September 2012

Are Eurobonds Necessary? A Response to the INET Euro Council Report

(This article, originally written by Beatrice Weder di Mauro, was translated from German. You can find the article as it appeared in Handeslblatt, a leading German business paper, here) Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 12:26 am

INET Council Member Expresses Shock at Financial “Betrayal” in Europe

WASHINGTON (September 28, 2012) -- Professor Luis Garicano of the London School of Economics, speaking today about the proposals of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) Council on the Euro Zone Crisis (ICEC) at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, expressed his shock at the "betrayal" by Germany, the Netherlands and Finland of the agreements in the June 29 euro summit, and at the recent statements against a banking union and against legacy-cost burden sharing by the Bundesbank´s President Jens Weidman. Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 2:28 pm

What About the Questions That Economics Can’t Answer?

This is the first in a series of articles that INET's Rob Johnson will be writing for Yahoo! Finance. You can read the original text on Yahoo! here.

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Can economics be morally centered? And perhaps more importantly, should it be?

These are questions that society is grappling with in the face of the economics profession's failure to confront the global impact of exploding inequality within and between countries. Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 9:50 am

INET Co-founder William H. Janeway Awarded CBE by Her Majesty the Queen

INET co-founder William H. Janeway has been granted the honorary award of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services in education and for his support of the University of Cambridge. Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 12:58 pm

Cracks in the German Economic Orthodoxy: Is Economic Theory Detached From Reality?

New economic thinking is creating change in Germany.

The latest evidence is from German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, which recently published an article arguing that economic theory is detached from reality.

The article suggests that economists had only realized recently that the “homo oeconomicus” paradigm is misleading, when other social sciences such as philosophy and sociology had come to that conclusion long ago. Journalist Dieter Schnaas writes(all quotes translated from German): Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 1:16 pm

INET’s Rob Johnson on CNBC: “Inequality has been there a long time and growing rapidly”

Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the start of the Occupy movement, and INET Executive Director Rob Johnson went on CNBC to discuss the significance of the milestone.

In particular, Johnson pointed out that Occupy protesters had brought the important issue of economic inequality to the forefront of the national dialogue. However, he also noted that the problem of inequality in America isn’t really about the last year – it’s about the last 40 years. Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 2:09 pm

Europe’s Real Deficit Is Trust

While Europe faces the specter of overwhelming debt, another deficit lies at the heart of the inability to find a solution: a deficit of trust.

Europe’s citizens “have lost confidence and trust in their politicians and started to make their own contingency plans,” writes Andre Wilkens, the director of the Mercator Centre in Berlin, Germany, for openDemocracy. Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 12:57 pm

Soros To Germany: Lead or Leave

INET co-founder George Soros is calling on Germany to lead Europe out of its economic doldrums or get out of monetary union altogether.

In an essay published in the most recent edition of The New York Review of Books and in a speech delivered in Berlin Monday, Soros pins Europe’s fiscal problems on the Maastricht Treaty's failure to create a common European treasury. In the absence of such an institution, Soros believes that it is incumbent upon the wealthy euro-zone creditor nations, particularly Germany, to accept the financial responsibilities of debtor states. Read more

Posted by The Institute for... at 5:26 pm