Blog

The 2016 Minsky conference will be held here at Blithewood mansion, home of the Levy Institute. Barney Frank will be among the keynote speakers: Will the Global Economic Environment Constrain US Growth and Employment? Organized by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College with support from the Ford Foundation Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Blithewood Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504 April 12–13, 2016 The 2016 Minsky Conference will address whether what appears to be a global economic slowdown will jeopardize the implementation and efficiency of Dodd-Frank regulatory reforms, the transition of monetary policy away from zero interest rates, and the “new” normal of fiscal policy, as well as the use of fiscal policies aimed at achieving sustainable growth and full employment. Participants

“Hyman Minsky is the most important economist since Keynes, yet it’s virtually impossible to find any books about him.” That’s from Michael Pettis’s blurb for Randy Wray’s new book Why Minsky Matters, which is now shipping: Hyman Minsky’s name has appeared in the popular press a lot more since the financial crisis, but often without much more elaboration of his ideas than a paragraph noting (to the bewilderment of non-economists) that his economic research stands out because of the way in which it takes into account the significance of the financial sector and the possibility of financial crises. And as Wray points out, reading Minsky can be a challenge (though one you won’t regret embracing: you can browse through the digital archive of his papers here). This book is a guided tour of Minsky’s work, covering everything from his views on the inherent instability of the financial dynamics of capitalism to his work on poverty and full employment policies. The book’s introduction is available for download (pdf), and Arnold Kling (who declares himself “not completely converted”) just posted a nice review.

Dimitri Papadimitriou and new Levy Institute Research Associate Emilios Avgouleas write about one of the obstacles to recovery of the Greek economy: the absence of credit expansion in connection with still-troubled Greek banks. Beyond deposit flight and the ongoing recession, Papadimitriou and Avgouleas argue that the botched recapitalization of Greek banks can also be blamed for the failure to alleviate this liquidity crunch. As the next round approaches, they warn that past recapitalization efforts did not follow internationally-tested best practices: The decision by creditors to allow the old, now minority, shareholders and incumbent management to retain effective control of Greek banks is highly questionable. This rather unusual governance approach in a post-rescue period meant that the Greek banking system did not benefit from any cleanup efforts, especially in light of the interlocking and privileged relationships some bankers enjoy with Greek political, media, and economic interests. In addition, they stress that effective recapitalization requires some attempt to restructure loan portfolios: an attempt to deal with the significant — and still growing — share of loans falling into the “nonperforming” category (NPLs). This chart showing the growth of NPLs (from a strategic analysis by Papadimitriou, Michalis Nikiforos, and Gennaro Zezza), gives you a sense of the debt-deflation trap in which Greece is stuck: In order to clear the way for Greek banks to return to making loans, Avgouleas and Papadimitriou propose the creation of a “bad bank” that would take on the NPLs,… Read More

Jan Kregel, the Levy Institute’s director of research, was recently interviewed by the Buenos Aires Herald regarding Argentina’s economic prospects and its ongoing situation with the “vulture funds.” On Argentina’s policy challenges: So there are no alternatives to devaluation? Argentina has one net advantage. As a result of the vulture funds it’s relatively insulated from the global crisis. Now it has a decision to make on how it is going to respond. China and Brazil didn’t have a choice but Argentina does. There has to be an exchange rate adjustment and it will be difficult because everybody else is doing the same thing. You can do it on a gradual basis but you would be doing it in a non-gradual context, taking the real as an example. The government claims that a devaluation isn’t necessary and can be replaced by a larger consumption thanks to counter cyclical measures. Do you agree? If you continue to go counter-current, that means the exchange rate will remain low. The country has a big opportunity to do import substitution due to the global context. Now is the moment to support domestic industry. The question is if you do that by increasing consumption or by more direct policies to stimulate manufacturing industries. You should first do the second, that will then boost consumption. Argentina saw huge economic growth in… Read More

by Felipe Rezende Introduction The creation of new sources of financing and funding are at the center of discussions to promote real capital development in Brazil. It has been suggested that access to capital markets and long-term investors are a possible solution to the dilemma faced by Brazil’s increasing financing requirements (such as infrastructure investment and mortgage lending needs) and the limited access to long-term funding in the country. Policy initiatives were implemented aimed at the development of long-term financing to lengthen the maturity of fixed income instruments (Rezende 2015a). Though average maturity has lengthened over the past 10 years and credit has soared, banks’ credit portfolios still concentrate on short maturities (with the exception of the state-owned banks including Caixa Economica Federal [CEF] and the Brazilian Development Bank [BNDES]). While there was widespread agreement that public banks, and BNDES in particular, played an important stabilizing role to deal with the consequences of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, there is, however, less agreement on BNDES’ current role (de Bolle). BNDES has been subject to a range of criticisms, such as crowding out private sector bank lending, and it is said to be hampering the development of the local capital market (Rezende 2015). It is commonly believed that “development banks and other institutions in Latin America tend to replace markets rather… Read More

by Felipe Rezende In previous posts (see here and here), I discussed Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgrade of Brazil’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating to junk status, that is, to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘, and its decision to downgrade Brazil’s local currency debt to a single notch above “junk” status. S&P hosted a conference call on Monday morning to explain its downgrade of Brazil’s credit rating (you can view the video webcast replay here). During the conference call I had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions.  My first question, to S&P analyst Lisa Schineller, at around the 41:53 minute mark, was the following: Question: “Are there solvency risks associated with Brazil’s local currency debt? Brazil issues its own currency.” [Lisa Schineller]: “We would not say there are solvency risks, we rate, for both local currency and foreign currency, our ratings are continuum. Yes, we lowered both ratings, we are by no means thinking about a solvency issue here and risks there. There is less policy flexibility at hand, these ratings for the local currency BBB- is still in the investment grade category and the foreign currency is at the high end of the speculative grade category. I think this is an important point to highlight. There is this increase in the stress in the economy, in the policy… Read More

by Felipe Rezende So S&P has downgraded Brazil’s rating on long-term foreign currency debt to junk and lowered its long-term local currency sovereign credit rating to ‘BBB-‘ from ‘BBB+’. First, what are sovereign debt ratings? Standard & Poor’s sovereign rating is defined as follows: A current opinion of the creditworthiness of a sovereign government, where creditworthiness encompasses likelihood of default and credit stability (and in some cases recovery). So the ratings are related to “a sovereign’s ability and willingness to service financial obligations to nonofficial (commercial) creditors.” What does this tell us? To begin with, credit rating agencies have repeatedly been wrong. The same agencies that rated Enron investment grade just weeks before it went bust, the same people that assigned triple-A rating to toxic subprime mortgage-backed securities are now downgrading Brazil’s sovereign debt. As the FCIC report pointed out, “The three credit rating agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown. The mortgage-related securities at the heart of the crisis could not have been marketed and sold without their seal of approval.” (FCIC 2011) After all, should you take the credit rating agencies seriously? The answer is no. Brazil is a net external creditor, that is, though the federal government has debt denominated in foreign currency, it holds more foreign currency assets (figure 1) than it owes in foreign… Read More

The Levy Economics Institute Master of Science in Economic Theory and Policy is a two-year degree program that emphasizes theoretical and empirical aspects of economic policy analysis through specialization in one of five key research areas: macroeconomic theory, policy, and modeling; monetary policy and financial structure; distribution of income, wealth, and well-being; gender equality and time poverty; and employment and labor markets. Headed by Levy Institute Research Director Jan Kregel, the MS program draws on the expertise of Institute scholars as well as selected Bard faculty. Application deadlines for Fall 2016 are November 15 for Early Decision and January 15 for Regular Decision. Scholarships are available. For more information, visit the Levy MS website; to apply, go to connect.bard.edu/apply. The Levy Institute welcomes two new senior scholars, both of whom have also joined the faculty of the Levy MS program: Senior Scholar Fernando J. Cardim de Carvalho is emeritus professor of economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He has worked as a consultant to the Central Bank of Brazil and the Brazilian National Bank for Economic and Social Development, among other institutions, and is the author, most recently, of Liquidity Preference and Monetary Economies. Senior Scholar John F. Henry is professor emeritus, California State University, Sacramento, where he taught economics from 1970 to 2004. He also lectures at… Read More

The Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity is holding its inaugural conference — Provisioning and Prosperity: Sustainable Full Employment and Transformational Technologies  — October 2nd-3rd at Denison University. For those who cannot attend, the event will be livestreamed (and questions can be posed via Facebook and Twitter @BinzagrInfo). More information on registration and conference themes can be found here. See below for the list of speakers: Jan Kregel*, Advisory Board Member, Binzagr Institute William A. Darity, Jr.*, Professor of Economics, Duke University Stephanie Kelton*, Chief Economist, U.S. Senate Budget Committee Julianne Malveaux*, Advisory Board Member, Binzagr Institute L. Randall Wray, Professor of Economics, University of Missouri – Kansas City Mathew Forstater, Research Director, Binzagr Institute Fadhel Kaboub, President, Binzagr Institute Ahmed Soliman, Research Scholar, Binzagr Institute Scott Fullwiler, Research Scholar, Binzagr Institute Pavlina Tcherneva, Research Scholar, Binzagr Institute Ellen Brown, Research Scholar, Binzagr Institute R. Paul Herman, Founder and CEO, HIP Investor Robert W. Parenteau, Research Fellow, Binzagr Institute Elsadig Elsheikh, Director, Global Justice Program: Haas Institute (UC-Berkeley) Marco Vangelisti, Research Fellow, Binzagr Institute Raúl Carrillo, Research Fellow, Binzagr Institute Shama Azad, Research Fellow, Binzagr Institute Natalie Brown, Research Assistant, Binzagr Institute Aqdas Afzal, Research Assistant, Binzagr Institute * invited (to be confirmed)

At last, the eurozone economy appears to be experiencing some kind of recovery. GDP started growing again in the spring of 2013, following seven quarters of decline, with domestic demand shrinking for even nine consecutive quarters between 2011 and 2013. Today, it is conceivable that within a year or so the eurozone might recoup its pre-crisis level of GDP, perhaps marking the end of a “lost decade.” But it is too soon to declare victory and become complacent. The eurozone remains fragile and the recovery uneven. Having primarily relied on export demand for its meagre growth since 2010, developments in China and elsewhere in the emerging world are posing an acute threat. More recently home-grown demand benefited from peculiar tailwinds that are temporary in nature. It is unclear at this point whether these forces will merge into a stronger self-sustaining recovery, while the likelihood of renewed and spreading political instability along the way keeps rising. It seems unwise, in fact hazardous, not to have a plan B ready at hand should growth falter once again. Figure 1 shows index values for GDP, gross capital formation, final consumption, exports, and imports, all relative to their respective levels in the first quarter of 2008. Remarkably, only exports have seen some real recovery. Gross capital formation, on the other hand, remains stuck at… Read More

The second edition of L. Randall Wray’s Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems, an updated and expanded version with new chapters on tax policy and inflation, is now available for order and will be released September 23rd: “This book synthesizes the key principles of Modern Money Theory, exploring macro accounting, monetary and fiscal policy, currency regimes and exchange rates in developed and developing nations. Randall Wray addresses the pressing issue of how misunderstandings about the nature of money have caused the current global financial meltdown, and provides fresh ideas about how policymakers around the world should address the continued weaknesses in their economies.”

Harry Frankfurt, whose formal concept of “bullshit” is indispensable to both professional and everyday life, recently published an article for Bloomberg View arguing that (1) economic (income and wealth) inequality is, in and of itself, morally insignificant and (2) “egalitarianism” (being concerned about economic inequality in and of itself) is harmful. The article is an excerpt from a book he has coming out at the end of the month. According to Frankfurt, egalitarianism is loosely based on the belief that “the possession by some of more money than others is morally offensive.” This belief is false, he says, and it leads us astray. Frankfurt suspects that what most of us are really — and justifiably, in his view — reacting to when we express moral reservations about inequality is the potentially abject condition of those lower down the income distribution; not simply because there are others who have more, but rather if those in the lower income or wealth percentiles do not have enough resources to achieve some substantive standard of well-being (“not a relative quantitative discrepancy but an absolute qualitative deficiency”). In other words, it is poverty, or, more broadly, the condition of not having “enough,” that is morally significant, rather than monetary inequality per se: “Mere differences in the amounts of money people have are not in themselves distressing. We tend to be quite unmoved, after all, by inequalities between those who are very… Read More