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Working Paper No. 1052

Exchange-Rate Stability Causes Deterioration of the Productive Sphere and Destabilizes Developing Economies

For Matías Vernengo and Esteban Pérez Caldentey (2020), the MMT literature overemphasizes the choice of the exchange rate regime and the relevance of a flexible exchange rate regime, as well as the ultimate effect of that choice upon the policy space. In addition, they argue that the role of capital flows is underexplored, and that […]

Strategic Analysis

U.S. Economic Outlook: Prospects for 2024 and Beyond

In this report, Institute President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Research Scholar Giuliano T. Yajima, and Senior Scholar Gennaro Zezza discuss the rapid recovery of the US economy in the post-pandemic period. They find that robust consumption and investment and a relaxation of fiscal policy were the key drivers of accelerated GDP growth—however, the signs that the […]

Working Paper No. 1051

Euro Interest Rate Swap Yields: Some ARDL Models

This paper examines the dynamics of euro-denominated (EUR) long-term interest rate swap yields. It shows that the short-term interest rate has an economically and statistically significant effect on EUR swap yields of different maturity tenors, after controlling for various key macroeconomic variables. It presents several autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) models of the dynamics of EUR […]

One-Pager No. 72

If Government Can Print Money, Why Does It Borrow?

Recently, the neglected question of why the US government borrows, given that it can print money, has arisen in the context of discussions surrounding a new documentary, Finding the Money. As L. Randall Wray observes in this one-pager, Modern Money Theory has been providing answers to this question for some time; and, he argues, it is a topic that mainstream economists are ill-equipped to address, since very few concern themselves with the monetary operations that underlie the question of why a currency-issuing government issues debt.

Working Paper No. 1050

Macroeconomic Effects of a Government Overdraft on Its Central Bank Account

The Guyana government, from 2015 to 2021, accumulated a large overdraft on its central bank account. It owed this overdraft to a binding debt ceiling limit and fractious political environment that prevented an increase in the ceiling, allowing for the auctioning of Treasury bills to create the liquidity reflux necessary to refill the account. This […]

Working Paper No. 1049

Deindustrialization from the Center Perspective: US Trade and Manufacturing in the Last Two Decades

We argue that the US trade and industry sector has experienced several unsustainable sectoral processes, including (i) a fall in the trade balance in machinery and equipment and high-tech (HT) industries, (ii) a rise in import multipliers in machinery and equipment and HT industries, (iii) a fall in the manufacturing share of GDP in machinery […]

Working Paper No. 1048

An Empirical Analysis of Swedish Government Bond Yields

This paper econometrically models the dynamics of Swedish government bond (SGB) yields. It examines whether the short-term interest rate has a decisive influence on long-term SGB yields, after controlling for other macroeconomic and financial variables, such as consumer price inflation, the growth of industrial production, the stock price index, the exchange rate of the Swedish […]

Galbraith for INET: “Industrial Policy Is a Good Idea, but So Far We Don’t Have One”

In a remarkable and comprehensive book, forthcoming from Cambridge, Marc Fasteau and Ian Fletcher provide a theoretical, historical, and up-to-date review of industrial policies, in the United States and elsewhere, as well as a decent summary of the main Biden initiatives.

Working Paper No. 1047

“Just Transition” in India and Fiscal Stance: Analyzing the Tax Buoyancy of the Extractive Sector

Against the backdrop of fiscal transition concomitant to energy transition policies with climate change commitments, revenue from the extractive sector needs a recalibration in the subnational fiscal space. Extractive tax is the payment due to the government in exchange for the right to extract the mineral substance. Extractive tax has been fixed and paid in […]

High school students across the US have been studying and citing the work of Research Scholar Pavlina Tcherneva to argue affirmatively for the job guarantee in preparation for the ’24 national debate tournaments.

Thousands of high school students across the United States have been studying the work of Bard Professor of Economics and Research Scholar of the Levy Economics Institute Pavlina Tcherneva in preparation for their national debate tournaments.

Press Release

Contracted by BLS: Levy Releases Report on Integrating Household Production into Consumption Data

The Levy Economics Institute’s research project develops an empirical methodology and identifies data sources to extend the consumer expenditure data collected by BLS by incorporating household production (nonmarket and nongovernmental services such as do-it-yourself home repairs and childcare).

Research Project Report

Integrating Nonmarket Consumption into the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey

In spring 2021, under the direction and encouragement of Commissioner William Beach, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) kicked off a major initiative—to produce a measure of consumption to supplement the release of consumer expenditures. The production of such a measure would fill a data gap regarding household economic well-being. For years BLS staff, […]