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1681 publications found

  • Working Paper No. 466 August 08, 2006

    Net Government Expenditures and the Economic Well-Being of the Elderly in the United States, 1989–2001

    Hyunsub Kum, Edward N. Wolff, and Ajit Zacharias
    Abstract

    We examine the economic well-being of the elderly, using the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW). Compared to the conventional measures of income, the LIMEW is a comprehensive measure that incorporates broader definitions of income from wealth, government expenditures, and taxes. It also includes the value of household production. We find that the elderly […]

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  • Working Paper No. 465 August 04, 2006

    The Local Geographic Origins of Russian-Jewish Immigrants, circa 1900

    Joel Perlmann
    Abstract

    This working paper concerns the local origins of Russian-Jewish immigrants to the United States, circa 1900. New evidence is drawn from a large random sample of Russian-Jewish immigrant arrivals in the United States. It provides information on origins not merely by large regions, or even by the provinces of the Pale of Settlement (where nearly […]

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  • Working Paper No. 464 July 26, 2006

    Differing Prospects for Women and Men

    Lois B. Shaw
    Abstract

    Although elderly men and women share many of the same problems as they age, their lives are likely to follow different courses. Women are more likely than men to live into old old-age and are more likely to spend part of their young old-age caring for husbands or parents. By providing this unpaid care women […]

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  • Working Paper No. 463 July 25, 2006

    Working for a Good Retirement

    Barbara A. Butrica, Karen E. Smith, and C. Eugene Steuerle
    Abstract

    The choice of retirement age is the most important portfolio choice most workers will make. Drawing on the Urban Institute’s Dynamic Simulation of Income model (DYNASIM3), this report examines how delaying retirement for nondisabled workers would affect individual retiree benefits, the solvency of the Social Security trust fund, and general revenues. The results suggest that […]

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  • Working Paper No. 462 July 24, 2006

    Quick Impact Initiatives for Gender Equality

    Caren A. Grown
    Abstract

    The UN Millennium Project identified a set of Quick Impact Initiatives (QIIs) for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to the Millennium Project, QIIs are interventions to be implemented in the early years of an MDG scale-up strategy that generate rapid results. With adequate resources, they can be implemented quickly (e.g., within three years) […]

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  • Working Paper No. 461 July 23, 2006

    Wage Growth and the Measurement of Social Security’s Financial Condition

    Jagadeesh Gokhale
    Abstract

    Government spending on the elderly is projected to increase rapidly as the American population becomes older. As a result, many policymakers and budget analysts are concerned about the continued viability of entitlement programs such as Social Security. The Social Security trustees’ economic growth projections receive considerable attention because many people believe that higher growth would […]

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  • Working Paper No. 460 July 22, 2006

    How the Maastricht Regime Fosters Divergence As Well As Fragility

    Jörg Bibow
    Abstract

    This paper investigates the phenomenon of persistent macroeconomic divergence that has occurred across the eurozone in recent years. Optimal currency area theory would point toward asymmetric shocks and structural factors as the foremost candidate causes. The alternative hypothesis pursued here focuses on the working of the Maastricht regime itself, making it clear that the regime […]

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  • Working Paper No. 459 July 21, 2006

    Banking, Finance, and Money

    L. Randall Wray
    Abstract

    This paper briefly summarizes the orthodox approach to banking, finance, and money, and then points the way toward an alternative based on socioeconomics. It argues that the alternative approach is better fitted to not only the historical record, but also sheds more light on the nature of money in modern economies. In orthodoxy, money is […]

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  • Working Paper No. 458 July 20, 2006

    Dissent and Discipline in Ben Gurion’s Labor Party, 1930–32

    Joel Perlmann
    Abstract

    This paper describes a small opposition group that functioned during 1930–33 on the left fringes of Ben Gurion’s Mapai party in Palestine. Mapai dominated Jewish Palestine’s politics, and later the politics of the young State of Israel; it lives on today in Israel’s Labor Party. The opposition group, probably no more than a dozen active […]

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  • Book Series July 16, 2006

    The Distributional Effects of Government Spending and Taxation

    Dimitri B. Papadimitriou
    Abstract

    This book focuses on the distributional consequences of the public sector. It examines and documents, both theoretically and empirically, the effects of government spending and taxation on personal distribution, that is, on families and individuals. In addition, it investigates the relationship between the public sector and the functional distribution of national income. In this respect, […]

  • Policy Notes No. 5 July 06, 2006

    The Burden of Aging

    L. Randall Wray
    Abstract

    Demographers and economists agree that we are aging—individually and collectively, nationally and globally. An aging population results from the twin demographic forces of fewer children per family and longer lives. Most experts recognize the burden that aging causes as the number of retirees supported by each worker rises. This trend is reinforced by the graying […]

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  • Working Paper No. 457 June 19, 2006

    Why Central Banks (and Money) “Rule the Roost”

    Claudio Sardoni
    Abstract

    Some have argued that a significant decrease in the demand for money, due to financial innovations, could imply that central banks are unable to implement effective monetary policies. This paper argues that central banks are always able to influence the economy’s interest rates, because their liability is the economy’s unit of account. In this sense, […]

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  • Working Paper No. 456 June 18, 2006

    Asset Prices, Financial Fragility, and Central Banking

    Abstract

    The paper reviews the current literature on the subject in both the New Consensus and Post Keynesian frameworks. It shows that both approaches give to central banks a wrong goal (inflation, distribution, curbing speculation, and so on) and a wrong instrument (interest rate rule). The paper claims that central banks should focus their attention on […]

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  • Working Paper No. 455 June 17, 2006

    The Minskyan System, Part III

    Abstract

    This is the last part of a three-part analysis of the Minskyan Framework. The paper presents a model that studies some of the features presented in Parts I and II. The model is Post-Keynesian in nature and puts a large emphasis on the role of conventions and the importance of the financial side. In doing […]

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  • Working Paper No. 454 June 12, 2006

    How Does Household Production Affect Earnings Inequality?

    Harley Frazis, and Jay Stewart
    Abstract

    Although income inequality has been studied extensively, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of household production. Economic theory predicts that households with less money income will produce more goods at home. Thus extended income, which includes the value of household production, should be more equally distributed than money income. We find this […]

    Download Working Paper No. 454 PDF (211.52 KB)
  • Public Policy Brief No. 85 June 11, 2006

    The Fallacy of the Revised Bretton Woods Hypothesis

    Thomas I. Palley
    Abstract

    The stability of the international financial system is in doubt. Analysis of the system has focused mainly on the sustainability of financing the American trade deficit and has failed to understand the microeconomics of transactions within the system. According to this brief by Thomas I. Palley, the international financial system is unsustainable for reasons of […]

    Download Public Policy Brief No. 85, 2006 PDF (523.28 KB)
  • Working Paper No. 453 June 09, 2006

    The Minskyan System, Part II

    Abstract

    This is the second part of a three-part analysis of the Minskyan framework. It studies in detail the dynamics at the root of the endogenous financial weakening of capitalist economic systems. This part combines the properties presented in part I with other important concepts, such as the paradox of leverage and conventional expectations, to explain […]

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  • Working Paper No. 452 June 08, 2006

    The Minskyan System, Part I

    Abstract

    This is the first part of a three-part analysis of the Minskyan framework. Via an extensive review of the literature, this paper looks at 12 essential elements necessary to get a good understanding of Minsky’s theory, and argues that those elements are central to comprehend how a monetary production economy works. This paper also shows […]

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  • Working Paper No. 451 May 25, 2006

    Time and Money

    J. Bonke, M. Deding, and M. Lausten
    Abstract

    Time and money are basic commodities in the utility function and are substitutes in real terms. To a certain extent, having time and money is a matter of either/or, depending on individual preferences and budget constraints. However, satisfaction with time and satisfaction with money are typically complements, i.e., individuals tend to be equally satisfied with […]

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  • Working Paper No. 450 May 24, 2006

    Extending Minsky’s Classifications of Fragility to Government and the Open Economy

    L. Randall Wray
    Abstract

    Minsky’s classification of fragility according to hedge, speculative, and Ponzi positions is well-known. He wrote about fragile positions of individual firms and of the economy as a whole, with the economy transitioning naturally from a robust financial structure (dominated by hedge units) to a fragile structure (dominated by speculative units). In most of Minsky’s writing, […]

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  • Working Paper No. 449 May 23, 2006

    The Temporal Welfare State: A Cross-national Comparison

    James Mahmud Rice, Robert E. Goodin, and Antti Parpo
    Abstract

    Welfare states contribute to people’s well-being in many different ways. Bringing all these contributions under a common metric is tricky. Here we propose doing so through the notion of “temporal autonomy”: the freedom to spend one’s time as one pleases, outside the necessities of everyday life. Using surveys from five countries (the United States, Australia, […]

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  • Working Paper No. 448 May 22, 2006

    Gibson’s Paradox II

    Abstract

    The Gibson paradox, long observed by economists and named by John Maynard Keynes (1936), is a positive relationship between the interest rate and the price level. This paper explains the relationship by means of interest-rate, cost-push inflation. In the model, spending is driven in part by changes in the rate of interest, and the central […]

    Download Working Paper No. 448 PDF (132.38 KB)
  • Public Policy Brief No. 84 May 20, 2006

    Can Basel II Enhance Financial Stability?

    L. Randall Wray
    Abstract

    Even as the United States enjoys an economic expansion, there is an undercurrent of concern among economic analysts who follow financial markets. Some feel that the expansion of the credit derivatives markets poses the threat of a crisis similar to the Long-Term Capital Management debacle of 1998. Credit derivatives allow banks to share risks with […]

    Download Public Policy Brief No. 84, 2006 PDF (276.61 KB)
  • Strategic Analysis May 18, 2006

    Can the Growth in the US Current Account Deficit Be Sustained?

    Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Gennaro Zezza, and Edward Chilcote
    Abstract

    Can the growth in the current account deficit be sustained? How does the flow of deficits feed the stock of debt? How will the burden of servicing this debt affect future deficits and economic growth? President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholars Edward Chilcote and Gennaro Zezza address these and other questions in a new […]

    Download Strategic Analysis, May 2006 PDF (300.40 KB)

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Blithewood
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000
845-758-7700
The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, founded in 1986 through the generous support of Bard College trustee Leon Levy, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization. The Levy Institute is independent of any political or other affiliation, and encourages diversity of opinion in the examination of economic policy issues while striving to transform ideological arguments into informed debate.