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  Employment Guarantee Policies

  This conference focused on those government policy initiatives that can create a safety net through public service employment for individuals who are ready, willing, and able to work but who find themselves in an economic environment that does not offer job opportunities.   Unemployment and involuntary “inactivity” are structural macroeconomic problems of both developed and […]
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  Public Policy Brief Highlight No. 86

  Rethinking Trade and Trade Policy

  The theory of comparative advantage says that there are gains from trade for the global economy as a whole. In this second brief of a three-part study of the international economy, Research Associate Thomas Palley observes that comparative advantage is driven by technology, which can be influenced by human action and policy. These associations have […]
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  Summary No. 3

  Summary Fall 2006

  In a new Strategic Analysis summarized in this issue, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholars Edward Chilcote and Gennaro Zezza observe that the economy continues to grow on an unbalanced path, and that there is an increase in the default risk for the private and financial sectors.   Contents:   INSTITUTE RESEARCH Program: The […]
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  Working Paper No. 475

  Capital Stock and Unemployment

  This paper examines the proposition that capital stock relative to aggregate output has been an important variable in the determination of the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) over the last four decades. The authors present new empirical evidence that lends strong support to the claim that the aggregate capital-output ratio, the real price of […]
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  Working Paper No. 474

  On the Minskyan Business Cycle

  The essential insight Minsky drew from Keynes was that optimistic expectations about the future create a margin, reflected in higher asset prices, which makes it possible for borrowers to access finance in the present. In other words, the capitalized expected future earnings work as the collateral against which firms can borrow in financial markets or […]
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  Working Paper No. 473

  The American Jewish Periphery

  This paper calls attention to the American Jewish periphery—Americans of recent Jewish origin who have only the most tenuous connections, if any, with those origins. This periphery has been growing to the point that there are now, for example, nearly a million Americans with recent Jewish origins (origins no farther back in time than the […]
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  Working Paper No. 472

  The Adequacy of Retirement Resources among the Soon-to-Retire, 1983–2001

  A central issue confronting soon-to-retire workers (those aged 47–64) is whether they will have command over enough resources (both private and public) to maintain a decent standard of living in retirement. Typically, the adequacy of projected retirement income is judged in relation to some absolute standard (for example, the poverty threshold) and preretirement income (“replacement […]
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  Working Paper No. 471

  Population Forecasts, Fiscal Policy, and Risk

  This paper describes how stochastic population forecasts are used to inform and analyze policies related to government spending on the elderly, mainly in the context of the industrialized nations. The paper first presents methods for making probabilistic forecasts of demographic rates, mortality, fertility, and immigration, and shows how these are combined to make stochastic forecasts […]
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  Working Paper No. 470

  Retiree Health Benefit Coverage and Retirement

  Employer-provided health benefits for workers who retire before age 65 has fallen over the last decade. We examine a cohort of male workers from the Health and Retirement Survey to explore the dynamics of retiree health benefits and the relationship between retiree health benefits and retirement behavior. A better understanding of this relationship is important […]
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  Working Paper No. 469

  The Changing Role of Employer Pensions

  By any measure, pension coverage should be at an all-time high: the nation is richer and workers are older. However, the pension world is a paradox, as pension security falls for middle-class workers and pension spending increases. The United States government directly and indirectly spends more than half a trillion dollars on the elderly each […]
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  Working Paper No. 468

  Global Demographic Trends and Provisioning for the Future

  The world’s population is aging. Virtually no nation is immune to this demographic trend and the challenges it brings for future generations. Relative growth of the elderly population is fueling debate about reform of social security programs in the United States and other developed nations. In the United States, the total discounted shortfall of Social […]
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  Working Paper No. 467

  The Financial Requirements of Achieving Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

  Although the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been ratified in global and national forums, they have not yet been incorporated into operational planning within governments or international organizations. The weak link between the policies and the investments needed for their implementation is one barrier to progress. An assessment of the resources required is a critical […]