Articles
Articles and analyses from the INET community on the key economic questions of our time.
Three Questions with John Eric Humphries
John Eric Humphries is a member of the Inequality: Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy (MIP) network and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is the co-author of the book, The Myth of Achievement Tests, The GED and the Role of Character in American Life, along with James J. Heckman and Tim Kautz. Humphries is also a 2013 alum of the Summer School on Socieconomic Inequality.
Liquidity Trap & Excessive Leverage
How excessive debt hurts the economy and why to curb it.
Marcello de Cecco (1939-2016)
Paying tribute to one of the world’s most distinguished economic historians.
The China Delusion
Professional Expertise or Politics Driving Economists’ View of Hillary and Bernie?
Bullet-point financial reform proposals are either too simple or too vague.
The IMF unlocks billions in aid, but from whom?
On 25 September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an ambitious policy agenda that aims to eradicate poverty, in all its forms and dimensions, by 2030.
Friendly Fire
U.S. Corporations Don’t Need Tax Breaks on Foreign Profits
Many Americans have expressed outrage over Pfizer’s plan, through its merger with Allergan, to move its tax home from the United States to Ireland. Now, in a New York Times op-ed, Carl Icahn, the billionaire corporate raider turned hedge fund activist, has joined the chorus. He labels the Pfizer-Allergan deal a “travesty,” blaming the U.S.’s “uncompetitive international tax system.”
The Scientific Limits of Understanding Complex Social Phenomena
Since Aristotle the question about the potential relationship between economic inequality and democratic changes has been studied and debated – but scientifically our ability as researchers to assess and understand how such complex social phenomena may be related is much more limited than recognised.
RMB in SDR, Now What?
Externalities and Public Goods: Theory OR Society?
How much does the standard theory of externalities and public goods really say?
Matching the Moment, But Missing the Point?
This essay critically evaluates the benefits and costs of the dominant methodology in macroeconomics, the DSGE approach. Although the approach has led to great progress in some areas, it has also created biases and blind spots in the profession that hold back our understanding and our ability to govern the macroeconomy. There is great scope for progress in macroeconomics by judiciously pushing the boundaries of some of the methodological restrictions imposed by the DSGE approach.