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“Why we should stop worrying and learn to love the national debt,” Wray and Nersisyan for The Hill
“Moody’s recent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating has put the national debt in the spotlight once again. Recent increases in Treasury bond yields and the passage of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is likely to further increase the debt, have added to worries about the country’s fiscal position. Former President Barack Obama’s budget […] -
Working Paper No. 1084MMT: Heuristics versus Paradigm Shift?
This is a revised version of the keynote address presented at the FDR library for the Levy Institute Summer Seminar on Money, Finance, and Public Policy on June 20th, 2025. -
Levy Institute Takes Center Stage at an ILO Conference
The Levy Institute was pleased to co-sponsor multiple sessions at the International Labour Organization’s conference, Regulating for Decent Work on July 4th, 2025. We organized a special session on Designing Effective Job Guarantee Programs and Measurement Approaches to Growth and Development, featuring insights from global experts. Research Associate Agustin Mario participated at the closing plenary, Rethinking our Economic […] -
BlogProtecting Social Security: The Case Against Privatization
Attempts to undermine Social Security have been ongoing since its enactment in 1935. As the Social Security Administration projects trust fund insolvency by 2033 and Congress looks for deep spending cuts, the pressure is mounting for Social Security benefit cutbacks, despite promises from President Trump and House Speaker Johnson not to reduce benefits. While extending [...] -
Working Paper No. 1083
Integrating the Social Reproduction of Labor into Macroeconomic Theory: Unpaid Caregiving and Productivity in Paid Production
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the integration of unpaid caregiving in the household into short- and long-term macroeconomic theory and, in particular, the theoretical structure of production on the supply side of the economy. The ambition of the project is to furnish a general theoretical representation of how unpaid caregiving and […] -
BlogConfronting Financial Fragility, Worker Crisis, and Global Turmoil
On June 16, 2025, I will welcome colleagues and friends to the 32nd Annual Conference of the Levy Economics Institute—our first in-person gathering since the pandemic, convening at a moment of extraordinary economic upheaval. The challenges before us are among the most consequential in a century: a global trade order in disarray, deepening economic insecurity [...] -
Understanding Modern Money Theory by L. Randall Wray Out Now
In this illuminating book, Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray emphasizes the critical role played by both credit and state money in capitalism and explores the origins and evolution of the modern monetary system. Integrating and updating the influential theories presented in Wray’s previous books, Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies and Understanding Modern Money, this […] -
Policy NotesRatings Agencies Downgrade the Dollar’s Exorbitant Privilege
They are at it again. Moody’s has finally joined the other two ratings agencies in downgrading US government debt. Standard & Poor’s downgrade was first in 2011[1], while Fitch waited until 2023. Now they unanimously give US budgeting a vote of no confidence.[2] They’re sending the message that America must get its fiscal house in […] -
Research Project ReportInvesting in Early Childhood Education and Care Services in Jordan
Written in October 2022, through a collaboration between Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and the Levy Economics Institute in New York by Ipek Ilkkaracan (ITU), Ayse Aylin Bayar (ITU), Luiza Nassif Pires (Levy), Tom Masterson (Levy), and Ajit Zacharias (Levy). We are grateful to Hazar Asfoura from UN Women Jordan for her careful readings of various […] -
Policy NotesWhat Do We Save When We DOGE the Government?
The second Trump administration has seemingly added a new term to the English vocabulary – getting DOGE-ed. Almost every week we hear about another government agency getting the DOGE treatment, i.e., firing personnel, closing down offices, etc. The Department of Government Efficiency is supposedly making our government more efficient and hence saving the taxpayers some […] -
Working Paper No. 1082
Growth vs. Discipline: Italy’s Fiscal Dilemmas in a Stock-Flow Consistent Model
This paper investigates the implications of the European Union’s revised fiscal governance framework for Italy, a country facing the dual challenge of high public debt and persistent economic stagnation. Using a Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) macroeconometric model of the Italian economy (MITA), we assess the medium-term macroeconomic implications of the government Medium-term Fiscal-Structural Plan, and whether […] -
BlogTribute to Edwin Le Héron
Our eminent French economist colleague, Edwin Le Héron, passed away on 23 April 2025 in Bordeaux. A professor at Sciences Po Bordeaux since 1987, he was the founder and long-standing president of the Association pour le Développement des Études Keynésiennes (ADEK), established in 2000. ADEK has brought together French-speaking post-keynesian economists and organized major international [...]