Filter by
4186 results found
-
BlogIs Inequality Holding Back the Recovery?
“The biggest obstacle to a sustainable recovery,” according to the Levy Institute’s newest strategic analysis of the US economy, “is the inequality in the distribution of income.” In their latest, Dimitri Papadimitriou, Michalis Nikiforos, Gennaro Zezza, and Greg Hannsgen begin with a familiar point: the Congressional Budget Office has been predicting fairly rosy economic growth [...] -
Blog
An Employment Safety Net for Youth
Pavlina Tcherneva participated in a conference on youth unemployment at Middlebury College and shared her ideas for a youth employment safety net (beginning at 38:45): [iframe src=”//player.vimeo.com/video/89719577?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0″ width=”450″ height=”253″ frameborder=”0″ webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe] -
Blog
Is the Eurozone Crisis Really Over?
Economic pundits who predicted the collapse of the euro at the start of the eurozone crisis have been proven wrong. But those who say the crisis is over are equally wrong. Four years after the start of the euro crisis, the bailed-out countries of the eurozone (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) are still facing serious [...] -
Blog
Bubbles and Piketty: An Interview with L. Randall Wray
L. Randall Wray appeared on Thom Hartmann’s radio show yesterday for a lengthy and wide-ranging interview: [iframe width=”480″ height=”270″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/q8YND_N_6ms?feature=player_detailpage” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe] -
Blog
Taxes and the Public Purpose
In previous installments we have established that “taxes drive money.” What we mean by that is that sovereign government chooses a money of account (Dollar in the USA), imposes obligations in that unit (taxes, fees, fines, tithes, tolls, or tribute), and issues the currency that can be used to “redeem” oneself in payments to the [...] -
Blog
Working Paper Roundup 6/4/2014
Monetary Mechanics: A Financial View Éric Tymoigne “This paper presents an alternative framework that can be used to analyze monetary systems by drawing on the work of Smith, MacLeod, Knapp, Innes, Hawtrey, Keynes, Murad, Olivecrona, Wray, and Ingham, among others. The analysis asks what “money” is instead of what “money” does. Monetary instruments are not [...] -
Blog
Creationism versus Redemptionism: How a Money-Issuer Really Lends and Spends
MMT has emphasized that there is a close relation between sovereign power to issue a currency and its power to impose tax liabilities. For shorthand, we say “Taxes Drive Money.” I’ve dealt with that topic in the previous installments of this series on MMT’s view of taxes. We’ve also demonstrated (as if it needed demonstration!) [...] -
Blog
The Far Right and the European Elections
C. J. Polychroniou, reflecting on the results of the European Parliament elections: The stunning victory of Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France that came in first with 25 percent of the vote—when it had won less than 6.5 percent in the last European elections—is quite indicative of the general political and social trends in [...] -
Blog
Why Draghi’s New Measures Won’t Solve the Low Inflation Problem
In yesterday’s Financial Times, Jörg Bibow addressed Mario Draghi’s recent announcement that the ECB will take new steps (including cutting its deposit rate to -0.1 percent) in an attempt to deal with (or, one might argue, in an attempt to appear to deal with) the fact that inflation in the eurozone is too low, according to the [...] -
Blog
The Supposed Decade of Flat Wages Was Worse Than We Thought
It’s well known that the wages of US workers have become disconnected from productivity growth, with real wages growing much more slowly than advances in productivity over the last several decades. This is a key part of the story of widening income inequality. But these observed trends actually understate the degree to which working people have been [...] -
Blog
McCulley on Fed Policy, Inflation, and the Taylor Rule
Paul McCulley, a familiar face at Levy Institute events (he gave a keynote at our Rio conference and at last year’s Minsky Summer Seminar), is back at PIMCO and his first note is (predictably) worth a read. His latest essay looks at Federal Reserve policy from the standpoint of what McCulley terms the Fed’s “secular [...] -
Blog
Are German Savers Being Expropriated?
Last week the ECB’s governing council agreed on interest rate cuts and some fresh liquidity measures. The policy move has sparked off quite some excitement in all kinds of corners. Certainly financial markets highly welcomed the ECB’s much-awaited new easing initiative, with stock indices surging and bond yields plunging to record levels. International commentators generally [...]