July 2012

INET Spotlight: Rob Johnson - The Coming Crisis in Municipal Bankruptcy

by The Institute for... on July 31, 2012 1 comment

Where’s the next economic crisis?

Look to cash-strapped state and local governments, Tom Ferguson and INET’s Rob Johnson write in today’s Los Angeles Times. Read more

Paul de Grauwe: The ECB Can Save the Euro – But It Has To Change Its Business Model

by Robert Johnson on July 30, 2012 5 comments

Introduction: Read more

INET Council on Euro Crisis Report Makes Waves Around the World

by The Institute for... on July 25, 2012 6 comments

Europe is getting a wake-up call.

After the INET Council on the Euro Zone Crisis report warned that, “Europe is sleepwalking toward a disaster of incalculable proportions,” news media around the world are echoing the Council’s alarm bells to European leaders. Read more

New York Times: Will Germany Pay for Its Conservative Approach?

by The Institute for... on July 25, 2012 4 comments

Germany appears to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On Monday, Moody’s issued a negative outlook for Germany’s AAA credit rating over concerns that Germany will have to bail out the euro zone’s ailing deficit countries, as was reported in The New York Times. Read more

INET Spotlight - INET Council on the Euro Zone Crisis Offers Pragmatic Solutions in New Report

by The Institute for... on July 24, 2012 5 comments

The INET Council on the Euro Zone Crisis, which features some of Europe’s top economic minds, yesterday released a report that offers a series of suggestions on how to resolve the ongoing euro zone crisis.

The crux of the report comes down to recognizing the distinction between “legacy costs” (costs that now exist as a legacy of the initially flawed design of the euro) and “fixing the design itself.” Read more

Director's Chair: Robert and Edward Skidelsky - How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life

by The Institute for... on July 19, 2012

In this three-part INET “From the Director’s Chair” interview, INET Executive Director Robert Johnson talks with Robert Skidelsky and his son Edward Skidelsky about their book, How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life. Read more

INET Spotlight – Dr. YV Reddy: How to save the financial system from itself?

by The Institute for... on July 17, 2012

This was the topic for INET Advisory Board Member and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India DR. Y.V. Reddy as he recently gave the prestigious Per Jacobsson lecture in Basel, Switzerland. Read more

Math or Society: Did Economists Forget Who They’re Supposed to Serve?

by Robert Johnson on July 12, 2012 15 comments

Has the servant’s servant become the master’s master?

In a series of blog posts, Tim Johnson of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh raises questions about the use of mathematics in economics and whether economists, who should be serving society, have instead been enslaved by outdated formalist notions of mathematics. Read more

Who Holds the Real Power On the Job?: An Online Debate

by The Institute for... on July 11, 2012

Econ blogs have been buzzing over the last week about the recent Crooked Timber post titled, “Let It Bleed: Libertarianism and the Workplace.” The article looks at the libertarian viewpoint that sees political coercion as repressible while pretending that private power and coercion are acceptable. Read more

Video: Joseph Stiglitz on How America As Land of Opportunity Has Vanished

by The Institute for... on July 11, 2012 8 comments

The havoc wrought by our recent global financial crisis has vividly demonstrated the deficiencies in our outdated economic theories and shown the need for new economic thinking. Inequality has been one of the key gaps in orthodox economics, and it is one of the areas INET has targeted for new economic thinking to make an impact.

This INET-produced interview features Joseph Stiglitz describing the enormous amount of wealth controlled by the top one percent in America. Here is an exclusive preview of the Stiglitz short interview – for the full interview visit Vanity Fair: