Archive

From tax loopholes to high-risk speculation, Vanguard’s founder reflects on the state of Wall Street and the change needed to make finance work for ordinary people.

When central banks set inflation targets, they effectively redistribute income from wage earners to bondholders

Under the guise of “philanthropy,” business elites have an increasing grip on society

This year’s American Economics Association conference featured INET researchers, a cocktail reception, and a new interactive poll 

The Private Debt initiative is an opportunity to articulate how private debt impacts the economy and to specify the pathways for its effects. The initiative will also lead to better knowledge for the use of regulators, policymakers, journalists, and the public. Finally, the Private Debt initiative will open a better-informed dialogue towards tangible solutions to the problems posed by excessive private debt.

U.S. GDP accounting underestimates intangible capital, overstates financial capital, and is all but oblivious to the the erosion of human and social capital. A serious growth slowdown is coming.

Thomas Piketty and his colleagues have insisted that tax records are better for measuring inequality than income surveys. They’re wrong.

The American economy changed rapidly in the last half-century. The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) were designed before these changes started. They have stretched to accommodate new and growing service activities, but they are still organized for an industrial economy.

Vox features INET’s package of climate research

Eisuke Sakakibara: China and India will become titans on the world stage

Judge Richard Posner and Michael Sandel debate the moral limits of markets

The Atlantic features INET’s curriculum committee

Learn about the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and join a panel discussion on Political Economy and New Economic Thinking with Thomas Ferguson, Perry Mehrling, and Katharina Pistor.

America’s new “philanthrocapitalists” are enabling social problems rather than solving them

A panel discussion on the importance of the role of the state alongside private enterprise to encourage innovative entrepreneurship, productivity and economic growth in an “Innovation Economy.”

Cowdery brings his expertise in business, foundations, and publishing to INET

Rob Johnson and Michael Sandel discuss the limits of rational choice

The Intercept highlights INET research from Enno Schröder and Servaas Storm and Gregor Semieniuk, Lance Taylor, and Armon Rezai

Wishful thinking and tinkering won’t cut it. Nothing short of a mass mobilization for deep de-carbonization across the global economy can avert the looming climate catastrophe.

Economists debate whether catastrophic global warming can be stopped while maintaining current levels of economic growth. Enno Schröder, Servaas Storm, Gregor Semieniuk, Lance Taylor, and Armon Rezai find there is a tradeoff between growth and decarbonization, while Michael Grubb responds with more optimism.

Hope for mitigating climate catastrophe may not be lost, but the scale of political change needed is no cause for optimism

A response to economists who doubt our capacity to decarbonize while maintaining robust growth

Market tweaks and incentives won’t save us from climate catastrophe. Only radical policy change will.

The new IPCC Report is overly optimistic about global productivity growth and fossil fuel energy use. More dramatic, immediate action is needed

Wishful thinking and tinkering won’t cut it. Nothing short of a mass mobilization for deep de-carbonization across the global economy can avert the looming climate catastrophe.

The YSI Complexity Economics Working Group is delighted to invite all Young Scholars interested in Agent Based Modeling to apply for the Summer School on Computational Methods and Agent Based Modeling (Curitiba Summer School)

Greg Mankiw says there should be a market for kidneys, but not for paying drug addicts to get sterilized.

The FSR Energy Innovation Area and the Complexity Economics Working Group of the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) have the pleasure to invite you to participate in the 1st Energy Innovation Academy.

We need a new system of rules for the digital 21st century that enhances global digital cooperation and welfare. Nothing less than a historic gathering of the world’s key decision makers will get us there.    

The Independent profiles INET Chairman Adair Turner

Organized by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi in collaboration with the Institute of New Economic Thinking, New York, the aim of the Law Economics Policy Conference series is to bring together legal, economic, and public policy thinkers to consider a variety of real world issues in India in a holistic manner.

LSE Director Minouche Shafik says that for democracy to work, we must keep the market out of certain domains

A new report shows an economically viable path to net-zero CO2 emissions in key industries by 2060

Microfinance and then financial inclusion have become buzzwords in international development. Such initiatives have mobilised and generated  large amounts of development funding, despite substantial amount of critique. Such critiques call for a more impartial assessment of the effectiveness of financial inclusion on the grounds that funds for microfinance, they argue, displaced development spendings on healthcare, education or infrastructure. In addition, the focus on expansion of financial markets to ‘bank’ and financially ‘include’ the poor may divert attention from more comprehensive and effective poverty reduction strategies. Critiques of this ‘way of doing development’ are often sidelined and labelled as ‘extreme’, ‘sloppy’ or ideology-driven rather than evidence-based. We believe that there is a need for contemporary development scholars from all disciplines to engage in those debates. This half-day workshop would bring in such scholars to discuss what we have learned from a decade of research on the microfinance, and how financial inclusion and the emergence of fintech may offer new opportunities - as well as risks - in for inclusive global development. 

Prejudice and collusion, not simply research quality, drive journal citations

Assessing the Peculiarities of Economics from Two Scientometric Perspectives

In this paper we comparatively explore three claims concerning the disciplinary character of economics by means of citation analysis.

William Lazonick’s INET research is featured in his New York Times op-ed

Michael Sandel and Joe Stiglitz discuss why selling votes is bad for democracy, and how individual self-interest doesn’t always serve the public good

Until 2008, rising home values gave the middle class a cushion amid growing income inequality. But following the financial crisis, that wealth has failed to return.

Instead of rewarding the taxpayers and employees who actually create value for the tech giant, Apple is doling out massive stock buybacks

António Guterres and CGET Commissioners discuss cooperating on inequality, climate change, multilateralism, and more

Neoclassical economics dismisses the role of money and the state in the economy. Keynes scholar Robert Skidlesky says it’s time for a re-evaluation.

Jacobin Magazine’s Q&A with Tom Ferguson about his new INET paper.

Real News Network interviews INET Research Director Tom Ferguson about his new paper on money and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

INET Research Director Tom Ferugson talks about Donald Trump and racial resentment with Ian Masters’s Background Briefing

Our focus is on teaching and discussing theoretical and empirical methods related to the innovation processes in Latin America and the Caribbean and how these are linked to the economic development of the region. The Academy offers the opportunity to connect students to a research community integrated by high profile researchers.

Adolph Reed, who researches race and politics, warns that “identitarian” politics can conceal the structural inequities of capitalism

Right-wing news sources have stopped playing by the rules of journalism

Conventional wisdom asserts that American politics is becoming more and more tribal. But the chiefs of the tribes share a lot in common: dependence on big money.

The Intercept covers a new INET paper from our Research Director Tom Ferguson and his co-authors.

Contrary to the dominant media narrative, social issues like racism and sexism on their own can’t explain Trump’s success.

This paper critically analyzes voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Rise of China and the Future of WorkArtificial intelligence could replace routine jobs but allow us to “pursue dreams”

What did societies and politicians learn from the crash? What have been theoretical achievements in orthodox and heterodox economic thinking since then? Where do we go from here?

The current international monetary system is costly, unfair, and risky. “Economic nationalism” and deregulation in the U.S. will make it worse. A multilateral alternative is needed.

Donald Trump, democracy, and how the wealthy crush the American Dream

The YSI Economics of Innovation, Economic Development and Africa Working Groups, in partnership with Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation and Competence Building Systems (GLOBELICS), Globelics Alumni, are organizing the 1st GLOBELICS Pre-Conference for Young Scholars entitled ‘Financing of Innovation and Infrastructure for Development’.

To connect across difference is the only thing that will save us from rule by the privileged few.

William Lazonick has shown how the doctrine of “shareholder value” has hurt wages in the United States. But in Latin America, where family corporations dominate, the story is more complicated.

Jacobin Magazine features research from INET Research Director Tom Ferguson and co-authors on big business support for Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign.

Investigating the history of economic thought fuels innovative thinking 

The YSI Africa Working Group is convening in Bologna, Italy in conjunction with the 13th Annual Meeting of the African Economic History Network. Our meeting in Bologna follows what promises to be a successful convention in August 2018 at the YSI Africa Convening in Harare, Zimbabwe. The YSI Africa Working Group is committed to continuing important conversations about how economic history can contribute to the study of development of Africa. We are particularly interested in thinking about the types of new approaches to the study of economics and economic history.

Reactions to the size of the proposed plan rely on discredited assumptions and betray a fundamental misunderstanding of economic growth—and austerity 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to replace routine jobs, says Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. But done right, that process could allow us to “pursue dreams, spend time with our loved ones and find out why we exist as humans”

Nobel laureate James Heckman, Sidharth Moktan and their INET-funded research on economics journals is featured in The Economist.

Young scholars in the fields of behavioral and experimental economics, philosophy, and related disciplines will be given the opportunity to present their work at a workshop in New York. Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute), Shaun Hargreaves Heap (King’s College London) and Mario Rizzo (New York University) will also present their work and give feedback to the young scholars.

Economists who dismiss inequality as a problem secondary to poverty miss the point: Inequality is part of what drives poverty

“We don’t look after each other at all,” says Jeffrey Sachs on America today

This paper examines the relationship between placement of publications in Top Five (T5) journals and receipt of tenure in academic economics departments.

Getting published in a top five economics journal is a near-requirement for tenure. But it’s a poor measure of research quality within a system that punishes creativity.

In a piece for The Intercept, Noam Chomsky cites Tom Ferguson’s paper on the influence of money in US congressional elections.

Nobel laureate James Heckman, Sidharth Moktan and their INET-funded research on economics journals is featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

INET President Rob Johnson appears on Background Briefing with Ian Masters to discuss the tenth anniversary of the bailout

Ten years after the crisis, financial regulation leaves taxpayers holding the bag for banks’ safety net.

This paper concerns itself with the joint effect of implicit subsidies that are built into the US housing-finance system and financial safety net.

Steve Keen: “What an education in economics does is make you into a zealot

A Nobel Prize-winning economist and the second-most-famous democratic socialist in America sit down together

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. …This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not before.” This YSI Webinar and Reading Group aims to contribute to the historicization of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and its repercussions.

After Sweden’s elections, a look at how immigration and economics explain a political puzzle

Back in 2008, a critical opportunity was missed when the burden of post-crisis adjustment was tilted heavily in favor of creditors relative to debtors. The result was not only prolonged stagnation, but also the Republican Party’s embrace of demagogic populism and the election of Donald Trump.

The Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) is supporting the conference “Hello, Can You Hear Me? Added Value and Inequalities in a Global Market,” that will be held at La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), on September 20th and 21st. The event is promoted by CEST and funded by the Young Scholars Initiative – INET and by the “Luigi Einaudi” Research Centre.

Trump’s surprise win areas looked like a drug overdose map

What would global trade without the U.S. at the helm look like? INET Global Commissioner Danny Quah investigates.

A financial industry safety net enriches bankers and their shareholders — at our expense

George Soros and Rob Johnson Discuss the Causes and Consequences of the 2008 Financial Crisis

Ten years after Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the Wall Street casino is running amok

INET Oxford’s Brian Nolan writes on his new book for VoxEU

In 2008 a global financial meltdown was just barely contained. But Adam Tooze says that the crisis of confidence has had long aftershocks

Distracted by the perceived threat of a Chinese savings glut, mainstream macroeconomists missed the writing on the wall of the 2008 crisis

INET Chairman Adair Turner reflects on the 2008 financial crisis on Bloomberg TV

Been following Larry Summers and Joe Stiglitz’s debate over secular stagnation? Check out their INET work on the topic here and decide for yourself who makes the better case.

Both before 2008 and today, there’s a disturbing tendency in Washington to not take mortgage fraud seriously

Before 2008, mainstream economics thought a global economic crisis on the scale of the Great Depression was impossible. Then Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. A decade later, INET looks back at the causes of the global financial crisis, and what policymakers—and economists—must change to prevent another one.

Despite disparate policy beliefs, MMT and orthodox macro rely on many of the same theoretical foundations

10 years later, Nobel laureate George Akerlof says the walls within economics need to come down

In Europe and the United States, stock-based compensation discourages long-term corporate sustainability

Ten years ago, the financial crisis washed away faith and trust in economics as a guide to social prosperity. Filling a void is difficult. We are still hard at work.