Articles

Articles and analyses from the INET community on the key economic questions of our time.

Article

Baby Bonds: A Plan for Black/White Wealth Equality Conservatives Could Love?

Oct 25, 2016

Darrick Hamilton calls for spreading the benefits of asset-ownership to all Americans.

Article

Escaping the New Normal of Weak Growth

Oct 7, 2016

Eight years after the crisis erupted, what the global economy is experiencing is starting to look less like a slow recovery than like a new low-growth equilibrium. With monetary policy unable to stimulate demand, or even inflation, it’s time for fiscal authorities to relieve the burden on central banks.

Article

Are Our Earnings Really Our 'Just Deserts'?

Oct 5, 2016

A new paper by Nancy Folbre offers an evidence-based refutation of ‘just-world’ assumptions

Article

How economic policy drives European (dis)integration

Sep 22, 2016

The Eurozone is (quietly) disintegrating as ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ countries continue on paths of economic divergence. That disintegration is reinforced by self-defeating policies shaped by a macroeconomic model that mimics and reinforces the divisions between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’

Article

The Private Debt Crisis

Sep 21, 2016

China is drowning in it. The whole world has too much of it. History suggests: This won’t end well.

Article

The Pros and Cons of a Universal Basic Income

Aug 29, 2016

In June of this year, Swiss voters saw an initiative on their ballots calling for an “unconditional basic income” that would “allow the whole population to lead a decent life and participate in public life.” Put on the ballot by a petition drive after it was rejected in parliament, the initiative was rejected by 77 percent of Swiss voters, with 23 percent approving.

Article

The link between health spending and life expectancy: The US is an outlier

Aug 18, 2016

The US stands out as an outlier: the US spends far more on health than any other country, yet the life expectancy of the American population is not longer but actually shorter than in other countries that spend far less.

Article

Financialization and its Discontents

Aug 2, 2016

Focusing on what money really is – whether gold or state fiat – shifts attention away from what credit really is, which is to say away from the center of discontent.

Article

On Arrest Filters and Empirical Inferences

Jul 14, 2016

I’ve been thinking a bit more about Roland Fryer’s working paper on police use of force, prompted by this thread by Europile and excellent posts by Michelle Phelps and Ezekeil Kweku.