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  Public Policy Brief No. 95

  Shaky Foundations: Policy Lessons from America’s Historic Housing Crash

  A bursting asset bubble inevitably requires central bank action, usually when it is already too late and with adverse spillover effects. In this sense, the Federal Reserve and other central banks already target asset prices; yet, by taking aim at them only on the way down—as in the current housing and credit crisis—the "Big Banks" […]
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  Summary No. 3

  Summary Fall 2008

  This latest issue of the Summary includes an overview of the Institute’s annual Minsky conference, which focused on the current economic crisis in the United States, its effects on the world economy, and possible solutions. Also featured is a new Strategic Analysis that challenges the notion that a stimulus package larger than the one approved […]
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  Policy Notes

  What’s a Central Bank to Do?

  As homeowner equity continues to disappear, there is a growing consensus that losses on all mortgages will exceed $1 trillion, with financial losses spreading far beyond real estate. Mortgage rates are spiking, and, more generally, interest rate spreads remain wide, as financial players shun private debt in the rush to safe Treasury securities. Labor markets […]
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  Policy Notes No. 3

  What’s a Central Bank to Do?

  As homeowner equity continues to disappear, there is a growing consensus that losses on all mortgages will exceed $1 trillion, with financial losses spreading far beyond real estate. Mortgage rates are spiking and, more generally, interest rate spreads remain wide, as financial players shun private debt in the rush to safe Treasury securities. Labor markets […]
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  Public Policy Brief Highlight No. 95

  Shaky Foundations

  Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s latest plan for tackling the housing-centered credit crisis involves giving the Federal Reserve vast new authority to regulate investment banks, not just depository institutions. However, news analyst Pedro Nicolaci da Costa argues that attitude changes among regulators will be even more important than shifts in mandate in ensuring that regulators like […]
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  Working Paper No. 542

  Keynes’s Approach to Full Employment

  This paper argues that John Maynard Keynes had a targeted (as contrasted with aggregate) demand approach to full employment. Modern policies, which aim to “close the demand gap,” are inconsistent with the Keynesian approach on both theoretical and methodological grounds. Aggregate demand tends to increase inflation and erode income distribution near full employment, which is […]
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  Working Paper No. 541

  The Unpaid Care Work–Paid Work Connection

  In order to provide a coherent perspective of gender differences in the world of work, the many intersections of paid and unpaid work must be brought to light. It is well documented that gender-based wage differentials and occupational segregation continue to characterize the division of labor among men and women in paid work; yet unpaid […]
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  Working Paper No. 540

  The Effects of International Trade on Gender Inequality

  The process of economic globalization has winners and losers. Iran’s carpet industry provides a good illustration of the adverse side of this process. As the production costs of its rivals have fallen, surging international trade has reduced the market share of Iran’s labor-intensive products, especially Persian carpets. This paper reports the findings of an informal […]
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  Report No. 3

  Report July 2008

  This issue of the Report  highlights the Institute’s annual Minsky conference, which this year focused on credit, markets, and the real economy, and the fiscal policies needed to counter recession. A new Strategic Analysis argues in favor of a fiscal stimulus much larger than the $150 million currently allocated, and that it should apply over […]
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  Working Paper No. 539

  The Return of Fiscal Policy

  The monetarist counterrevolution and the stagflation period of the 1970s were among the theoretical and practical developments that led to the rejection of fiscal policy as a useful tool for macroeconomic stabilization and full employment determination.  Recent mainstream contributions, however, have begun to reassess fiscal policy and have called for its restitution in certain cases. […]
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  Working Paper No. 538

  The Buffett Plan for Reducing the Trade Deficit

  This paper considers a plan proposed by Warren Buffett, whereby importers would be required to obtain certificates proportional to the amount of non-oil goods (and possibly also services) they brought into the country. These certificates would be granted to firms that exported goods, which could then sell certificates to importing firms on an organized market. […]
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  Working Paper No. 537

  The Keynesian Roots of Stock-flow Consistent Macroeconomic Models

  This paper argues that institutionally rich stock-flow consistent models—that is, models in which economic agents are identified with the main social categories/institutional sectors of actual capitalist economies, the short period behavior of these agents is thoroughly described, and the “period by period” balance sheet dynamics implied by the latter is consistently modeled—are (1) perfectly compatible […]