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Blog22nd Annual Minsky Conference: Building a Financial Structure for a More Stable and Equitable Economy
February 06, 2013 A conference organized by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College with support from the Ford Foundation. April 17–19, 2013 Ford Foundation 320 East 43 Street, New York City In 2008–09, the world experienced its worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. Global employment and output collapsed, and an estimated 84 million people [...] Blog -
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An Unconventional Central Banker
February 05, 2013 Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis and recession, we’ve seen some renewed interest (and angst) regarding the role of the central bank and of treasury-central bank cooperation. (The most recent example comes out of Japan, in which Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has been pushing for the Bank of Japan to accommodate his relatively [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 751Arresting Financial Crises
February 04, 2013 Nineteenth-century British economists Henry Thornton and Walter Bagehot established the classical rules of behavior for a central bank, acting as lender of last resort, seeking to avert panics and crises:...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 750
Endogenous Bank Credit and Its Link to Housing in OECD Countries
January 31, 2013 The relevant economic literature frequently focuses on the impact of credit shocks on housing prices. The doctrine of the “New Consensus Macroeconomics” completely ignores bank credit. The “Great Recession,” however,...more Publication -
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An Evening with Syriza
January 30, 2013 Below is the video from the first part of last week’s event at Columbia University that featured key leadership figures from the official Greek opposition party (SYRIZA). (3:29) Alexis Tsipras, Leader of the Opposition in Greek Parliament, Leader of SYRIZA, and President of Synaspismós. (46:40) Panel discussion, featuring Rena Dourou, Member of Greek Parliament (SYRIZA); [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 749
Weak Expansions
January 30, 2013 Using two standard cycle methodologies (classical and deviation cycle) and a comprehensive sample of 83 countries worldwide, including all developing regions, we show that the Latin American and Caribbean cycle...more Publication -
One-Pager No. 37Lessons from an Unconventional Central Banker
January 30, 2013 The global financial crisis has generated renewed interest in the 1951 Treasury – Federal Reserve Accord and its lessons for central bank independence. A broader interpretation of the Accord and...more Publication -
One-Pager No. 37
Διδάγματα από έναν μη συμβατικό κεντρικό τραπεζίτη
January 30, 2013 Η παγκόσμια χρηματοοικονομική κρίση έχει προκαλέσει ανανεωμένο ενδιαφέρον στη Συμφωνία Υπουργείου Οικονομικών-Ομοσπονδιακής Τράπεζας του 1951 και στα διδάγματα αυτής της διαπραγμάτευσης για την ανεξαρτησία της κεντρικής τράπεζας. Μια ευρύτερη ερμηνεία...more Publication -
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MMT and the Sustainability of Sovereign Deficits and Debt
January 25, 2013 [This is the fourth part of a series (1, 2, 3) on sovereign deficits and debt. The series was started in response to Ed Dolan’s original post detailing agreements and possible disagreements with the MMT approach.] To recap very quickly, we agreed that sovereign government cannot become “insolvent” and forced to involuntarily default on commitments [...] Blog -
Blog
Are Currency Warriors’ Gloves Coming Off?
January 24, 2013 There is much hype about “currency wars” in the international media this week, reaching the heights of the Davos gathering. The excitement seems to have been started by Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, who earlier this week aired his concerns about an apparent politicization of exchange rates owing to an erosion of central bank independence and [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 748
Analyzing Public Expenditure Benefit Incidence in Health Care
January 17, 2013 The effectiveness of public spending remains a relatively elusive empirical issue. This preliminary analysis is an attempt, using benefit incidence methodology, to define the effectiveness of spending at the subnational...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 747
Marriner S. Eccles and the 1951 Treasury – Federal Reserve Accord
January 17, 2013 The 1951 Treasury – Federal Reserve Accord is an important milestone in central bank history. It led to a lasting separation between monetary policy and the Treasury’s debt-management powers, and...more Publication -
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Fed’s Crisis Transcripts to Be Released
January 17, 2013 Update: the transcripts were released this morning (Jan. 18) and are available here. Any day now, the transcripts from the 2007 Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meetings will be released to the public (FOMC transcripts are withheld for five years). These transcripts should give us some additional insight into the discussions that were occurring around [...] Blog -
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On Net-exports Life Support: Germany Is Back at It, and Now Euroland Is Too
January 16, 2013 Germany’s Federal Statistical Office released its first estimate of German GDP in 2012 at a press conference held in Wiesbaden yesterday: “German economy withstands the European economic crisis in 2012.” Reporting that growth slowed markedly in Germany last year, down to only 0.7 percent from 3 percent in 2011 and 4.2 percent in 2010, the [...] Blog -
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A Special Event with SYRIZA
January 15, 2013 Next week, January 24th, the Modern Money and Public Purpose seminar at Columbia University will feature a special session with top leadership from the Greek opposition party, SYRIZA, including leader of the opposition Alexis Tsipras and economy critic George Stathakis (who gave an entertaining talk at the November Minsky conference in Berlin—see Session 3 for audio). This special event [...] Blog -
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Asking the Right Questions about Government Budgets
January 15, 2013 Below is the video from the latest session of the Modern Money and Public Purpose seminar at Columbia University, featuring Jan Kregel and Forbes‘ John Harvey. The session touched on the sustainability of fiscal and trade deficits, why economists need to study accounting, the risks of paying down the government debt, the real meaning of [...] Blog -
One-Pager No. 36
Expansion of Federal Reserve Authority in the Recent Financial Crisis Raises Questions about Governance
January 11, 2013 Several years before the onset of the recent financial crisis, ex – Federal Reserve Board Member Lawrence Meyer wrote that the Fed “is often called the most powerful institution in...more Publication -
One-Pager No. 36
Η επέκταση της εξουσίας του Ομοσπονδιακού Αποθεματικού στην πρόσφατη χρηματοοικονομική κρίση εγείρει ερωτήματα διακυβέρνησης
January 11, 2013 Αρκετά χρόνια πριν από το ξέσπασμα της πρόσφατης χρηματοοικονομικής κρίσης, ο Lawrence Meyer, πρώην διοικητικό μέλος του Ομοσπονδιακού Αποθεματικού, έγραψε ότι η Ομοσπονδιακή Τράπεζα «αναφέρεται συχνά ως ο ισχυρότερος θεσμός...more Publication -
Blog
Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coins, Treasury Warrants, and the Fundamental “Unseriousness” of Money
January 11, 2013 So far, a large part of the discussion of whether the Treasury should mint (or convincingly threaten to mint) a trillion-dollar platinum coin in response to the congressional threat to refuse to raise the debt limit (see here for background) hovers around questions of legality or ill-defined “seriousness.” (On the political front, the administration’s press [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 746
Ο χρηματιστικός καπιταλισμός και η αναδιανομή του εισοδήματος
January 09, 2013 Το κείμενο εξετάζει έναν σημαντικό δίαυλο μέσω του οποίου η χρηματιστικοποίηση ή ο χρηματιστικός καπιταλισμός επηρεάζει τις μακροοικονομικές επιδόσεις: το κανάλι διανομής. Παρέχονται εμπειρικά στοιχεία για 15 ανεπτυγμένες οικονομίες, που...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 746
Finance-dominated Capitalism and Redistribution of Income
January 09, 2013 This paper examines a major channel through which financialization or finance-dominated capitalism affects macroeconomic performance: the distribution channel. Empirical data for the following dimensions of redistribution in the period of...more Publication -
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The Debt Limit and the Next Financial Crisis
January 08, 2013 In the latest phase of our endless budget brinksmanship, congressional Republicans will attempt to extract policy concessions in return for raising the debt limit (Republicans are not only demanding cuts to Social Security and Medicare—they are brazenly demanding that Democrats propose, and therefore own, these unpopular cuts). The administration and key allies are claiming they [...] Blog -
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Greece’s Austerity Trap
January 04, 2013 Olivier Blanchard (the IMF’s chief economist) and Daniel Leigh tell us in their new working paper that IMF forecasters “significantly underestimated” how much damage austerity would inflict on employment and growth in Europe. The authors are careful to insist that their results do not imply that austerity should be abandoned: “The short-term effects of fiscal [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 745
Stock-flow Consistent Modeling through the Ages
January 03, 2013 The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the current stock-flow consistent (SFC) literature. Indeed, we feel the SFC approach has recently led to a blossoming literature,...more Publication