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Working Paper No. 727Simulations of Full-Time Employment and Household Work in the Levy Institute Measure of Time and Income Poverty (LIMTIP) for Argentina, Chile, and Mexico
July 05, 2012 The method for simulation of labor market participation used in the LIMTIP models for Argentina, Chile, and Mexico is described. In each case, all eligible adults not working full-time were...more Publication -
BlogDefense Department Minskyites
July 02, 2012 A few months ago we wondered why it was that business groups hadn’t been pushing harder for more stimulus. My proposed (unoriginal) explanation had to do with inequality and decoupling; Paul Krugman suggested social pressures might also play a part. But as it turns out, there’s another answer: they are pushing! The National Association of [...] Blog -
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Greenspan and Godley
June 26, 2012 Alan Greenspan is apparently writing a book to determine why economic models (all of them, he says) failed to sniff out the financial crisis and ensuing recession. “While the models themselves capture the nonfinancial part of the economy rather well,” says Greenspan, “they’ve been wholly inadequate in understanding how the complex financial system works, both [...] Blog -
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Next Up for the Broccoli Brigades: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
June 25, 2012 Brad Plumer reports that a Texas-based bank and a pair of conservative advocacy groups have filed suit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, claiming that the agency is unconstitutional (the agency was created by the Dodd-Frank Act and was a longtime cause of senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren, who had a hand in setting it up). [...] Blog -
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So What Exactly Was Robinson’s “Cheap Money Policy”?
June 21, 2012 In my last post, I quoted Joan Robinson, the renowned Cambridge University economist, on the determinants of long-term interest rates. The mention of Robinson was made in the context of a comment on the Fed open market committee meeting earlier this week and Chairman Ben Bernanke’s press conference on Wednesday. For those who might be [...] Blog -
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A Continuation of the Fed’s “Cheap Money Policy”?
June 20, 2012 As I write, markets are wondering what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will say about interest rates in a press conference taking place this afternoon. Many economists, including some on the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee, are arguing that the Chairman is courting inflation with his policies of keeping interest rates low. He has been using three [...] Blog -
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What Would a Grexit Look Like?
June 19, 2012 Slate‘s Matt Yglesias nicely captures the gap between the reactions of opinion-makers to the Greek election results and the reactions of markets (Sunday’s electoral results point to a coalition government centered around New Democracy and Pasok): “Markets were supposed to be reassured. Instead they’re freaking out. European stock markets are declining, and Spanish bond yields [...] Blog -
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What This Election Isn’t About
June 18, 2012 This received little attention, but President Obama recently sat down for an interview with Mark Halperin of Time magazine. The interview didn’t generate anything you might call “newsworthy,” littered as it was with tired exchanges like this one: Q: “Why not in the first year, if you’re [re-]elected — why not in 2013, go all [...] Blog -
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Some Views on the “Cliff”
June 15, 2012 On the topic of public policy, this Works Progress Administration (WPA) poster from the 1930s seems particularly relevant this year. You may have heard of the “fiscal cliff” that the federal budget will fall off in January, under existing law. It will be quite a fiscal contraction, if it happens as scheduled: about 4 percent [...] Blog -
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Austerity Wars: A New (False) Hope
June 14, 2012 The intensity of the debate over whether the Baltic economies (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) should serve as models for the rest of the eurozone periphery has been raised a couple notches. Last week, Paul Krugman noted that the Estonian recovery, while positive, has not been as remarkable as austerity supporters tend to imply. This prompted [...] Blog -
One-Pager No. 32Η λιτότητα στις χώρες της Βαλτικής—η νέα απατηλή ελπίδα
June 14, 2012 Η Ιρλανδία αποτελούσε κάποτε παράδειγμα επιτυχίας των μέτρων δημοσιονομικής λιτότητας, αλλά οι απογοητευτικές οικονομικές επιδόσεις της χώρας το τελευταίο διάστημα έχουν αναγκάσει τους απολογητές της λιτότητας να αναζητούν νέο μοντέλο,...more Publication -
One-Pager No. 32
Baltic Austerity—the New False Hope
June 14, 2012 Ireland was at one time the poster child for fiscal austerity, but that country’s disappointing economic performance of late has left austerity apologists searching for a new model—and the Baltic...more Publication -
Working Paper No. 726
Time Use of Mothers and Fathers in Hard Times
June 11, 2012 The recession precipitated by the US financial crisis of 2007 accelerated the convergence of women’s and men’s employment rates, as men experienced disproportionate job losses and women’s entry into the...more Publication -
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Help Is Not on the Way
June 11, 2012 An update on the distressing state of fiscal and monetary policy in the United States and Europe: Chairman of the Federal Reserve to Congress: “I’d be much more comfortable, in fact, if Congress would take some of this burden from us ….” Congress to Bernanke: No thanks. And while we’re on the subject, we would [...] Blog -
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Lessons of the JPMorgan Chase Affair: What Is All This Risk For?
June 08, 2012 After the news broke of his firm’s (now $3 billion) loss on a hedge gone awry, Jamie Dimon quipped: “just because we’re stupid doesn’t mean everybody else was.” Stupidity, however, is beside the point. Jan Kregel has pointed out how a lot of the discussion surrounding this episode is designed to give the impression that [...] Blog -
Policy Note No. 6The Wrong Risks
June 07, 2012 What can we learn from JPMorgan Chase’s recent self-proclaimed “stupidity” in attempting to hedge the bank’s global risk position? Clearly, the description of the bank’s trading as “sloppy” and reflecting...more Publication -
Policy Note No. 6
Οι λάθος κίνδυνοι
June 07, 2012 Τι μπορούμε να διδαχθούμε από την πρόσφατη αυτοαποκαλούμενη «ηλιθιότητα» της JPMorgan Chase στην προσπάθεια αντιστάθμισης κινδύνου της παγκόσμιας θέσης της τράπεζας; Σαφώς, η περιγραφή των συναλλαγών της τράπεζας ως «τσαπατσούλικες»...more Publication -
Policy Note No. 5
Austerity that Never Was?
June 07, 2012 The commonly cited example of the successful application of “internal” devaluation as a strategy for economic recovery is that of the Baltic economies. In this Policy Note, we discuss whether...more Publication -
Policy Note No. 5
Η λιτότητα που δεν υπήρξε ποτέ;
June 07, 2012 Οι οικονομίες της Βαλτικής παρουσιάζονται συχνά ως παράδειγμα ενός επιτυχημένου προγράμματος λιτότητας, με την εφαρμογή της «εσωτερικής» υποτίμησης ως στρατηγική για οικονομική ανάκαμψη. Σε αυτό το Σημείωμα Πολιτικής εξετάζουμε αν...more Publication -
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Try Out a New Macro Model and a New Technology
May 30, 2012 You wonder what will happen when markets finally start working. How about, for example, a market that changes prices and wages quickly in response to fluctuations in demand? In a mixed economy with a government that tries to provide fiscal stimulus as needed, will it be of help to move toward such fast-adjusting markets? The [...] Blog -
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The Wrong Narratives
May 30, 2012 News sections are littered with shortcuts for explaining what’s going on in the eurozone, often featuring easy, morally sodden narratives. But the real problem here is not that narratives and other shortcuts are being employed—after all, sometimes the data need a little help. The real problem is that they’re using the wrong narratives. We’re told [...] Blog -
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No More Fiscal Policy Bank Shots
May 25, 2012 A little while back the Wall Street Journal observed that if there were as many people employed by government today as there were in the last month of George W. Bush’s tenure, the unemployment rate would be around 7.1 percent. Job creation policy, in other words, can sometimes be quite simple. Step One: stop firing [...] Blog -
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Public Citizen on the Repo Ruse
May 24, 2012 Whether or not you already know what a “repo” is, Public Citizen’s new report on repurchase agreements, which played a part in the recent financial crisis (as well as the collapse of MF Global), is well worth reading. Here’s their introduction: In the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, banks depended increasingly on an unreliable [...] Blog -
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How’s That “Make People Poorer” Strategy Working Out?
May 24, 2012 There is no shortage of viable economic solutions for the eurozone. But as Martin Wolf points out in his FT column, once you strike all of the solutions that have been declared politically unacceptable (eurobonds, a stronger EU-level fiscal authority), there aren’t too many policy levers left to pull. One possibility Wolf mentions is to [...] Blog