Archive
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Article
Disaggregate, disaggregate!
Aug 21, 2011
Last June at a History of Social Science workshop , David Engerman presented a paper on the Harvard’s Refugee Interview Project (1950-1954).
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Article
Warren J. Samuels (1933-2011)
Aug 18, 2011
On this blog, we like to overstate quite a bit our irreverence towards the establishment and in particular our senior colleagues.
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Video
The Coase Theorem As Fiction
Aug 17, 2011
When externalities are present and transaction costs are absent, private parties will strike welfare-enhancing deals regardless of who owns what. In a frictionless world, bargaining leads to efficiency. That is the essence of the Coase Theorem, and it is fiction, according to Steven Medema.
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Article
Professors share their experience with teaching intro economics
Aug 17, 2011
In response to the walkout staged by students in the intro economics class at Harvard, the Institute launched the syllabus project, 30 Ways to Teach Economics.
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Video
Financial Fragility in a Network of Trade Credit
Aug 16, 2011
The physicist Sorin Solomon begins to feel dizzy when the economist Leanne Ussher talks econ lingo. Yet he listens, because the two of them have found a productive area of collaboration: some economic phenomena, they find, can be explained without recourse to the quirks that feed into human decision making.
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Video
Why Is There a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics?
Aug 16, 2011
The Nobel Memorial Prize defines high achievement in economics, and it validates the discipline’s claim for scientific authority. And yet, historically, it can be understood as a reflection of domestic policy conflicts in Sweden.
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Video
Banks: How Big Is too Big?
Aug 15, 2011
We all know it: The financial sector is bloated and banks are too big to fail. But just how bloated is it, and how much should it be shrunk?
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Video
How to Avoid Herding in Research
Aug 15, 2011
An individual fish reduces the danger to itself by swimming as close as possible to the center of the school. That is how schools hold together.
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Article
The long - and tedious - road to rankings
Aug 15, 2011
To celebrate its 100 years of publishing, the AER published a special issues, whose retrospective part consisted of a list of the 20 most important articles, assembled by a committee which included Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow, and an essay on the history of the AER by Robert A. Margo.
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Video
What Finance (and Economics) Can Learn from Law
Aug 14, 2011
Without law and legal institutions, financial markets won’t work. That’s what economists discovered about 15 years ago, when former socialist countries turned towards capitalism.
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Article
Of the difference between the historian and the filmmaker
Aug 12, 2011
Months ago, I got a message from a friend that was a swift and excited line: Errol Morris was writing a series of posts about science, even more remarkable about Thomas Kuhn.
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Article
Copper standard
Aug 9, 2011
I am late to the party on the inventive use of copper by Chinese companies seeking alternative sources of funds.
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Article
Okay, leadership, but by whom?
Aug 5, 2011
And heading where?
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Article
Haircuts and Instability
Aug 2, 2011
Updating Hawtrey for the Shadow Banking System
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Article
Economics and Politics
Aug 2, 2011
Economics and politics go hand in hand, we all know that.
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News
INET and CIGI are Now Accepting Research Proposals for the Fall 2011 Grant Program
Aug 1, 2011
The Institute for New Economic Thinking and The Centre for International Governance Innovation are calling for new research proposals in areas of vital importance to the field of economics for the Fall 2011 grants cycle.
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Article
Moral Hazard in Congress
Jul 28, 2011
Fed to the Rescue?
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Article
When $3 trillion is not enough
Jul 26, 2011
I interviewed Victor Shih, political scientist at Northwestern, at INET’s Bretton Woods conference earlier this year.
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Video
Paul Samuelson and the Neoclassical Synthesis
Jul 24, 2011
Paul Samuelson was both a mathematical micro-economist, working from theorem to proof in the neoclassical tradition, and a committed Keynesian macroeconomist, convinced of the necessity of policy intervention to improve the performance of market economies. How did he square these two sides of himself? Wade Hands goes into the archives to find out.
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Video
When Banks Fail, the Case of Japan
Jul 24, 2011
What happens to Main Street when Wall Street fails? Japan expert David Weinstein squeezes a unique data set to answer this question.
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Article
Who does original research?
Jul 23, 2011
INET is all about thinking new things, and indeed academia is supposed to inspire great thoughts.
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Article
Refinance Euro-style
Jul 21, 2011
Grand Bargain at last?
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Video
Modeling Asset Markets when Knowledge is Ambiguous
Jul 19, 2011
When you flip a coin, you expect heads and tails to show up with a 50% chance each. But what if all you knew was that heads and tails each have a chance of at least 25%? That’s how Scott Condie captures Knightian uncertainty in asset markets.
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Article
Paul Samuelson, Women and the History of Economics (Part 2)
Jul 19, 2011
As part of the tremendous promotion campaign for the 8th edition of his textbook Economics, Samuelson was devoted a feature in the New York Times (February 5, 1970, p. 41).
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Article
Paul Samuelson, Women and the History of Economics (Part 1)
Jul 19, 2011
Paul Samuelson was notorious for many things, but also, like Marshall, for spending most of his academic life in the same institution.
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Video
Financing Innovation or Speculation, the Case of Cleveland
Jul 18, 2011
Did you know that, around 1920, Cleveland, Ohio, had a technological cutting edge not unlike Silicon Valley today? You probably didn’t. Margaret Levenstein tells the story.
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Article
Deficits and Money
Jul 18, 2011
Alchemy or Banking?
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Video
How Economists Used to Be Made
Jul 17, 2011
Economists aren’t born, they’re made. Irwin Collier digs into archives to find out how Paul Samuelson and his generation were made.
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Article
Wanted to buy: $2T in safe assets
Jul 16, 2011
Two FT pieces by Tracy Alloway caught my eye this week: this article from Tuesday’s print edition, and this post on Alphaville today.
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Article
When the US last defaulted...
Jul 14, 2011
Two things seem to be taken for granted in the current debt-ceiling debate: 1. The parties will come to an agreement on the debt ceiling because 2. These United States have never defaulted and will not start now.
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Article
The government and the market
Jul 11, 2011
Mention the government and the market and all academic reflection and civilized discussion dissolves into heated monologues. Politicians are an extreme case.
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News
INET and CIGI Award Spring 2011 Grants
Jul 11, 2011
INET and CIGI Award Spring 2011 Grants: The grants offer a diversity of approaches and global perspectives that target critical issues that have been neglected by conventional economic analysis.
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Video
Why Economics Needs History
Jul 10, 2011
What challenges will China have to surmount in order to make its currency a true international currency?
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Article
Ron Paul's Modest Proposal
Jul 8, 2011
A Monetary Rorschach Test
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Video
How Investors Use Stories to Tame Uncertainty
Jul 4, 2011
If you want to understand how fund managers choose a portfolio, why not ask them?
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Article
A PBoC balance sheet primer
Jul 4, 2011
Last time, I looked at the Chinese property market. The last link in that chain of financial interlinkages is the People’s Bank of China, the Chinese central bank.
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Article
Introducing the Jazz economist
Jul 3, 2011
You would have thought that to be a “jazz economist” was a good thing. I first imagined a “cool cat” that would entrance the hearts and minds of the populace. Not so.
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Article
HES 2011, Paul Samuelson and the Beatles
Jun 30, 2011
So, how hard is it to write the history of exceptional figures? Shall we buy film cameras?
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Video
Why Economics Needs the History of Thought
Jun 29, 2011
Who is going to teach fields like economic methodology and the history of economic thought if these fields aren’t taught to current graduate students?
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News
Check out the New Book “Capitalism 4.0” by Anatole Kaletsky
Jun 27, 2011
Anatole Kaletsky explains the recent global crisis in sweeping historical context, and points out the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity now opening up to economists - particularly the younger generation.
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Article
Can It Happen Again?
Jun 26, 2011
The view from BIS
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Article
Disdain or paranoia for historians of economics?
Jun 26, 2011
The organizers of Duke’s Summer Institute on the history of economics were so worried that students might be embarrassed to ask their supervisors for a letter of recommendation, or that the supervisors would say it’s a waste of time to study history, so they took a last minute decision to cancel the need for a letter of recommendation.
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Article
Was Adam Smith a communist?
Jun 22, 2011
In his two-tome, 1400 page Dutch Leerboek der Staathuishoudkunde (Textbook of Economics), first published in 1884, Nicolaas Pierson (1839 - 1909) accuses the great Scotsman of being a communist – or at least of consciously clearing the way for the socialists with their ideal of a communist society.
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Article
Brinkmanship or Statesmanship?
Jun 21, 2011
The Political Economy of Debt
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Article
Shocks
Jun 21, 2011
The financial and economic crises started by the fall of Lehman Borthers came as a big shock, a financial shock, an economic shock, a psychological shock, and a political shock among others.
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Article
A Cold Case
Jun 20, 2011
Some time ago, my colleague and dear friend (nevertheless!) Loïc Charles wrote on the previous version of the Playground, a very nice and intriguing post on Samuelson’s introductory textbook, Economics, and TV Series.
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Article
Are banks firms? (continued)
Jun 15, 2011
Liquidity versus Solvency
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Video
Microfoundations for the Vision of Minsky
Jun 12, 2011
Delli Gatti starts where his dissertation advisor, Hyman Minsky, left off.
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Article
Are banks firms?
Jun 11, 2011
New Thinking about Modigliani-Miller
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Article
Chinese property: a money view
Jun 9, 2011
The Chinese property market may finally be boiling over; there are certainly enough signs that the bubble is ready to burst.
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Article
Kansas City-style Financial Reform
Jun 4, 2011
A New Glass-Steagall?
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Article
Single-tranche open market operations: there's a bigger picture
May 30, 2011
We continue to learn about what the Fed did during the crisis.
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Article
International money, take 1
May 24, 2011
As a matter of accounting, if the U.S. as a whole buys from the rest of the world more than it sells to the rest of the world, then it must, on net, also be borrowing from the rest of the world. Perry has previously put this into a money-view context.
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Article
New Economic Thinking on Greece
May 21, 2011
Bailout, Default, or Plan C
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Article
The New Lombard Street
May 18, 2011
Further Thoughts
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Article
In the Crosshairs
May 14, 2011
Sense about Social Security
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Article
Shadow money, still contracting
May 10, 2011
These days, one hears worries of impending inflation.
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Article
Mr. Market's Rorschach Test
May 7, 2011
Currencies or Commodities?
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Article
The New Fed and the Real World
May 6, 2011
Breaking the Silence
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Article
These Things Take Time
May 3, 2011
Last week, I spent a few days in the Dalton-Brand Research Room, at Duke University, skimming through the Samuelson papers.
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Article
Regulating the Shadow Banking System, Part Two
Apr 30, 2011
Learning How to Swap
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Article
Desperately seeking collateral
Apr 27, 2011
The Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) was one of the bigger (in dollar terms) emergency programs implemented by the Fed during the crisis of 2008.
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Video
Perry Mehrling: The New Lombard Street
Apr 26, 2011
An Interview with the Author of “The New Lombard Street: How the Fed Became the Dealer of Last Resort”
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Article
In the Archives
Apr 26, 2011
Taking a quick break from my work in the Samuelson archives – so fascinating, believe me! – I can’t resist sharing the following, which I found in his correspondence files.
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Article
Exit Strategy, or New Normal
Apr 23, 2011
War Reparations, or Prosperity
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Article
Pop Archives
Apr 20, 2011
I was just amused with two projects by Shaun Usher: to “gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos” in his blog Letters of Note, and to present interesting letterheads in his Letterheadyblog.
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Article
Inside Economics
Apr 18, 2011
Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job forces us to fundamentally rethink the connections between economics and policy making.
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Article
After QE2, what then?
Apr 17, 2011
And what was QE about anyway?
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News
Tom Ferguson and Rob Johnson on Debt, Growth, and Austerity
Apr 17, 2011
Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession
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Article
INET and reforming economic education: can history help?
Apr 13, 2011
One INET project is to “reconnect the teaching of economics with the working of the actual economy,” which is to begin with a reform of the undergraduate curriculum.
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Article
TSLF and the price of good collateral
Apr 13, 2011
In my last post I argued that if we want a Fed that is ready for the next crisis, we had better understand what happened to it during the last one.
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Article
Upon leaving Mount Washington
Apr 13, 2011
The place invites poetry. By the way, all sessions can be viewed from the website – check out in particular the last session featuring Gillian Tett of the Financial Times moderating a discussion between Paul Volcker and George Soros
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Article
A new K-hero
Apr 12, 2011
I was not in Bretton Woods this week. I followed the event through the videos posted on the INET website and the exhilarating and exhausting experience of Benjamin, Floris and Tiago.
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Article
When my heart skipped a beat
Apr 10, 2011
I am writing a paper about an economist that was at the Treasury in the second half of the 1950s and 1960s.
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Article
Who’s the INETiest of them all?
Apr 10, 2011
There are a lot of universities represented here, but who are the most likely candidates for participation and who might one expect INET to be interested in?
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Working Paper
Conference paperA Tale of Two Trilemmas
Apr 2011
In a classic book and subsequent articles, Obstfeld and Taylor (2004) have shown how the broad contours of international financial history over the past century and a half can be well understood by appealing to the famous economictrilemma which emerges from the standard Mundell-Fleming model many of us still teach our undergraduates.
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Working Paper
Conference paperA Comprehensive Approach to the Euro-Area Debt Crisis
Apr 2011
The euro area’s sovereign debt crisis continues though significant steps have been taken to resolve it.
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Conference Session
Optimal Currency Areas and Governance: The Challenge of Europe
Apr 9, 2011 | 09:30—11:30
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Conference Session
Rising to the Challenge: Equity, Adjustment and Balance in the World Economy
Apr 9, 2011 | 01:50—03:20
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Conference Session
A Conversation with Paul Volcker and George Soros
Apr 9, 2011 | 04:00—06:00
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Working Paper
Conference paperOptimal Currency Areas and Governance: The Challenge of Europe
Apr 2011
In preparing this paper I have decided not to embark upon the decades-old issue of optimal-currency areas and governance as such. I assume that one of my colleagues on the panel will do that. Instead I will present an historical case of over-indebtedness of parts of a common-currency area somewhat similar to the present challenge of Europe, or rather of the Euro area with its common currency.
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Working Paper
Conference paperThe Innovative Enterprise and the Developmental State: Toward an Economics of “Organizational Success”
Apr 2011
Investment in productive capabilities provides the foundation for economic growth.
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Working Paper
Conference paperGreen, Fair and Productive: How the 2012 Rio Conference can move the world towards a sustainable economy
Apr 2011
Our shared concern – 20 years after Rio, yet poor progress towards wellbeing
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Working Paper
Conference paperGlobalization and Scarcity: Multilateralism for a world with limits
Apr 2011
Globalization has improved the living standards of hundreds of millions of people – but growing resource scarcity means it risks becoming a victim of its own success.
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Working Paper
Conference paperRethinking Growth and the State
Apr 2011
Government intervention is often perceived as a constraint on market forces and thereby on economic growth.
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Working Paper
Conference paperToward a Sustainable World Economy
Apr 2011
All cultural narratives, worldviews, religious doctrines, political ideologies, and academic paradigms are ‘social constructs.’
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Conference Session
The Market or the State? Can Market Forces Deliver Innovation, Education, and Infrastructure
Apr 9, 2011 | 05:25—07:00
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Conference Session
Sustainable Economics with Introductory Remarks from Jim Balsillie
Apr 9, 2011 | 07:00—09:10
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Working Paper
Conference paperHigh Wealth Concentration, Porous Exchange Control, and Shocks to Relative Return: the Fragile State of China’s Foreign Exchange Reserve
Apr 2011
At a time when China is the favored investment destination in the global market, it seems unlikely that it would ever face capital flight.
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Working Paper
Conference paperLegislators Never Bowl Alone: Big Money, Mass Media, and the Polarization of Congress
Apr 2011
This is a small paper on a big subject: the polarization of American politics since the mid-1970s. In its early stages this process bore more than a passing resemblance to the opening scenes of a Grade B disaster movie: With almost everyone’s attention focused elsewhere, a series of tiny, seemingly insignificant departures from long standing routines took place.
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Working Paper
Conference paperToo Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail
Apr 2011
The theme of this session is very timely and controversial, on the ability of sovereign governments to supervise Large Complex Financial Institutions (LCFIs), now officially described as G-SIFIs, global systemically important financial institutions.
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Working Paper
Conference paperGlobal Imbalances: Past, Present and Future
Apr 2011
After the inception and, hopefully, the passing of the most dangerous phase of the international financial crisis, economists have returned to the long favoured subject of global imbalances.
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Conference Session
The Political Economy of Structural Adjustment: Understanding the Obstacles to Cooperation
Apr 9, 2011 | 03:15—05:10
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Conference Session
Exploring Complexity in Economic Theory
Apr 9, 2011 | 02:00—03:00
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Article
Of history repeating…
Apr 9, 2011
The Bretton Woods conference has a protean character.Talk in the corridors asks “what is it?” Some in the press (lots of press here) believe that deals are being made, the attendance of heavy hitters leads some to believe that consultations and strategies are being outlined for world government (Summers, Stiglitz, Brown, and yesterday Volcker arrived to close the event).
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Article
Interview with Barry Eichengreen, any requests?
Apr 9, 2011
We have been talking and video interviewing people at the conference, and we’ve narrowed down a small list of questions which we try to build on and have so far talked to Kenneth Rogoff, Brad DeLong, Ha-Joon Chang, Stephen Ziliak, Philippe Aghion, Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Barry Eichengreen and tomorrow we start with James Galbraith.
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News
Dissident vs Mainstream Tension at New Economic Thinking Conference
Apr 9, 2011
What is the right way to achieve change?
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Article
Anglo-Saxons versus the Germans
Apr 9, 2011
For one and a half days we had Anglo-Saxons talking finance and financial crisis: Keynesian stimuli, surplus countries bashing, drawing China in, and bullying of the Euro area and in particular Germany’s role in it.
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Working Paper
Conference paperEvolving Economic and Financial Systems in India
Apr 2011
The presentation explains that Indian Economy is basically a market-oriented economy with constant rebalancing between state andmarket.
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Conference Session
The Architecture of Asia: Financial Structure and an Emerging Economic System
Apr 9, 2011 | 11:45—01:35