19th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the US and World Economies
After the Crisis—Planning a New Financial Structure
A conference organized by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College with support from the Ford foundation
From his extensive research, Hyman Minsky was convinced that economic systems are prone to financial instability and crisis, and urged that lessons be learned from the crisis of 1929–1933 so that “it”—the Great Depression—could not happen again. This year’s conference drew upon many Minskyan themes, including reconstituting the financial structure; the reregulation and supervision of financial institutions; the relevance of the Glass-Steagall Act; the roles of the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and the Treasury; the moral hazard of the “too big to fail” doctrine; debt deflation; and the economics of the “big bank” and “big government.” Speakers compared the European and Latin American responses to the global financial crisis and proposals for reforming the international financial architecture. Moreover, central bank exit strategies, both national and international, were considered.