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  Research Project Report

  How Well Off Are America’s Elderly?

  Given the aging of the American population and the widening gap between rich and poor—not to mention the controversy surrounding the future viability of Social Security—the economic welfare of the elderly is an extremely topical issue. This report provides a new look at America’s elderly, and shows that the official measures drastically understate their level […]
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  Audio

  16th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the US and World Economies

  The 2007 Hyman P. Minsky Conference drew upon public discussions on the state of the United States and world economies in the context of prevailing economic trends and their implications. Topics included fiscal and monetary policies for continued growth and employment; currency markets fluctuations and the consequent exchange-rate misalignments, as well as possible cures; and […]
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  Working Paper No. 494

  Fiscal Policy in a Stock-flow Consistent (SFC) Model

  This paper deploys a simple stock-flow consistent (SFC) model in order to examine various contentions regarding fiscal and monetary policy. It follows from the model that if the fiscal stance is not set in the appropriate fashion—that is, at a well-defined level and growth rate—then full employment and low inflation will not be achieved in […]
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  Conference Proceedings

  16th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the US and World Economies

  The 2007 Hyman P. Minsky Conference focused on monetary and fiscal policies for continued growth and employment; currency markets fluctuations and the consequent exchange-rate misalignments, as well as possible cures; and the United States’ households and trade deficits, their implications for growth and employment, and their effect on the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy. […]
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  Report No. 2

  Report April 2007

  Who’s really at the top of the economic ladder? A new Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being report by Senior Scholars Edward N. Wolff and Ajit Zacharias examines how comparisons of economic well-being are affected by the inclusion of an accurate measure of well-being derived from wealth. Contents: NEW LEVY INSTITUTE MEASURE OF ECONOMIC WELL-BEING […]
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  Working Paper No. 493

  State, Difference, and Diversity

  Should the state treat men and women in identical ways, or should it legislate and enforce policies that are aware of gender differences? In other words, should the state be gender-blind or gender-sensitive? Gender, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, ideological, economic, political, and cultural dimensions represent diversity among citizens. This paper argues that if the goal […]
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  Working Paper No. 492

  Are the Costs of the Business Cycle “Trivially Small”?

  In his presidential address to the American Economic Association, Robert Lucas claimed that the welfare costs of the business cycle in the United States equaled .05 percent of consumption. His calculation compared the utility of a representative consumer receiving actual per-capita consumption each year with that of a similar consumer receiving the expectation of consumption. […]
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  Working Paper No. 491

  Land Rental and Sales Markets in Paraguay

  This paper examines the claim that the land rental market can be an effective means of redistributing access to, if not ownership of, land to the rural poor, using Paraguay as our model. The land sales market is also examined. The land rental market in Paraguay’s rural areas is found to be very thin, due […]
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  Working Paper No. 490

  Productivity, Technical Efficiency, and Farm Size in Paraguayan Agriculture

  This essay assesses the relationship between farm size and productivity. Both parametric and nonparametric methods are used to derive efficiency measures. Smaller farms are found to have higher net farm income per hectare, and to be more technically efficient, than larger farms.
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  Working Paper No. 489

  Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rates and Currency Sovereignty

  This paper provides an analysis of Keynes’s original “Bancor” proposal as well as more recent proposals for fixed exchange rates. We argue that these schemes fail to pay due attention to the importance of capital movements in today’s economy, and that they implicitly adopt an unsatisfactory notion of money as a mere medium of exchange. […]
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  Report No. 1

  Report January 2007

  Many believe that the value of the dollar will eventually collapse, succumbing to pressure from the deficit in the current account. A new Strategic Analysis by the Levy Institute Macro-modeling Team finds that further devaluation is inevitable, but they emphasize its beneficial effects. Contents: NEW STRATEGIC ANALYSIS Can Global Imbalances Continue? Policies for the US […]
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  Public Policy Brief No. 89

  The Economics of Outsourcing

  According to Research Associate Thomas I. Palley, global outsourcing represents a new economic challenge that calls for a new set of institutions. In this brief, he expands upon the problems of offshore outsourcing as outlined in Public Policy Brief no. 86 and focuses on the microeconomic foundations. He argues that outsourcing is a central element […]