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1681 publications found

  • Working Paper No. 536 July 03, 2008

    Deficient Public Infrastructure and Private Costs

    Lekha S. Chakraborty
    Abstract

    This paper presents new evidence on the links between public-infrastructure provisioning and time allocation related to the water sector in India. An analysis of time-use data reveals that worsening public infrastructure affects market work, with evident gender differentials. The results also suggest that access to public infrastructure can lead to substitution effects in time allocation […]

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  • Policy Notes No. 2 June 05, 2008

    Securitization

    Hyman P. Minsky, and L. Randall Wray
    Abstract

    “At the annual banking structure and competition conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in May 1987, the buzzword heard in the corridors and used by many of the speakers was ‘that which can be securitized, will be securitized.’” So notes Hyman Minsky in a prescient memo on the nature, and the implications, of […]

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  • Policy Notes No. 1 May 27, 2008

    The Collapse of Monetarism and the Irrelevance of the New Monetary Consensus

    James K. Galbraith
    Abstract

    What in monetarism, and what in the "new monetary consensus," led to a correct or even remotely relevant anticipation of the extraordinary financial crisis that broke over the housing sector, the banking system, and the world economy in August 2007 and that has continued to preoccupy central bankers ever since? Absolutely nothing, says Senior Scholar […]

    Download Policy Note 2008/1 PDF (503.31 KB)
  • Policy Notes May 27, 2008

    The Collapse of Monetarism and the Irrelevance of the New Monetary Consensus

    James K. Galbraith
    Abstract

    “What in monetarism, and what in the ‘new monetary consensus,’ led to a correct or even remotely relevant anticipation of the extraordinary financial crisis that broke over the housing sector, the banking system, and the world economy in August 2007 and that has continued to preoccupy central bankers ever since? The answer is, of course, […]

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  • Policy Notes May 27, 2008

    The Collapse of Monetarism and the Irrelevance of the New Monetary Consensus

    James K. Galbraith
    Abstract

    What in monetarism, and what in the “new monetary consensus,” led to a correct or even remotely relevant anticipation of the extraordinary financial crisis that broke over the housing sector, the banking system, and the world economy in August 2007 and that has continued to preoccupy central bankers ever since? Absolutely nothing, says Senior Scholar […]

  • Book Series May 20, 2008

    Stabilizing an Unstable Economy

    Hyman P. Minsky
    Abstract

    The late American economist and Distinguished Scholar Hyman P. Minsky first wrote about the inherent instability of financial markets in the late 1950s, and accurately predicted a transformation of the economy that would not become apparent for nearly a generation. In 2007, interest in his work suddenly exploded as the financial press recognized the relevance […]

  • Book Series May 19, 2008

    John Maynard Keynes

    Hyman P. Minsky
    Abstract

    This reissue of Hyman P. Minsky’s classic book offers a timely reconsideration of the work of economics icon John Maynard Keynes. In it, Minsky argues that what most economists consider Keynesian economics is at odds with the major points of Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Both Keynes and Minsky refuse to […]

  • Working Paper No. 535 May 13, 2008

    Statistical Matching Using Propensity Scores

    Hyunsub Kum, and Thomas Masterson
    Abstract

    This paper summarizes the background, type, logic, and working procedure of the statistical matching used in the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) project to combine the various data sets used to produce the synthetic data set with which the LIMEW is constructed. The authors use the match between the 2001 Survey of Consumer […]

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  • Working Paper No. 534 May 08, 2008

    Argentina: A Case Study on the Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados, or the Employment Road to Economic Recovery

    Daniel Kostzer
    Abstract

    After the 2001 crisis, Argentina—once the poster-child for pro-market structural-adjustment policies—had to define a new strategy in order to manage the societal demands that had led to the fall of the previous administration. The demand by the majority of the population for employment recovery spurred the government to introduce a massive employment program, the Plan […]

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  • Working Paper No. 533 April 29, 2008

    The Discrete Charm of the Washington Consensus

    Jan Kregel
    Abstract

    Over the last two centuries in Latin America a Washington Consensus development strategy based on integration in the global trading system has dominated both domestic demand management and industrialization "from within." This paper assesses the performance of each from the point of view of the impact of external conditions, and the validity of its underlying […]

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  • Working Paper No. 532 April 28, 2008

    Old Wine in a New Bottle: Subprime Mortgage Crisis—Causes and Consequences

    Michael Mah-Hui Lim
    Abstract

    This paper seeks to explain the causes and consequences of the United States subprime mortgage crisis, and how this crisis has led to a generalized credit crunch in other financial sectors that ultimately affects the real economy. It postulates that, despite the recent financial innovations, the financial strategies—leveraging and financial risk mismatching—that led to the […]

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  • Working Paper No. 531 April 23, 2008

    The International Monetary (Non-)Order and the “Global Capital Flows Paradox”

    Jörg Bibow
    Abstract

    This paper sets out to investigate the forces behind the so-called “global capital flows paradox” and related “dollar glut” observed in the era of advancing financial globalization. The supposed paradox is that the developing world has increasingly come to pursue policies that result in current account surpluses and thus net capital exports—destined primarily for the […]

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  • Working Paper No. 530 April 14, 2008

    Changes in the US Financial System and the Subprime Crisis

    Jan Kregel
    Abstract

    This paper traces the evolution of housing finance in the United States from the deregulation of the financial system in the 1970s to the breakdown of the savings and loan industry and the development of GSE (government-sponsored enterprise) securitization and the private financial system. The paper provides a background to the forces that have produced […]

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  • Strategic Analysis April 09, 2008

    Fiscal Stimulus—Is More Needed?

    Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, and Gennaro Zezza
    Abstract

    As the government prepares to dispense the tax rebates that largely make up its recently approved $168 billion stimulus package, President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholars Greg Hannsgen and Gennaro Zezza explore the possibility of an additional fiscal stimulus of about $450 billion spread over three quarters—challenging the notion that a larger and more […]

    Download Strategic Analysis, April 2008 PDF (272.57 KB)
  • Public Policy Brief No. 94 April 01, 2008

    Financial Markets Meltdown

    L. Randall Wray
    Abstract

    In this new Public Policy Brief, Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray explains today’s complex and fragile financial system, and how the seeds of crisis were sown by lax oversight, deregulation, and risky innovations such as securitization. He estimates that the combined losses throughout the entire financial sector could amount to several trillion dollars, and that […]

    Download Public Policy Brief No. 94, 2008 PDF (1.79 MB)
  • Working Paper No. 529 March 06, 2008

    Can Robbery and Other Theft Help Explain the Textbook Currency-demand Puzzle?

    Abstract

    This paper attempts to explain one version of an empirical puzzle noted by Mankiw (2003): a Baumol-Tobin inventory-theoretic money demand equation predicts that the average adult American should have held approximately $551.05 in currency and coin in 1995, while data show an average of $100. The models in this paper help explain this discrepancy using […]

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  • Working Paper No. 528 February 18, 2008

    Financial Flows and International Imbalances

    Jan Kregel
    Abstract

    While the traditional approach to the adjustment of international imbalances assumes industrialized countries at a similar level of development and with similar production structures, such imbalances have historically been the result of a process of catching up by late-industrializing developing countries. This may call for an alternative approach that assesses how these imbalances can be […]

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  • Working Paper No. 527 January 25, 2008

    Financing Job Guarantee Schemes by Oil Revenue

    Zahra Karimi
    Abstract

    Iran’s constitution emphasizes social justice and obliges government to provide a job for every citizen. But in fact, the government’s duty to provide jobs has shifted to government support for a measure designed to create new employment opportunities through subsidized loans to the private sector. This policy has not been successful to date, and the […]

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  • Public Policy Brief No. 93 January 08, 2008

    Minsky’s Cushions of Safety

    Jan Kregel
    Abstract

    In this brief, Senior Scholar Jan Kregel reviews Hyman P. Minsky’s concept of financial fragility—in short, that the structure of a capitalist economy becomes more fragile over a period of prosperity—and concludes that the current crisis is in fact the result of insufficient margins of safety based on how creditworthiness is assessed in the new […]

    Download Public Policy Brief No. 93, 2008 PDF (1.35 MB)
  • Research Project Report No. 34 January 02, 2008

    Joint Project of UNDP and Levy Institute on Public Employment

    Rania Antonopoulos, and Kijong Kim
    Abstract

    Joint UNDP—Levy Institute Study Focuses on Employment Guarantee Strategies The recent financial turmoil has brought with it worldwide acceptance of the fact that, when markets fail, government intervention is indispensable. One manifestation of market failure, within the sphere of production, is the inability of private sector investment to absorb surplus labor. In such instances, government […]

  • Working Paper No. 526 December 21, 2007

    American Jewish Opinion about the Future of the West Bank

    Joel Perlmann
    Abstract

    American Jewish opinion about the Arab-Israel conflict matters for both American and Israeli politics as well as for American Jewish life. This paper undertakes an analysis of that opinion based on American Jewish Committee (AJC) annual polls. Recently, the AJC made the individual-level datasets for the 2000–05 period available to researchers. The paper focuses on […]

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  • Working Paper No. 525 December 20, 2007

    Financialization

    Thomas I. Palley
    Abstract

    Financialization is a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes. Financialization transforms the functioning of economic systems at both the macro and micro levels. Its principal impacts are to (1) elevate the significance of the financial sector relative to the real sector, (2) transfer […]

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  • Working Paper No. 524 December 19, 2007

    Promotion Nationale

    Hind Jalal
    Abstract

    Created in 1961, Promotion Nationale (PN) is an autonomous public entity in charge of mobilizing an underemployed or unemployed workforce for the implementation of labor-intensive projects, calling upon a simple technology likely to provide employment to unskilled workers. It is one of the major programs of social protection in Morocco—the oldest, most important, and best-targeted […]

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  • Working Paper No. 523 December 13, 2007

    The Natural Instability of Financial Markets

    Jan Kregel
    Abstract

    This paper contrasts the economic incentives implicit in the Keynes-Minsky approach to inherent financial market instability with the incentives behind the traditional equilibrium approach leading to market stability to provide a framework for analyzing the stability induced by the recent changes in bank regulation to modernize financial services and the evolution of financial engineering innovations […]

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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.