History
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Externalities and Public Goods: Theory OR Society?
Nov 19, 2015
How much does the standard theory of externalities and public goods really say?
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Working Paper Series
The American Dual Economy: Race, Globalization, and the Politics of Exclusion
Nov 2015
I describe the American economy in the twenty-first century as a dual economy in the spirit of W. Arthur Lewis.
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What Can We Really Know About the Future of Stock Prices?
Nov 17, 2015
A gap between theory and reality has haunted economists.
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Working Paper Series
Inequality, Debt Servicing, and the Sustainability of Steady State Growth
Nov 2015
We investigate the claim that the way in which debtor households service their debts matters for macroeconomic performance.
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The Wesley Clair Mitchell medal : the AEA award that never came to be
Nov 11, 2015
Throughout its first 10 years operation, the John Bates Clark medal was constantly challenged. Many young economists found it biased toward theory, and demanded the establishment of a distinct award for applied work.
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Working Paper Series
Did Quantitative Easing Increase Income Inequality?
Oct 2015
The impact of the post-meltdown Federal Reserve policy of ultra-low interest rates and Quantitative Easing (QE) on income and wealth inequality has become an important policy and political issue.
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Governance in Africa
Oct 29, 2015
A combination of leeway within the government and constitutional immunity during incumbency enables office holders to abuse their budget at will, which in turn creates a crisis of growth in Africa, relative to other parts of the world.
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Working Paper Series
Innovative Enterprise or Sweatshop Economics? In Search of Foundations of Economic Analysis
Oct 2015
By integrating the history of industrial development in Britain and the United States with the ideas of leading economic thinkers, this essay demonstrates the absurdity of perfect competition as the ideal of economic efficiency.
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Working Paper Series
When Credit Bites Back: Leverage, Business Cycles and Crises
Oct 2015
This paper studies the role of credit in the business cycle, with a focus on private credit overhang.
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Working Paper Series
The Cyclically Adjusted Budget: History and Exegesis of a Fateful Estimate
Oct 2015
This paper traces the evolution of the concept of the cyclically adjusted budget from the 1930s to the present.
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Theory vs data, computerization, old wine and new bottles
Oct 24, 2015
In 1953, Oskar Morgenstern proposed to reform the eligibility criterion for fellows of the Econometric Society, in an attempt to foster empirical work.
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Institute Grantee Appointed Central Bank Governor
Oct 20, 2015
The Institute extends its congratulations to Philip Lane, who has been named to succeed Patrick Honohan as the Irish central bank chief, and inherit his role on the council of the ECB.
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Matching the Moment, But Missing the Point?
Oct 19, 2015
This essay critically evaluates the benefits and costs of the dominant methodology in macroeconomics, the DSGE approach. Although the approach has led to great progress in some areas, it has also created biases and blind spots in the profession that hold back our understanding and our ability to govern the macroeconomy. There is great scope for progress in macroeconomics by judiciously pushing the boundaries of some of the methodological restrictions imposed by the DSGE approach.
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What Really Caused the Crisis & What to Do About It
Oct 14, 2015
Adair Turner discusses his new book, Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance.
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Big Finance, Demystified
Oct 8, 2015
John Kay shares findings from his new book, Other People’s Money, and his insights on changing the financial sector.