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1681 publications found
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Working Paper No. 916
October 02, 2018
Unconventional Monetary Policies and Central Bank Profits
AbstractThis study investigates the evolution of central bank profits as fiscal revenue (or: seigniorage) before and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–9, focusing on a select group of central banks—namely the Bank of England, the United States Federal Reserve System, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank, the European Central […]
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Working Paper No. 915
September 19, 2018
Black Employment Trends since the Great Recession
AbstractThe Great Recession had a devastating impact on labor force participation and employment. This impact was not unlike other recessions, except in size. The recovery, however, has been unusual not so much for its sluggishness but for the unusual pattern of recovery in employment by race. The black employment–population ratio has increased since bottoming out […]
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One-Pager No. 57
September 10, 2018
Stagnating Economic Well-Being Amid Rising Government Support
AbstractThe Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) was designed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the changes affecting household living standards. Ajit Zacharias, Thomas Masterson, and Fernando Rios-Avila summarize their latest research on the trends in economic well-being for US households. They reveal historic stagnation in LIMEW growth over the 2000–13 period, as […]
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Working Paper No. 914
September 05, 2018
Quality of Match for Statistical Matches Using the American Time Use Survey 2013, the Survey of Consumer Finances 2013, and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement 2014
AbstractThis paper describes the quality of the statistical matching between the March 2014 supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the 2013 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) and Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which are used as the basis for the 2013 Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) estimates for the United States. […]
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Working Paper No. 913
August 31, 2018
German Economic Dominance within the Eurozone and Minsky’s Proposal for a Shared Burden between the Hegemon and Core Economic Powers
AbstractThere is no disputing Germany’s dominant economic role within the eurozone (EZ) and the broader European Union. Economic leadership, however, entails responsibilities, especially in a world system of monetary production economies that compete with each other according to political and economic interests. In the first section of this paper, historical context is given to the […]
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Working Paper No. 912
August 29, 2018
The Sources and Methods Used in the Creation of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being for the United States, 1959–2013
AbstractThis paper documents the sources of data used in the construction of the estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Wellbeing (LIMEW) for the years 1959, 1972, 1982, 1989, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013. It also documents the methods used to combine the various sources of data into the synthetic […]
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Working Paper No. 911
August 24, 2018
Twenty Years of the German Euro Are More than Enough
AbstractThis paper reviews the performance of the euro area since the euro’s launch 20 years ago. It argues that the euro crisis has exposed existential flaws in the euro regime. Intra-area divergences and the corresponding buildup of imbalances had remained unchecked prior to the crisis. As those imbalances eventually imploded, member states were found to […]
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Working Paper No. 910
August 21, 2018
Australian Government Bonds’ Nominal Yields
AbstractThe short-term interest rate is the main driver of the Commonwealth of Australia government bonds’ nominal yields. This paper empirically models the dynamics of government bonds’ nominal yields using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. Keynes held that the central bank exerts decisive influence on government bond yields because the central bank’s policy rate and […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 146
August 16, 2018
Stagnating Economic Well-Being and Unrelenting Inequality
AbstractAjit Zacharias, Thomas Masterson, and Fernando Rios-Avila update the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for US households for the period 2000–13. The LIMEW—which comprises base income, income from wealth, net government expenditures, and the value of household production—is aimed at achieving a more comprehensive understanding of trends in living standards. This policy brief […]
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Research Project Report
August 08, 2018
The Measurement of Time and Consumption Poverty in Ghana and Tanzania
AbstractTime constraints that stem from the overlapping domains of paid and unpaid work are of central concern to the debates surrounding the economic development of developing countries in general and countries of sub-Saharan Africa in particular. Time deficits due to household production are especially acute in these countries due to the poor state of social […]
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Working Paper No. 909
July 02, 2018
External Instability in Transition
AbstractThis inquiry argues that the successful completion of the transition process in the post-Soviet economies is constrained by the prevailing social structure and low levels of technological progress, both of which require institutional reforms aimed at increasing growth in national income, productivity, and the degree of export competitiveness. Domestic policy implementation has not shown significant […]
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One-Pager No. 56
June 19, 2018
An Alternative to Sovereign Bond-Backed Securities for the Euro Area
AbstractThe European Commission's proposal for the regulation of sovereign bond-backed securities (SBBSs) follows the release of a high-level taskforce report, sponsored by the European Systemic Risk Board, on the feasibility of an SBBS framework. The proposal and the SBBS scheme, Mario Tonveronachi argues, would fail to yield the intended results while undermining financial stability. Tonveronachi articulates […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 145
June 08, 2018
European Sovereign Bond-Backed Securities
AbstractIn response to a proposal put forward by the European Commission for the regulation of sovereign bond-backed securities (SBBSs), Mario Tonveronachi provides his analysis of the SBBS scheme and attendant regulatory proposal, and elaborates on an alternative approach to addressing the problems that have motivated this high-level consideration of an SBBS framework. As this policy […]
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Working Paper No. 908
June 01, 2018
Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall
AbstractMany of the hopes arising from the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall were still unrealized in 2010 and remain so today, especially in monetary policy and financial supervision. The major players that helped bring on the 2008 financial crisis still exist, with rising levels of moral hazard, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the too-big-to-fail […]
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Policy Notes No. 4
May 31, 2018
Wage Employment and the Prospects of Women’s Economic Empowerment
AbstractIn this policy note, Thomas Masterson and Ajit Zacharias address the nexus between wage employment, consumption poverty, and time deficits in the context of Ghana and Tanzania. Based on a recently completed research project supported by the Hewlett Foundation, the authors apply the Levy Institute Measure of Time and Consumption Poverty (LIMTCP) to estimate whether […]
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One-Pager No. 55
May 29, 2018
The Job Guarantee and the Economics of Fear
AbstractThe job guarantee (JG) is finally getting the public debate it deserves, according to Pavlina R. Tcherneva, and criticism is expected. Following the Levy Institute’s latest report analyzing the economic impact of a JG proposal and providing a blueprint for its implementation, Tcherneva responds to alarmist claims that the JG is (1) an expensive big-government […]
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Working Paper No. 907
May 17, 2018
Some Comments on the Sraffian Supermultiplier Approach to Growth and Distribution
AbstractThe paper discusses the Sraffian supermultiplier (SSM) approach to growth and distribution. It makes five points. First, in the short run the role of autonomous expenditure can be appreciated within a standard post-Keynesian framework (Kaleckian, Kaldorian, Robinsonian, etc.). Second, and related to the first, the SSM model is a model of the long run and […]
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Working Paper No. 906
May 11, 2018
The Dynamics of Japanese Government Bonds’ Nominal Yields
AbstractThis paper employs a Keynesian perspective to explain why Japanese government bonds’ (JGBs) nominal yields have been low for more than two decades. It deploys several vector error correction (VEC) models to estimate long-term government bond yields. It shows that the low short-term interest rate, induced by the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) accommodative monetary policy, […]
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Working Paper No. 905
May 08, 2018
Reflections on the New Deal
AbstractI subject some aspects of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to critical analysis, with particular attention to what is termed “liberal democracy.” This analysis demonstrates the limits to reform, given the power of “vested interests” as articulated by Thorstein Veblen. While progressive economists and others are generally favorably disposed toward the New Deal, a critical perspective casts […]
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Policy Notes No. 3
May 01, 2018
A Consensus Strategy for a Universal Job Guarantee Program
AbstractThe idea of a universal job guarantee (JG) policy for the United States has become the subject of renewed public debate due to a number of high-profile political endorsements. L. Randall Wray recently coauthored a report that presented a JG proposal—the Public Service Employment program—along with estimates of the economic impact of the plan. However, […]
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Working Paper No. 904
May 01, 2018
Corporate Debt in Latin America and its Macroeconomic Implications
AbstractThis paper provides an empirical analysis of nonfinancial corporate debt in six large Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), distinguishing between bond-issuing and non-bond-issuing firms, and assessing the debt’s macroeconomic implications. The paper uses a sample of 2,241 firms listed on the stock markets of their respective countries, comprising 34 sectors […]
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Research Project Report
April 17, 2018
Public Service Employment
AbstractDespite reports of a healthy US labor market, millions of Americans remain unemployed and underemployed, or have simply given up looking for work. It is a problem that plagues our economy in good times and in bad—there are never enough jobs available for all who want to work. L. Randall Wray, Flavia Dantas, Scott Fullwiler, […]
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Working Paper No. 903
April 16, 2018
The Economics of Instability
AbstractThe dominant postwar tradition in economics assumes the utility maximization of economic agents drives markets toward stable equilibrium positions. In such a world there should be no endogenous asset bubbles and untenable levels of private indebtedness. But there are. There is a competing alternative view that assumes an endogenous behavioral propensity for markets to embark on […]
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Strategic Analysis
April 13, 2018
“America First,” Fiscal Policy, and Financial Stability
AbstractThe US economy has been expanding continuously for almost nine years, making the current recovery the second longest in postwar history. However, the current recovery is also the slowest recovery of the postwar period. This Strategic Analysis presents the medium-run prospects, challenges, and contradictions for the US economy using the Levy Institute’s stock-flow consistent macroeconometric […]
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