Articles
Articles and analyses from the INET community on the key economic questions of our time.
What Is Technology? Enabler, Accelerator, or Displacer?
Technology has coevolved with human societies and played critical roles in past social and economic transformations. From the invention of steam engines to the use of electricity, technological changes were responsible for boosting productivity gains and increasing standards of living. But what really is technology? Is it an external force outside our control, or do we have a say in its direction, development, and deployment? These questions were undoubtedly made more urgent with the rapid advancement in digital technologies of late.
The Master and the Prodigy
It’s Time for a Debt “Jubilee”
America’s Dire Inequality Demands a New Conceptual Framework. This Economist Has One.
In a new book from Cambridge University Press, Lance Taylor reveals that wage repression — far more than monopoly power, offshoring or technological change — is driving rising inequality.
What Happens When a Noted Female Economist Fights Toxic Culture in the Field?
Claudia Sahm dares to call out systemic bullying and harassment that drives out talent and compromises science. Perpetrators are not happy.
Comment on Lance Taylor’s “’Savings Glut’ Fables and International Trade Theory: An Autopsy”
Reply to Andrew Smithers
How Dairy Monopolies Keep Milk Off the Shelves
Consolidation in the dairy industry has created separate, inflexible supply chains for consumers and commercial markets. When COVID killed commercial demand, perfectly good milk and cheese was wasted.
“Savings Glut” Fables and International Trade Theory: An Autopsy
A “global saving glut” was invented by Ben Bernanke in 2005 as a label for positive net lending (imports exceeding exports) to the American economy by the rest of the world. However, there is a more plausible explanation for the persistent trade imbalance between the US and its major trading partners.
There Can Be No Equality Without a Dramatic Renewal of Employment Opportunity for All American Workers
To fulfill MLK’s vision of jobs and freedom for Black Americans, Washington must rein in corporate greed
Elaine Brown, Who Led Black Panthers, Sizes Up America’s Racial Reckoning
The activist and author shares a free-ranging conversation with INET president Rob Johnson.
Who Benefits From New Technologies?
Do the benefits of new technologies accrue primarily to inventors, early investors, and highly skilled users, or to society more widely as their adoption generates employment growth?
Benno Ndulu: The pandemic has laid bare the pivotal roles of both the informal sector and SMEs
An interview with Pr Benno Ndulu, the former Governor of the Bank of Tanzania, for INET’s series on COVID-19 and Africa