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BlogThe Paradox of Euro Survival and Other Lessons from the Crisis
August 21, 2012 Since eurozone governments don’t issue the currency in which their debts are denominated and can’t borrow euros directly from the European Central Bank, member-states essentially have to run budget surpluses—generating euros by taxing the private sector—if they’re going to reliably meet their debt servicing costs, according to Jan Kregel, and they have to run even [...] Blog -
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Why Time Poverty Matters
August 20, 2012 (Updated) by Rania Antonopoulos and Michael Stephens Poverty is often measured by the ability to gain access to some level of minimum income, based on the premise that such access ensures the fulfillment of basic material needs. But this approach neglects to take into account the necessary (unpaid) household production requirements without which basic needs [...] Blog -
Research Project ReportWhy Time Deficits Matter
August 16, 2012 Customarily, income poverty incidence is judged by the ability of individuals and households to gain access to some level of minimum income based on the premise that such access ensures...more Publication -
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A Cautionary Note about Stagflation in the 1970s
August 15, 2012 For those who worry that elevated federal deficits and quantitative easing (QE) by the Fed will lead to high inflation, a word about the macroeconomics of the 1970s. The topic came up in the news recently with the passing of economist and former presidential adviser Paul McCracken. In keeping with many orthodox accounts of the [...] Blog -
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Wray on Monetary Policy and Financialization
August 14, 2012 Randall Wray joined Suzi Weissman for radio KPFK’s Beneath the Surface to discuss monetary policy, financial fraud, and a number of other issues. The interview kicked off with Wray explaining his skepticism of the effectiveness of monetary policy, and in particular of quantitative easing, under current conditions, touching also on the question of why this [...] Blog -
Policy Note No. 10Έξι μαθήματα από την ευρω-κρίση
August 14, 2012 Κάθε κρίση αποκαλύπτει απροσδόκητες συνέπειες των οικονομικών πολιτικών. Η τρέχουσα κρίση του ευρώ δεν θα μπορούσε να αποτελεί εξαίρεση. Καθώς οι κυβερνήσεις της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης αναζητούν μια λύση, υπάρχουν ήδη...more Publication -
Policy Note No. 10
Six Lessons from the Euro Crisis
August 14, 2012 Every crisis reveals unexpected consequences of economic policies. The current euro crisis should be no exception. As European Union governments search for a solution, there are already a number of...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 729Η θεσμική προσέγγιση του Veblen προς τη θεωρία της γαιοπροσόδου
August 08, 2012 Ως κληρονόμοι της κλασικής πολιτικής οικονομίας και της γερμανικής ιστορικής σχολής, οι αμερικανοί θεσμιστές διατήρησαν τη θεωρία της γαιοπροσόδου και την ιδέα του μη δεδουλευμένου εισοδήματος. Ο Thorstain Veblen, περισσότερο...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 729
Veblen’s Institutionalist Elaboration of Rent Theory
August 08, 2012 As the heirs to classical political economy and the German historical school, the American institutionalists retained rent theory and its corollary idea of unearned income. More than any other institutionalist,...more Publication -
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Which LIBOR Scandal?
August 06, 2012 In his recent commentary on the LIBOR scandal, Jan Kregel elaborates on a distinction that is crucial to understanding this story. The scandal centers around revelations that financial institutions had been manipulating their LIBOR rate submissions to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). Questions have subsequently been raised as to whether regulators were aware of and [...] Blog -
Policy Note No. 9
Το σκάνδαλο LIBOR
August 03, 2012 Με τη διάδοση των πορισμάτων των διαφόρων επίσημων εκθέσεων, έγινε όλο και περισσότερο προφανές ότι στη δόλια χειραγώγηση του LIBOR συμμετείχαν τα περισσότερα χρηματοπιστωτικά ιδρύματα κα πως οι διοικήσεις των...more Publication -
Policy Note No. 9
The LIBOR Scandal
August 03, 2012 As the results of the various official investigations spread, it becomes more and more apparent that a large majority of financial institutions engaged in fraudulent manipulation of the benchmark London...more Publication -
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Some New GDP Numbers–And 3 Trendlines
July 27, 2012 We end the week with news of only modest economic growth, but also with a set of revised data that does not seriously worsen the economic outlook. Today the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced the release of an advanced estimate of 2nd quarter GDP, as well as revised data for 2009Q1 through 2012Q1. Their press [...] Blog -
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Beyond “Fixing” the “Fiscal Cliff”
July 26, 2012 The cliff approaches, and politicians and pundits in Washington are pondering how to deal with it. For those who have forgotten, recent nontechnical summaries of the legislative issues and amounts of money at stake can be found here , here, and in this old post. But essentially, the term “fiscal cliff” refers to a massive [...] Blog -
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What Matters Is What We Do Next
July 25, 2012 Martin Essex of the Wall Street Journal flags Dimitri Papadimitriou and Randall Wray’s recent Policy Note on the eurozone, “Euroland’s Original Sin.” The Note traces the root cause of the eurozone’s struggles, including the solvency issues and bank runs in the periphery, to a fundamental design flaw in its setup: national governments gave up currency [...] Blog -
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Dodd-Frank: Fossil of the Future?
July 23, 2012 There’s a sad truth about the fate of financial regulation: It’s almost certain to be outmoded by the time it’s introduced. This was as true of Glass-Steagall in 1933 as it is of Dodd-Frank today. This month we begin the third year since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act passed, with the struggle over its [...] Blog -
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Can We Afford the Usual?
July 19, 2012 With yesterday’s quarterly BLS data release on “usual weekly earnings” out, I have once again constructed some “alternative” measures of real wages, based on price indexes for food commodities at the wholesale level. The commodity-based indexes are depicted in the figure above with lines in various colors. Compared to the more typical measure of real, [...] Blog -
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What to Say About the Low Yields?
July 18, 2012 Correlation is not causation, of course, but I’m beginning to suspect that there might be some operational relationship between the frequency with which you hear people complaining about the crippling burden of government debt, and a fall in the cost of government borrowing. Last week the Financial Times reported that investors had accepted “the lowest [...] Blog -
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A Debt Jubilee via Eminent Domain?
July 16, 2012 Local government officials in San Bernardino county have apparently heard enough about how the overhang of mortgage debt is holding back the recovery, and they’re considering taking matters into their own hands. Reuters‘ Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan report on the background discussions leading up to a proposal that is being considered by officials in [...] Blog -
Working Paper No. 728
Η κατανόηση των κρίσεων στη Λατινική Αμερική
July 13, 2012 Η συμβατική σοφία σχετικά με τους επιχειρηματικούς κύκλους στη Λατινική Αμερική υποθέτει ότι οι νομισματικοί κλυδωνισμοί προκαλούν αποκλίσεις από τη βέλτιστη πορεία και ότι ο παράγοντας ενεργοποίησης του κύκλου είναι...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 728
Toward an Understanding of Crises Episodes in Latin America
July 13, 2012 Conventional wisdom about the business cycle in Latin America assumes that monetary shocks cause deviations from the optimal path, and that the triggering factor in the cycle is excess credit...more Publication -
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A Keynes-Schumpeter-Minsky Synthesis
July 12, 2012 From the announcement of a new joint research project by Mariana Mazzucato and the Levy Institute’s Randall Wray (“Financing Innovation: an Application of a Keynes-Schumpeter-Minsky Synthesis”): The purpose of this project is to integrate two research paradigms that have strong policy relevance in understanding the degree to which financial markets can be reformed in order [...] Blog -
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The Original Sin
July 11, 2012 When the European Monetary Union was set up, member-states adopted what was essentially a foreign currency (the euro) but were left in charge of their own fiscal policy. Dimitri Papadimitriou and Randall Wray explain in a new Policy Note (“Euroland’s Original Sin“) why this basic structural defect was always bound to tear the eurozone apart. [...] Blog -
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More on Austerity: Fiscal Threats to the Food Safety Net
July 10, 2012 As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has reported in several recent postings, cuts to SNAP—formerly known as the food stamp program—now being considered in Washington would impose severe hardship on millions of people who use SNAP benefits to buy groceries in retail stores. For example, the Center released a report a few [...] Blog