Archive
-
Video
There Is a Way to Stop Machines From Making Americans Poorer
Jun 8, 2016
Technology will ruin America if we don’t compensate for its impact, warns Andy Stern.
-
Article
Can Philosophy Stop Bankers From Stealing?
Jun 7, 2016
Pernicious cultural norms inside American banks and regulatory agencies have crowded out fundamental moral principles. Ed Kane proposes an antidote.
-
Article
Should we really be 'learning to love' the robots?
Jun 7, 2016
A response to Arjun Jayadev’s argument about the impact of automation on our work and life
-
Article
Britain’s EU scorecard, a dissent on China stimulus, and the productivity puzzle
Jun 7, 2016
What we’re reading: A weekly scan of published items relevant to the Institute’s work
-
Article
From Keynes to Lucas, and Beyond
Jun 6, 2016
Book review: Michel De Vroey and the problems of macroeconomics
-
Article
What we learn about inequality from Carl Icahn’s $2 billion Apple “no brainer”
Jun 6, 2016
The company’s focus on stock buybacks to increase shareholder value is a reminder of why so much of the value created daily by millions of workers ends up in the hands of the billionaires
-
Article
How to relax and start loving the robots
Jun 3, 2016
Anxiety over human labor being replaced by cyborgs may be in vogue, but it’s overblown — machines may help us achieve healthier and more meaningful lives
-
Article
Rebirth of the School: Why We Invested in the History of Economic Thought Website
Jun 2, 2016
The Institute is proud to welcome the revival of an indispensable resource for those seeking to understand the evolution of economics in context
-
Article
How Do Investors Approach the Stock Market in a Wild Election Cycle?
Jun 1, 2016
Neither the Rational Expectations Hypothesis nor behavioral finance approaches alone provides an adequate predictor of investor behavior, argues Roman Frydman
-
Article
Profound Changes in Economics Have Made Left vs. Right Debates Irrelevant
May 31, 2016
New economic thinking has the potential to make political debates far more productive
-
Article
Learning to think about shadow banking
May 30, 2016
Why most economists did not see the 2008 crash coming
-
Article
A Teachable Moment for the Economics Profession?
May 27, 2016
What we’re reading: A weekly scan of published items relevant to the Institute’s work
-
Webinars and Events
Shadow Banking and Alternative Finance in China
WorkshopMay 27, 2016
The recent growth in the scale and different forms of shadow banking and alternative finance mechanisms in China poses many questions of understanding, from its sustainability; different forms of credit growth; to the role of local government financing, and; the tensions between financial reform policy and practice.
-
Article
Introducing the Symposium on Neoliberalism
May 26, 2016
Is Neoliberalism a fixed set of ideas, or even an identifiable political movement?
-
Collection
Neoliberalism
A debate over definitions of Neoliberalism from different historical and philosophical approaches.
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesEthics vs. Ethos in US and UK Megabanking
May 2016
Company law in the US and UK fails to acknowledge that authorities’ propensity to rescue giant banks from the consequences of insolvency assigns taxpayers a coerced and badly structured equity stake in too-big-to-fail institutions.
-
Article
This is Water (or is it Neoliberalism?)
May 25, 2016
A meditation on Vercelli, Vernengo and Levitt & Seccareccia
-
Video
How Neoliberalism Threatens Democracy
May 25, 2016
Professor Wendy Brown engages in an in-depth exploration of the corrosive effect of approaching education, law, politics and governance through the lens of neoliberal economic rationality.
-
Working Paper
CommentaryWho is afraid of Neoliberalism? A comment on Mirowski
May 2016
While the Neoliberal movement’s concerns extend into a broad political reorganization of society, it remains intimately connected with neoclassical economic thought.
-
Article
Monetary Finance: Mechanics & Complications
May 23, 2016
Eight years after the 2008 crisis the global economy is still stuck with low growth, too low inflation, and rising debt burdens. Massive monetary stimulus has failed to generate adequate demand, and some commentators suggest that we are “out of ammunition” with which to counter deflationary pressures.
-
Article
Tunisia in Turmoil: When Supply-Side Orthodoxy Meets an Angry Citizenry
May 23, 2016
Mass protests challenging the government to focus on job-creation rather than on market liberalization and trade deals may carry a cautionary message to Western policy makers, too.
-
Article
How the term “mainstream economics” became mainstream: a speculation
May 23, 2016
From 1958 onward, the back cover of Paul Samuelson’s bestselling textbook, Economics, showed a family-tree of economists. The diagram’s evolution, in particular its use of the term “mainstream economics,” reflected, and, I speculate, influenced how economists came to perceive the structure of their discipline.
-
Working Paper
CommentaryWho will willingly hold non-interest-bearing money?
May 2016
If the government/CB together finance an increased fiscal deficit with permanent non-interest-bearing fiat money, then some private sector agents have to hold non-interest-bearing monetary base, and must continue to do so even when policy and market interest rates have moved away from the ZLB. How is this possible in an environment where most bank deposit money is potentially interest-bearing?
-
Working Paper
CommentaryWhy a money financed stimulus is not offset by an inflation tax
May 2016
In the growing debate about the pros and cons of a monetary financed fiscal stimulus (a.k.a. helicopter money) it is argued by some participants that a money-financed stimulus will have no more effect than a debt financed stimulus since:
-
Article
The History of Economic Thought website is reborn
May 21, 2016
I am pleased to announce that the History of Economic Thought Website is back. I am thankful for the assistance of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), which has supported its revival and made it possible.
-
Article
Is Wall Street Doing its Job?
May 20, 2016
What we’re reading: A weekly scan of published items relevant to the Institute’s work
-
Curriculum Material
History of Economic Thought Website
Spanning centuries, this website concentrates information and resources on the history of economic thought for students, researchers and all those who are interested in learning about economics from a historical perspective.
-
Article
How the computer transformed economics. And didn’t.
May 19, 2016
The shift toward applied economics in the last 40 years is usually associated with the development of computers and datasets. Yet, the success of computer-based approaches is highly selective, and what computerization failed to change in economics is equally remarkable.
-
Article
Could fiscal policy changes revive US economic growth? Some contributions towards answering that question
May 19, 2016
Renewed interest by policymakers in the challenges of long-term slow economic growth highlights the importance of the Institute’s research
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesStock-Market Expectations: Econometric Evidence that both REH and Behavioral Insights Matter
May 2016
Behavioral finance views stock-market investors’ expectations as largely unrelated to fundamental factors. Relying on survey data, this paper presents econometric evidence that fundamentals are a major driver of investors’ expectations.
-
Video
Capitalism and the media: Can crowdfunding spare us from bad news?
May 18, 2016
Julia Cage warns that a media ravaged by market forces cannot serve democracy’s need for an informed citizenry.
-
Working Paper
CommentaryThoughts on Mirowski and Neoliberalism from a Polanyian Perspective
May 2016
Karl Polanyi demonstrated that Classical Liberalism and current Neoliberalism were organized political movements, but their successes sparked political backlashes against laissez-faire economics — a dialectic that continues to shape politics to this day.
-
Article
Neither Clinton nor Trump is engaging with the causes of America’s economic woes
May 17, 2016
Author Rana Foroohar explains why the economic policies being touted by both presidential frontrunners offer none of the new thinking necessary to drive a policy response to revitalize the economy
-
Article
Where the SPD and Germany would stand today without Agenda 2010
May 17, 2016
The SPD, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, has been collapsing in the popularity polls ever since they in 2003 launched the reform Agenda. What would have come of the party if it had not been for this insane rush to reform? Possibly Gerhard Schroeder could even still be chancellor today. A case for the time machine.
-
Article
Debate: How is the Greek rescue package being spent?
May 17, 2016
Despite using different methodologies, a number of scholars agree that most of the ‘bailout’ money is going to Greece’s foreign creditors
-
Working Paper
CommentaryOn Neoliberalism: Comments to Mirowski
May 2016
The following is based on Chapter 1 of my forthcoming book, Crisis and Sustainability. The Delusion of Free Markets.
-
Article
Independence vs. Accountability in the Evolution of the Fed
May 16, 2016
Peter Conti Brown’s new book explores and debunks a powerful meme shaping public understanding of the role of the Fed
-
Article
Should the state be doing more to fix the economy?
May 13, 2016
What we’re reading: A weekly scan of published items relevant to the Institute’s work
-
Article
Improving the Teaching of Econometrics
May 12, 2016
A major shift is needed in the Econometrics curriculum for both graduate and undergraduate teaching to include modern topics.
-
Article
A Global Marshall Plan for Joblessness?
May 11, 2016
The corrosive social and economic effects of what have now become ‘normal’ unemployment levels require new solutions, and tradewithout full employment exacerbates the problem
-
Article
Helicopter Money on a Leash?
May 10, 2016
Any use of money-financed fiscal expansion as a policy tool will require rules to ensure discipline and avoid excess
-
Article
Shadow banking’s enduring perils
May 9, 2016
Five lessons from the last crisis — for managing the next one
-
Article
Austerity without debt relief courts new unrest in Greece
May 9, 2016
Economist James K. Galbraith warns that ‘unrealistic expectations’ by Athens’ creditors is a recipe for turmoil
-
Article
Minimum Wages & Job Loss
May 6, 2016
As empirical evidence continues to roll in, can the theoretical orthodoxy continue to hold their ground?
-
Article
A Press That Serves the People in a Capitalist Society?
May 5, 2016
A new book by economist Julia Cagé offers a participatory business model for independent media.
-
Video
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie?
May 4, 2016
McCloskey discusses the thesis of her recent trilogy, The Bourgeois Era, which holds that the driving force of economic growth in 17th and 18th century Europe was simply liberal ideas.
-
Webinars and Events
Future of Work Industry 4.0 and the Pursuit of Social Innovation
ConferenceMay 4, 2016
Does the technology revolution require a new social policy?
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesOn Historical Household Budgets
May 2016
The paper argues that household budgets are the best starting point for investigating a number of big questions related to the evolution of the living standards during the last two-three centuries.
-
Article
The Unfairness of Housing Purchases Through Time
Apr 29, 2016
Amid the ongoing research interest in questions of inequality, it is important to examine the question of access to housing — and how that has changed over the decades. The specific question I have sought to answer, here, is whether the real cost (measured against income) of buying the average home has risen.
-
Article
Varoufakis: Star Trek or The Matrix?
Apr 27, 2016
Capitalism will destroy itself, the former Greek finance minister warns, if economic calculation excludes human needs and ignores democratic verdicts
-
Video
Equity and Growth Through Knowledge Based Economies
Apr 26, 2016
Benner’s recent work with Manuel Pastor suggests the somewhat counterintuitive result that geographic regions with the most equitable distributions of wealth and influence also tend to have the highest growth.
-
Article
Keynes passed away 70 years ago today – his copyright follows
Apr 21, 2016
Keynes passed away 70 years ago today, with his copyright now expiring, there is an opportunity to build a digital archive of all his work
-
Article
Why Liberal Economists Dish Out Despair
Apr 20, 2016
Orthodox macroeconomics has become a place where visions die and hopes are banished, for both liberals and conservatives.
-
Article
When Economists Attack
Apr 20, 2016
How Gerald Friedman’s assessment of Bernie Sanders economic proposals prompted a rare public political spat among economists.
-
Article
The Road not Taken
Apr 19, 2016
Axel Leijonhufvud showed economists a promising path forward. They should have taken it. Leijonhufvud passed away on May 5, 2022
-
Article
Three Questions with Dean Corbae
Apr 19, 2016
Dean Corbae is a leader of the Markets network and Professor of Finance, Investment, and Banking at the Wisconsin School of Business, where he also holds an appointment in the Department of Economics. His current research focuses on consumer credit and bankruptcy, foreclosures, and banking industry dynamics.
-
Article
The Rise Of The Right-Wing Populist: Back In The Court Of The Banks
Apr 18, 2016
Contrary to common belief, this shift is not so much caused by the refugee crisis, but rather by the historical disaster that followed the big financial crisis since 2007.
-
Article
Twitter and the Stock News Echo Chamber that Whips up Volatility
Apr 17, 2016
Anyone watching the stock market has seen this: a post hits Twitter containing old news, and investors react as if it were new.
-
Article
Towards a theory of shadow money
Apr 14, 2016
Struggles over shadow money today echo 19th century struggles over bank deposits.
-
Article
The Global Consumption and Income Project
Apr 14, 2016
We have developed over a number of years and now make publicly available a new and unprecedented data resource for understanding levels of living, poverty, inequality and inclusivity of growth and development around the world.
-
Working Paper
Grantee paperTowards a theory of shadow money
Apr 2016
What does the rise of shadow banking mean for monetary theory and practice? (How) should we change our traditional theories of money to capture the complex practices through which money is created in modern financial systems?
-
Video
How do we prevent future financial crisis in emerging markets?
Apr 12, 2016
Should policymakers rely on domestic macroprudential regulation in their quest for greater financial stability?
-
Article
Instability & Stagnation in a Monetary Union
Apr 11, 2016
The intra-EMU divergences are a feature of the system rather than just a bug.
-
Article
Can ‘matching markets’ concept help Europe manage its refugee crisis?
Apr 11, 2016
European Union countries are facing an epic challenge of integrating more than 1 million refugees from conflict zones in the Middle East and beyond.
-
Article
We Stopped Pfizer’s Tax Dodge, Now Let’s End the Buybacks
Apr 8, 2016
Industrial journalist Ken Jacobson and economist William Lazonick (both of the Academic-Industry Research Network), call for an end to stock market manipulation through buybacks.
-
Article
In EU budget debates, ‘technocratic’ veil hides political choices
Apr 8, 2016
As the European Union Commission readies itself for a new round of budgetary recommendations, INET senior economist Orsola Costantini warns that that the debate over how those harsh fiscal constraints are to be determined is based on a formula that masks political choices as technocratic imperatives.
-
Article
Three Questions with John Eric Humphries
Apr 7, 2016
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.
-
Article
Panama: Cheating “Epidemic” Crowds Out Honest Business, Implicates Banks
Apr 6, 2016
Leading expert says Iceland is showing the way on tackling a global peril.
-
Article
The Panama Papers: A Tropical Tip of the Hidden Wealth Iceberg
Apr 5, 2016
When billionaires pay less, we all pay more.
-
Article
What Happens When America’s Kids Confront Extreme Inequality?
Apr 5, 2016
A new film shows what economic apartheid looks like through the eyes of schoolchildren.
-
Article
When Things Fall Apart
Apr 4, 2016
Democratic capitalism is an evolving system that responds to crises by radically transforming both economic relations and political institutions. The time for a new phase has come, regardless of whether “responsible” politicians are prepared to admit it.
-
Webinars and Events
Oil, Middle East, and the Global Economy
ConferenceMar 31–Apr 1, 2016
Featuring sessions on Oil Shock and the Global Economy, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and the Political Economy of Oil.
-
Article
Blanchard, the NAIRU, and Economic Policy in the Eurozone
Mar 31, 2016
A recent policy brief by Blanchard (2016), based on an earlier paper (Blanchard, Cerutti, Summers 2015) raises a number of interesting points concerning the NAIRU and the Phillips Curve, which are further discussed in the comment on the paper by Ball (2015).
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesLuigi Pasinetti and the Political Economy of Growth and Distribution
Mar 2016
This paper provides a careful and synthetic overview of his contributions as well as a reconstruction of Pasinetti’s philosophical approach to economics as a science meant to serve humanity.
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesA Method for Agent-Based Models Validation
Mar 2016
This paper proposes a new method to empirically validate simulation models that generate artificial time series data comparable with real-world data.
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesCarbon Emissions and Economic Growth: Production-based versus Consumption-based Evidence on Decoupling
Mar 2016
We assess the Carbon-Kuznets-Curve hypothesis using internationally consistent and comparable production-based versus consumption-based CO2 emissions data for 40 countries (and 35 industries) during 1995-2007 from the World Input Output Database (WIOD).
-
Article
A Wake-Up Call on Climate Change and Clean Energy
Mar 30, 2016
A stark warning from Institute researchers on the probability that ‘2°C capital stock’ will be reached in 2017
-
Video
China’s Coming Debt Crisis?
Mar 22, 2016
The condition of the Chinese economy is increasingly becoming a significant factor exorcising the minds of global policy makers.
-
Article
Understanding the Great Recession
Mar 22, 2016
Some fundamental Keynesian and Post-Keynesian insights, with an analysis of possible mechanisms to achieve a sustained recovery.
-
Webinars and Events
New Economic Thinkers Transforming Our World
DiscussionMakers and Takers in the Political Season | A conversation with Rana Foroohar
Mar 20, 2016
The Institute for New Economic Thinking hosts an exclusive luncheon and conversation with Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute and Reuters columnist, and Rana Foroohar, TIME Assistant Managing Editor and Economic Columnist, and Global Economic Correspondent at CNN.
-
Article
Refugees and The Economy: Lessons from History
Mar 16, 2016
What can we learn from the Vietnamese, Cuban, Rwandan, and Syrian refugees crisis?
-
Video
Wealth Inequality in the US and Beyond
Mar 15, 2016
It’s no secret that wealth inequality has grown, both in the US and abroad over the past several decades. What has been particularly notable about the work of Emmanuel Saez is the quantification of that inequality.
-
Article
Liquidity Trap & Excessive Leverage
Mar 11, 2016
How excessive debt hurts the economy and why to curb it.
-
Article
Marcello de Cecco (1939-2016)
Mar 10, 2016
Paying tribute to one of the world’s most distinguished economic historians.
-
Article
New Report on Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Raises Serious Concerns about Corporate Misalignment
Mar 9, 2016
The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society’s report analyzes the Trans-Pacific Partnership and examines the widespread global implications in the event of its passage.
-
Article
Different Models, Different Politics
Mar 9, 2016
Gerald Friedman responds to the Romers on the Sanders Plan.
-
Article
Politics & Economics Don't Mix
Mar 4, 2016
Jamie Galbraith and I rarely agree. But we agree here.
-
Article
Three Questions with Matthew Desmond
Mar 3, 2016
HCEO’s new three-question series will regularly publish quick Q&As with members who will discuss their work, frontiers in the field of inequality that could use more knowledge, and advice for emerging scholars.
-
Article
Economic Forecasting Models & Sanders Program Controversy
Feb 26, 2016
The Romer/Romer letter to Professor Gerald Friedman marks a turning point. It concedes that there are indeed important issues at stake when evaluating the proposed economic policies of Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders. These issues go beyond the political debate and should be discussed seriously between and among professional economists.
-
Research Program News
James Heckman honored for his research on poverty
Feb 23, 2016
Nobel laureate James Heckman is one of this year’s recipients of the Dan David Prize, an international honor which encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research, for his scholarship on poverty.
-
Video
The Economics of Care
Feb 23, 2016
Nancy Folbre is an American feminist economist who focuses on economics and the family, non-market work and the economics of care. She is Professor Emirita of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who has written extensively about the economics of care and reciprocity.
-
Article
Confusion Is No Response to Economic Orthodoxy
Feb 22, 2016
Servaas Storm has conviction, yet his analysis throws the baby out with the bathwater.
-
Article
What is Missing in Flassbeck & Lapavitsas
Feb 22, 2016
More on substance, coherence, and relevance in the Eurozone debate.
-
Article
The China Delusion
Feb 18, 2016
The current bout of exchange rate anxiety is really just a symptom of the fact that China’s transition from an export-led growth strategy to one propelled by domestic consumption is proceeding far less smoothly than hoped.
-
Video
Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crisis
Feb 16, 2016
Exploring the genesis of an important work, one that critiques mainstream neoclassical economics and offers an alternative framework for understanding modern economies.
-
Video
The Fundamental Design Flaw of the Eurozone
Feb 9, 2016
From the very start, the European Monetary Union (EMU) was set up to fail.
-
Article
Professional Expertise or Politics Driving Economists’ View of Hillary and Bernie?
Feb 9, 2016
Bullet-point financial reform proposals are either too simple or too vague.
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesComments on Paul Davidson’s “Full Employment, Open Economy Macroeconomics, and Keynes’ General Theory: Does the Swan Diagram Suffice?”
Feb 2016
This is a response to a critique by Paul Davidson of our 2013 book Keynes: Useful Economics for the World Economy and related work, where we describe, amongst other things, how the Swan diagram can be used to show how economies can use policy tools to achieve internal and external balance.
-
Working Paper
Working Paper SeriesFull Employment, Open Economy Macroeconomics, and Keynes’ General Theory: Does the Swan Diagram Suffice?
Feb 2016
This paper provides critical comments on the Peter Temin - David Vines promotion of the basic Swan Diagram as (1) a policy tool to encourage any individual debtor nation experiencing balance of payment deficits to reduce its exchange rate in order to expand exports and reduce imports and (2) the Swan Diagram as a simple model for understanding Keynes’s General Theory for an Open Economy.
-
Video
Globalized Finance and the Crisis of 2008
Feb 2, 2016
The world economy is just starting to recover from the most disastrous episode in the history of financial globalisation. Understanding what happened is essential.