday from the eurozone. While his very thoughtful comment makes sense on the face of it, if implemented I believe it will bankrupt Greece absolutely. Under his […]
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  Working Paper No. 586

  Is This the Minsky Moment for Reform of Financial Regulation?

  The current financial crisis has been characterized as a “Minsky” moment, and as such provides the conditions required for a reregulation of the financial system similar to that of the New Deal banking reforms of the 1930s. However, Minsky’s theory was not one that dealt in moments but rather in systemic, structural changes in the […]