INET in the News
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INET research into the influence of election spending is featured in Truthout
Dec 15, 2020
“Political scientist Thomas Ferguson, an authoritative scholar on money and electoral politics, has a valuable and established political science theory called “the investment theory of politics.” He demonstrates that the U.S. is essentially controlled by coalitions of investors who come together around some mutual interest. Thus, “to participate in the political arena, you must have enough resources and private power to become part of such a coalition…. McGuire and Delahunt advance the thesis by showing it is actually worse than what others have found. Their study reveals and confirms that the top wealthiest 10 percent ultimately always win on policy — effectively showing that anyone else’s opinion outside of the top 10 percent rarely matters.” — Rajko Kolundzic, Truthout
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INET research by Appelbaum and Batt on private equity and healthcare was cited in ACP Hospitalist
Dec 15, 2020
Private equity’s stake in health care increased rapidly in recent years, reaching a record of 855 deals valued at $100 billion in 2018, according to a March 2020 study published by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a nonprofit think tank based in New York City. — Janet Colwell, ACP Hospitalist
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Lynn Parramore appeared on the Zero Hour
Dec 8, 2020
“’human beings must be driven by x’…. well this is a myth about human beings and it’s not really the way we work, but the religion of capitalism insists that it is true. This is a sacred idea that competition is ultimately for the best of society, that the market will decide what is best, not governments or we the people. I think one of the things that Eugene McCarraher who wrote this book, “The Enchantments of Mammon” susses out in a very nuanced way, is how our country is built on these sort of opposing ideas. On the one hand we have this idea of competition and then we have another religious idea about brotherhood which is also baked into the sacred text of our nation. These two things are kind of ill-fitting and trying to make them work together is something we’re still struggling with right now.” — Lynn Parramore
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Arjun Jayadev has an article in the NY Times on the crisis of access to affordable medicines and the need to suspend intellectual property rights
Dec 7, 2020
“the vaccines developed by these companies were developed thanks wholly or partly to taxpayer money. Those vaccines essentially belong to the people — and yet the people are about to pay for them again, and with little prospect of getting as many as they need fast enough. … mounting pressure from poor countries at the W.T.O. should give the governments of rich countries leverage to negotiate with their pharmaceutical companies for cheaper drugs and vaccines worldwide. Leaning on those companies is the right thing to do in the face of a global pandemic; it is also the best way for the governments of rich countries to take care of their own populations, which in some cases experience more severe drug shortages than do people in far less affluent places.” — Achal Prabhala, Arjun Jayadev and Dean Baker
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Thomas Fricke has an article in Der Spiegel citing an INET study showing that prioritizing health in the pandemic has led to better economic outcomes
Dec 7, 2020
“Calculations by Phillip Alvelda, Thomas Ferguson and John Mallery, which have just been published by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, suggest how scary the choice between life and business is in the corona crisis . A comparison of all possible countries and strategies over the past year then gave a fairly clear picture: Those who consistently aimed to stop the epidemic through hard lockdowns have significantly fewer deaths - even if they initially suffered greater economic damage; while it is with countries like the UK it was exactly the opposite, which initially hesitated with the lockdown and raised all the more money to avoid economic damage. With the fatal result that precisely because of this, the second wave became all the more violent - and economic output collapsed in the end. Conclusion of the study: The more negligent governments allow the pandemic to work in order not to harm the economy, the more the economic costs will pile up over time and ever new waves. Almost no matter how hard these rulers and central bankers try to counter it with economic stimulus programs. The damn virus finds activity between people (also economic) pretty good.” — Thomas Fricke
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Thomas Ferguson is quoted in Alternet on Georgia's senate election
Dec 7, 2020
“Ferguson, whose research has shown that candidates who raise more money stand a much greater chance of winning election, added that “when you get that much money pouring into the election, it means that you have all these investors who decide which election is ‘worth it’ and that tends to pull even liberal democrats to the right. It is a somewhat subtle effect but a very real one and clearly an anti-democratic consequence of the system.” — Andrew Kennis
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INET funded research by William Lazonick is cited in the Wall Street Journal
Dec 7, 2020
“Critics led by William Lazonick, economics professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, say buybacks starve companies of cash for innovation and worker pay, and favor executives aiming to jack up the stock prices because their compensation is increasingly stock-based. The buyback trend has become controversial since a 2014 article by Prof. Lazonick in the Harvard Business Review, “Profits Without Prosperity.” The S&P 500 companies that had been publicly listed from 2003 through 2012, he found, had spent amounts equal to 54% of their earnings for buybacks and 37% for dividends, leaving “very little for investments in productive capabilities or higher incomes for employees.” — Randall Smith
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INET working paper on how maximizing shareholder value led to minimizing national interests is cited in The American Prospect
Dec 7, 2020
“If companies continue to prioritize maximizing shareholder wealth at the expense of other key stakeholders, and at the expense of investing in innovation, then the Green New Deal could reinforce long-standing income and wealth inequities and the decline in innovation in the U.S. economy (for an important example, Bill Lazonick and Matt Hopkins document how maximizing shareholder value minimized the strategic national stockpile for ventilators and personal protective equipment).” —Lenore M Palladino
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William Janeway reviews INET’s book, “Macroeconomic Inequality from Reagan to Trump” in Project Syndicate
Dec 7, 2020
“Now, in a powerful work of synthesis, economist Lance Taylor, assisted by Özlem Ömer of Nevsehir Haci Bektas Veli University in Turkey, has brought a new perspective to the discussion. Taylor is a rare figure among economists nowadays. Previously a professor at two of the established citadels of mainstream economics, Harvard University and MIT, he has spent the past generation at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and is deeply engaged with the Institute for New Economic Thinking. … The overriding message from Taylor’s work is the exact opposite of “trickle-down economics.” Reducing inequality will increase economic growth and productivity. But, at the end of the day, there is no magic bullet to reverse the impact of the structural transformation of the past 50 years. That, too, was driven by policy initiatives, the full implications of which many policymakers are only just now beginning to comprehend.” — William Janeway
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INET study is cited in the Socialist Worker
Dec 7, 2020
“Rich economies have more resources to spare to prioritise saving lives. And Wolf reproduces the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s now famous chart that refutes the idea there is a “trade-off” between saving the economy and saving lives. On the whole, those states that prioritised saving lives also lost less economic output. China is the standout case. But it isn’t just about how rich an economy is. The same chart shows that the states that suffered the biggest losses of lives and output include Italy, Britain, Spain, and France. The US and Belgium aren’t far behind.” —Alex Callinicos
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INET article cited in NTV on how to handle the pandemic this winter
Dec 7, 2020
“A look around the world shows that so far no country has managed to effectively protect its risk groups when the number of infections is high - Sweden at the beginning of the pandemic or Switzerland in the second wave also had to pay for their special routes with many deaths. And if such a strategy fails, you have wasted valuable time and may find yourself confronted with an infection that is completely out of control. This would mean a collapse of the health system with all the ensuing consequences. This also includes immense damage to the economy. This is also confirmed by a study by the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Those who reacted belatedly or wavered between strategies not only had very high casualties, but were also the most damaging to their economies, it said. The authors cite Great Britain as a negative example.” — Klaus Wedekind
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INET study featured in Queensland
Dec 7, 2020
“The “go-hard/go-early and no regrets” approach of the Australian states has been vindicated by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organisation established in the wake of the 2009 global financial crash.” …. “We must be ready to accept renewed restrictions, targeted shutdowns and border closures. As the INET report clearly demonstrates, the failure to act is much more costly than any temporary measures, such as those used in South Australia last month.” — Dennis Atkins
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The FT cites INET article on what can be learned from the pandemic
Nov 25, 2020
“Actual experience, as opposed to cost-benefit analyses of theoretical alternatives, further strengthens the case for suppressing the disease fully, where feasible. A recent paper from the Institute for New Economic Thinking, To Save the Economy, Save the People First, suggests why. A chart (reproduced here) shows that countries have followed two strategies: suppression, or trading off deaths against the economy. By and large, the former group has done better in both respects. Meanwhile, countries that have sacrificed lives have tended to end up with high mortality and economic costs.” — Martin Wolf, The Financial Times
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El Economista cites INET research on the cost of the pandemic
Nov 25, 2020
“To save the economy, you have to save people first, is the title of a paper by Alvelda, Ferguson and Mallery of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. This work groups countries into three categories, according to the response to the covid: those that gave priority to maintaining economic life; those who focused on taking care of health first and those who wanted to be placed in the middle, but did not do either one well. The best economic results correspond to those who prioritized health. They are countries that are in Asia and Oceania, mainly. The worst are in the other two groups. Those who did not define one or the other, got the worst of both worlds: many deaths and great economic damage. What can be done? Alvelda, Ferguson, and Mallery recommend targeted subsidies by regions and sectors hardest hit; guarantee income for workers in non-essential activities and subsidize health safety measures for all those who cannot stop. This means, among other things, public money to make public transport and some massive workplaces more sanitary. Subsidize supervision / surveillance measures in spaces where many people go: shopping centers and places of religious worship, for example.” — Luis Miguel Gonzalez, El Economista (translated from Spanish)
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Economics & Beyond’s episode cited in the Financial Post
Nov 24, 2020
“Structural analysis to uncover global trends is what Goodhart and Pradhan’s book does. I’m not sure I completely recommend it, as it gets a little technical in spots, but I certainly recommend learning more about their analysis. (You can hear them interviewed in the podcast, “Economics & Beyond with Rob Johnson.”)” — William Watson