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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 […]
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  Working Paper No. 488

  Demand Constraints and Big Government

  In a series of articles and books, Harold Vatter and John Walker attempted to make the case that the American economy suffers from chronically insufficient demand that leads to growth below capacity. Of particular interest are a 1989 Journal of Post Keynesian Economics article that extends Domar’s work on the supply side effects of investment […]
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  Working Paper No. 487

  Class Structure and Economic Inequality

  Existing empirical schemas of class structure do not specify the capitalist class in an adequate manner. We propose a schema in which the specification of capitalist households is based on wealth thresholds. Individuals in noncapitalist households are assigned class locations based on their position in the labor process. The schema is designed to address the […]
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  Policy Notes No. 1

  The April AMT Shock

  Anyone who reads a newspaper knows that most Americans have accumulated excessive levels of debt, and realizes that as interest rates climb, it becomes more difficult to service financial liabilities. To add insult to injury, wage growth has been slow, while prices—especially for energy—have risen sharply. What is not clear, however, is the fact that […]
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  Public Policy Brief Highlight 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. Palley 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 of globalization that […]
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  Book Series

  International Perspectives on Household Wealth

  The contributors to this comprehensive book compile and analyze the latest data available on household wealth using, as case studies, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Finland during the 1990s and into the 21st century. The authors show that in the United States, trends are highlighted in terms of wealth holdings among the […]