Archive
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News
MIT News features Baron and Verner’s INET funded research into banking crises
Feb 8, 2021
“Panics are not needed for banking crises to have severe economic consequences,” says Emil Verner, the MIT professor who helped lead the study. “But when panics do occur, those tend to be the most severe episodes. Panics are an important amplification mechanism for banking crises, but not a necessary condition.” Indeed, in an ambitious piece of research, spanning 46 countries and going back to 1870, the study surveys banking crises that occurred with and without panics. When there is a panic and bank run, the research finds, a 30 percent decline in banking-sector equity predicts a 3.4 percent drop in real GDP (gross domestic product adjusted for inflation) after three years. But even without any creditor panic, a 30 percent decline in bank equity predicts a 2.7 percent drop in real GDP after three years.” — Peter Dizikes, MIT News
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News
Rob Johnson s quoted in Jacobin on why cable networks are hostile toward Medicare for All
Feb 8, 2021
“Consider the following point made by Institute for New Economic Thinking executive director Rob Johnson during a recent interview when asked about Medicare for All: “Public opinion polls show more than 70 percent of the population is in favor of Medicare for All. It’s not the population that doesn’t want it, and they’re the ultimate voters. It’s vested interests and the struggle that has to do with the relationship between money-raising campaign war chests and the probability of re-election and what you might call the refractory influence of the mainstream media, where pharmaceutical companies in particular and insurance companies as well are very big advertisers.” — Luke Savage, Jacobin
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Article
Mainstream Economists Have Been Using a Misleading Inflation Model for 60 Years
Feb 8, 2021
Comment on Paul Krugman’s recent observations on US inflation
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Article
Epidemic of Despair Could Haunt America Long After COVID
Feb 3, 2021
Researchers worry the pandemic may have severe after-effects, with deaths of despair impacting more distressed and newly-vulnerable populations
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Video
Black Women's 'Double Gap' in Wages
Feb 3, 2021
Black women are forfeiting $50 billion/year in the US due to the combined gender and racial wage gap.
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Collection
Economics Has A Race Problem
Traditional economics, like the ethos of the “American Dream,” tells us that our individual talents and efforts determine whether or not we succeed in life. Yet, an overwhelming body of evidence shows that people of color have been denied the same opportunities to succeed in America. Race is not only a defining feature of social identity and an arbiter of access to power and privilege; for far too many Americans, race - a social construction - is a fundamental determinant of their economic destiny.
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Article
The Future of Macroeconomics
Feb 1, 2021
Developments in the real economy have persistently challenged central tenets of older economic thinking, such as the supposed close connection between the money supply and inflation.
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Video
Prison for the Poor
Jan 27, 2021
Rethinking Crime and Inequality with Stratification Economics
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News
Lazonick and Shin's INET funded research is cited in Naked Capitalism
Jan 26, 2021
“In taking over industrial companies, financial managers focus on the short run, because their salary and bonuses are based on current year’s performance. The “performance” in question is stock market performance. Stock prices have largely become independent from sales volume and profits, now that they are enhanced by corporations typically paying out some 92 percent of their revenue in dividends and stock buybacks.[6]” — Michael Hudson, Naked Capitalism [6]William Lazonick, “Profits Without Prosperity:Stock Buybacks Manipulate the Market and Leave Most Americans Worse Off,”Harvard Business Review, September 2014. And more recently, Lazonick and Jang-Sup Shin, Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the U.S. Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored(Oxford: 2020).
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Webinars and Events
The Future of Work | Economic and Social Policies for the Digital Era
Webinarmoderated by Steve Clemons with Dani Rodrik, Pavlina Tcherneva and Laura Tyson
Jan 26, 2021
Given the mounting need to create good jobs, effect structural change, and transform the economy, what should policy priorities be in the digital era? Is there a role for industrial policy? What new policy options do we need to achieve inclusive prosperity?
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Article
Inflation, Import Prices, and the Labor Share
Jan 25, 2021
The Challenge to Bidenomics
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News
Antonella Stirati’s INET funded book in Sinistrainrete
Jan 25, 2021
“in addition to the author’s interpretations, there will also be a considerable list of texts and contributions that can be useful for approaching and deepening the economic debate and the developments of the alternative and post-Keynesian theoretical approach, even in its various currents. . The not obvious presence in the public debate of these topics makes the book an important reading in order to interpret the recent economic history of our country starting from the questions that the crisis triggered by the outbreak of the pandemic and the recipes prepared by the European and national institutions pose us. , of which however no shadow is seen in political decisions, having an interpretative key that escapes the mainstream logic is, even more so in this context, of crucial importance.” — Davide Romaniello, Sinistrainrete
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News
Noam Chomsky discusses INET research into money and politics on Jacobin
Jan 25, 2021
“One place to look always is where’s the money? Who funds congress? Actually, there’s a very fine careful study of this by the leading scholar who deals with funding issues in politics, Thomas Ferguson. He and his colleagues did a study about a year ago a careful study in which they investigated a simple question, “what’s the correlation over the years many years between campaign funding and electability to congress?” It’s almost a straight line, it’s the kind of close correlation that you barely get in the social sciences. The greater the funding, the higher the electability. You can find a few cases here and there that aren’t right on the line, but from the standpoint of social science it’s a remarkable correlation.” — Noam Chomsky, Jacobin
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News
Arjun Jayadev appeared on Bloomberg to discuss the 2021 budget and widening inequality in India
Jan 25, 2021
“What I’d really like to see going forward is some sort of vision which is inclusive and forward-looking in the medium and long term about all these kinds of aspects welfare; health, education, environment. In the past, we’ve had a situation when we’ve looked at other countries which have made this transition to more advanced economies. They have always had some element of industrial policy thinking through how they actually going to shift their populations from low-productivity to high-productivity. Currently, I think we’re doing things with a hope and a prayer. Our growth models have fizzled out so far. What we’re looking for is something in the next three to five years which will be aimed at re-opening new markets, more inclusion, and really ensuring the wealth of a much much larger fraction of the population than we are currently doing.” — Arjun Jayadev, Bloomberg “Jayadev, a professor of economics at Azim Premji University, said India has returned home this year after decades of failure in providing access to quality health care for a large part of the population. If there is a silver lining, then the crisis will give the country a chance to “build better,” in the words of Jaydev. This includes at least three elements – an environment that is closely linked to health outcomes, with a medium-term plan to keep health and education spending at a consistently high level. – aimed at improving the quality of the environment and, finally, committed to support. one-third of these elements are something similar to a city employment program. The budget could also help immediately by universalizing the PDS and supporting revenues through direct remittances, Jayadev said. “Overall, short-term relief and long-term structural focus will help transition to a more inclusive and vital growth strategy that is missing in the current vision.” — Pallavi Nahata, Bloomberg
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News
Storm’s INET funded research is discussed in Naked Capitalism
Jan 25, 2021
“One of the main reasons Italy’s economy is in such dire straits is its strict adherence to the EMU’s macroeconomic rule book — in particular the rules on fiscal austerity and structural reforms — as Dutch economist Servaas Storm painstakingly details in his article ‘Italy: How to Ruin a Country in Three Decades’” — Nick Corbishley, Naked Capitalism