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1681 publications found
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Working Paper No. 586
February 18, 2010
Is This the Minsky Moment for Reform of Financial Regulation?
AbstractThe current financial crisis has been characterized as a “Minsky” moment, and as such provides the conditions required for a reregulation of the financial system similar to that of the New Deal banking reforms of the 1930s. However, Minsky’s theory was not one that dealt in moments but rather in systemic, structural changes in the […]
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Working Paper No. 585
February 12, 2010
Is Reregulation of the Financial System an Oxymoron?
AbstractThe extension of the subprime mortgage crisis to a global financial meltdown led to calls for fundamental reregulation of the United States financial system. However, that reregulation has been slow in implementation and the proposals under discussion are far from fundamental. One explanation for this delay is the fact that many of the difficulties stemmed […]
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Working Paper No. 584
February 03, 2010
The Global Crisis and the Future of the Dollar: Toward Bretton Woods III?
AbstractThis paper investigates the United States dollar’s role as the international currency of choice as a key contributing factor in critical global developments that led to the crisis of 2007–09, and considers the future role of the dollar as the global economy emerges from that crisis. It is argued that the dollar is likely to […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 108
February 01, 2010
Why President Obama Should Care About “Care”: An Effective and Equitable Investment Strategy for Job Creation
AbstractIn his State of the Union address President Obama acknowledged that “our most urgent task is job creation”—that a move toward full employment will lay the foundation for long-term economic growth and ensure that the federal government creates the necessary conditions for businesses to expand and hire more workers. According to a new study by […]
Download Public Policy Brief No. 108, 2010 PDF (647.98 KB) -
Public Policy Brief No. 107
January 22, 2010
No Going Back: Why We Cannot Restore Glass-Steagall’s Segregation of Banking and Finance
AbstractThe purpose of the 1933 Banking Act—aka Glass-Steagall—was to prevent the exposure of commercial banks to the risks of investment banking and to ensure stability of the financial system. A proposed solution to the current financial crisis is to return to the basic tenets of this New Deal legislation. Senior Scholar Jan Kregel provides an […]
Download Public Policy Brief No. 107, 2010 PDF (215.03 KB) -
Book Series
January 05, 2010
Unpaid Work and the Economy
AbstractThis volume offers both theoretical and policy-oriented examinations of the value of unpaid work, usually unacknowledged but increasingly recognized as an organic component of the economy. Particularly in developing countries, much of the provisioning of basic needs occurs beyond the boundaries of market transactions. This book reveals a need to incorporate unpaid work in economic […]
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Policy Notes No. 11
December 22, 2009
Observations on the Problem of “Too Big to Fail/Save/Resolve”
AbstractPast experience suggests that multifunctional banking is the leading source of financial crisis, while large bank size contributes to contagion and systemic risk. This indicates that resolving large banks will not solve the problems associated with multifunctional banking—a conclusion reached after every financial crisis, and one that should apply to the present crisis as well. […]
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Strategic Analysis
December 03, 2009
Sustaining Recovery: Medium-term Prospects and Policies for the US Economy
AbstractThough recent market activity and housing reports give some warrant for optimism, United States economic growth was only 2.8 percent in the third quarter, and the unemployment rate is still very high. In their new Strategic Analysis, the Levy Institute’s Macro-Modeling Team project that high unemployment will continue to be a problem if fiscal stimulus […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 106
November 17, 2009
Can Euroland Survive?
AbstractSocial unrest across Europe is growing as Euroland’s economy collapses faster than the United States’, the result of falling exports and a weaker fiscal response. The controversial title of this brief is based on a belief that the nature of the euro itself limits Euroland’s fiscal policy space. The nations that have adopted the euro […]
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Research Project Report
November 16, 2009
Has Progress Been Made in Alleviating Racial Economic Inequality?
AbstractReports of a postracial society may be premature. Studies continue to show wide racial gaps in income and, especially, wealth; although there is some evidence that income gaps have shrunk over the past half century, wealth inequality is large and persistent. In this report, the authors examine trends in economic well-being between 1959 and 2007 […]
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Working Paper No. 583
November 08, 2009
The Euro and Its Guardian of Stability
AbstractThis paper investigates why Europe fared particularly poorly in the global economic crisis that began in August 2007. It questions the self-portrait of Europe as the victim of external shocks, pushed off track by reckless policies pursued elsewhere. It argues instead that Europe had not only contributed handsomely to the buildup of global imbalances since […]
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Working Paper No. 582
November 04, 2009
Minsky Moments, Russell Chickens, and Gray Swans
AbstractThe recent revival of Hyman P. Minsky’s ideas among policymakers, economists, bankers, financial institutions, and the mass media, synchronized with the increasing gravity of the subprime financial crisis, demands a reappraisal of the meaning and scope of the “financial instability hypothesis” (FIH). We argue that we need a broader approach than that conventionally pursued, in […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 105
October 28, 2009
It Isn’t Working: Time for More Radical Policies
AbstractThe Obama administration has implemented several policies to “jump-start” the American economy—efforts that have largely focused on preserving the financial interests of major banks. The authors of this new policy brief believe that maintaining the status quo is not the solution, since it overlooks the debt problems of households and nonfinancial businesses—and re-creating the financial […]
Download Public Policy Brief No. 105, 2009 PDF (485.78 KB) -
Policy Notes No. 10
October 15, 2009
Fiscal Stimulus, Job Creation, and the Economy
AbstractAs the nation watches the impact of the recent stimulus bill on job creation and economic growth, a group of academics continues to dispute the notion that the fiscal and job creation programs of the New Deal helped end the Depression. The work of these revisionist scholars has led to a public discourse that has […]
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Working Paper No. 581
October 14, 2009
Lessons from the New Deal
AbstractSince the current recession began in December 2007, New Deal legislation and its effectiveness have been at the center of a lively debate in Washington. This paper emphasizes some key facts about two kinds of policy that were important during the Great Depression and have since become the focus of criticism by new New Deal […]
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Working Paper No. 580
October 13, 2009
An Alternative View of Finance, Saving, Deficits, and Liquidity
AbstractThis paper contrasts the orthodox approach with an alternative view on finance, saving, deficits, and liquidity. The conventional view on the cause of the current global financial crisis points first to excessive United States trade deficits that are supposed to have “soaked up” global savings. Worse, this policy was ultimately unsustainable because it was inevitable […]
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Working Paper No. 579
October 12, 2009
A Perspective on Minsky Moments
AbstractThis paper aims to help bridge the gap between theory and fact regarding the so-called “Minsky moments” by revisiting the “financial instability hypothesis” (FIH). We limit the analysis to the core of FIH—that is, to its strictly financial part. Our contribution builds on a reexamination of Minsky’s contributions in light of the subprime financial crisis. […]
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Policy Notes No. 9
October 05, 2009
Banks Running Wild: The Subversion of Insurance by “Life Settlements” and Credit Default Swaps
AbstractOblivious to any lessons that might have been learned from the global financial mess it has created, Wall Street is looking for the next asset bubble. Perhaps in the market for death it has found a replacement for the collapsed markets in subprime mortgage–backed securities and credit default swaps (CDSs). Instead of making bets on […]
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Working Paper No. 578
September 24, 2009
Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis
AbstractThis paper applies Hyman Minsky’s approach to provide an analysis of the causes of the global financial crisis. Rather than finding the origins in recent developments, this paper links the crisis to the long-term transformation of the economy from a robust financial structure in the 1950s to the fragile one that existed at the beginning […]
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Working Paper No. 577
September 21, 2009
Explaining the Gender Wage Gap in Georgia
AbstractThis paper evaluates gender wage differentials in Georgia between 2000 and 2004. Using ordinary least squares, we find that the gender wage gap in Georgia is substantially higher than in other transition countries. Correcting for sample selection bias using the Heckman approach further increases the gender wage gap. The Blinder Oaxaca decomposition results suggest that […]
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Working Paper No. 576
September 09, 2009
A Financial Sector Balance Approach and the Cyclical Dynamics of the US Economy
AbstractThis paper investigates the relationship between asset markets and business cycles with regard to the US economy. We consider the Goldman Sachs approach (2003) developed to study the dynamics of financial balances. By means of a small econometric model we find that asset market dynamics are fundamental to determining the long-run financial sector balance dynamics. […]
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Working Paper No. 575
August 30, 2009
Market Failure and Land Concentration
AbstractUtilizing a 2002 household-level World Bank Survey for rural Turkey, this paper explores the link between concentration of land ownership and rural factor markets. We construct a unique index that measures market malfunctioning based on the neoclassical model linking land and labor endowments through factor markets to household income. We further test whether land ownership […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 104
August 28, 2009
The New New Deal Fracas
AbstractA wave of revisionist work claims that “anticompetitive” New Deal legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) greatly slowed the recovery from the Depression; in this new public policy brief, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen review these claims in light of current […]
Download Public Policy Brief No. 104, 2009 PDF (130.77 KB) -
Public Policy Brief No. 103
August 21, 2009
Financial and Monetary Issues as the Crisis Unfolds
AbstractA group of experts associated with the Economists for Peace and Security and the Initiative for Rethinking the Economy met recently in Paris to discuss financial and monetary issues; their viewpoints, summarized here by Senior Scholar James K. Galbraith, are largely at odds with the global political and economic establishment. Despite noting some success in […]
Download Public Policy Brief No. 103, 2009 PDF (149.60 KB)