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Working Paper No. 870
August 01, 2016
Unemployed, Now What?
AbstractAlthough one would expect the unemployed to be the population most likely affected by immigration, most of the studies have concentrated on investigating the effects immigration has on the employed population. Little is known of the effects of immigration on labor market transitions out of unemployment. Using the basic monthly Current Population Survey from 2001–13 […]
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Working Paper No. 869
June 24, 2016
Have We Been Here Before?
AbstractThis paper explores from a historical perspective the process of financialization over the course of the 20th century. We identify four phases of financialization: the first, from the 1900s to 1933 (early financialization); the second, from 1933 to 1940 (transitory phase); the third, between 1945 and 1973 (definancialization); and the fourth period begins in the […]
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Working Paper No. 868
June 06, 2016
From Antigrowth Bias to Quantitative Easing
AbstractThis paper investigates the European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary policies. It identifies an antigrowth bias in the bank’s monetary policy approach: the ECB is quick to hike, but slow to ease. Similarly, while other players and institutional deficiencies share responsibility for the euro’s failure, the bank has generally done “too little, too late” with regard […]
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Working Paper No. 867
May 18, 2016
The Greek Public Debt Problem
AbstractThis paper examines the issue of the Greek public debt from different perspectives. We provide a historical discussion of the accumulation of Greece’s public debt since the 1960s and the role of public debt in the recent crisis. We show that the austerity imposed since 2010 has been unsuccessful in stabilizing the debt while at […]
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Working Paper No. 866
May 16, 2016
Going Forward from B to A?
AbstractAfter reviewing the main determinants of the current eurozone crisis, this paper discusses the feasibility of introducing fiscal currencies as a way to restore fiscal space in peripheral countries, like Greece, that have so far adopted austerity measures in order to abide by their commitments to eurozone institutions and the International Monetary Fund. We show […]
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Working Paper No. 865
May 05, 2016
Measuring Poverty in the Case of Buenos Aires
AbstractWe describe the production of estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Time and Income Poverty (LIMTIP) for Buenos Aires, Argentina, and use it to analyze the incidence of time and income poverty. We find high numbers of hidden poor—those who are not poor according to the official measure but are found to be poor […]
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Working Paper No. 864
April 18, 2016
Maximizing Price Stability in a Monetary Economy
AbstractIn this paper we analyze options for the European Central Bank (ECB) to achieve its single mandate of price stability. Viable options for price stability are described, analyzed, and tabulated with regard to both short- and long-term stability and volatility. We introduce an additional tool for promoting price stability and conclude that public purpose is […]
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Policy Notes No. 2
April 04, 2016
The Narrow Path for Brazil
AbstractBrazil is mired in a joint economic and political crisis, and the way out is unclear. In 2015 the country experienced a steep contraction of output alongside elevated inflation, all while the fallout from a series of corruption scandals left the policymaking apparatus paralyzed. Looking ahead, implementing a policy strategy that has any hope of […]
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Working Paper No. 863
March 31, 2016
The Empirics of Long-Term US Interest Rates
AbstractUS government indebtedness and fiscal deficits increased notably following the global financial crisis. Yet long-term interest rates and US Treasury yields have remained remarkably low. Why have long-term interest rates stayed low despite the elevated government indebtedness? What are the drivers of long-term interest rates in the United States? John Maynard Keynes holds that the […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 141
March 25, 2016
What We Could Have Learned from the New Deal in Confronting the Recent Global Recession
AbstractTo the extent that policymakers have learned anything at all from the Great Depression and the policy responses of the 1930s, the lessons appear to have been the wrong ones. In this public policy brief, Director of Research Jan Kregel explains why there is still a great deal we have to learn from the New […]
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Working Paper No. 862
March 17, 2016
Japan’s Liquidity Trap
AbstractJapan has experienced stagnation, deflation, and low interest rates for decades. It is caught in a liquidity trap. This paper examines Japan’s liquidity trap in light of the structure and performance of the country’s economy since the onset of stagnation. It also analyzes the country’s liquidity trap in terms of the different strands in the […]
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Strategic Analysis
March 07, 2016
Destabilizing an Unstable Economy
AbstractOur latest strategic analysis reveals that the US economy remains fragile because of three persistent structural issues: weak demand for US exports, fiscal conservatism, and a four-decade trend in rising income inequality. It also faces risks from stagnation in the economies of the United States’ trading partners, appreciation of the dollar, and a contraction in […]
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Working Paper No. 861
March 01, 2016
Money, Power, and Monetary Regimes
AbstractMoney, in this paper, is defined as a power relationship of a specific kind, a stratified social debt relationship, measured in a unit of account determined by some authority. A brief historical examination reveals its evolving nature in the process of social provisioning. Money not only predates markets and real exchange as understood in mainstream […]
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Working Paper No. 860
February 22, 2016
Looking Into the Abyss?
AbstractThe Brazilian economy in 2015 was afflicted by a lethal combination of decelerating activity and accelerating inflation. Expectations for 2016 are equally or even more adverse, since the effects of rising unemployment emerge only after a lag. The domestic debate has pitted analysts who believe the crisis is due exclusively to past policy mistakes against […]
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Working Paper No. 859
February 01, 2016
The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and Measuring Gender Inequality
AbstractAgainst the backdrop of the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, this paper analyzes the measurement issues in gender-based indices constructed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and suggests alternatives for choice of variables, functional form, and weights. While the UNDP Gender Inequality Index (GII) conceptually reflects the loss in achievement due to inequality […]
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Working Paper No. 858
January 12, 2016
Gender Dimensions of Inequality in the Countries of Central Asia, South Caucasus, and Western CIS
AbstractThe collapse of the Soviet Union initiated an unprecedented social and economic transformation of the successor countries and altered the gender balance in a region that counted gender equality as one of the key legacies of its socialist past. The transition experience of the region has amply demonstrated that the changes in the gender balance […]
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Policy Notes No. 8
December 17, 2015
The US Census Asks About Race and Ethnicity: 1980–2020
AbstractThis policy note examines the formulation and reformulation of questions deployed by the US Census Bureau to gather information on racial and ethnic origin in recent decades. The likely outcome for the 2020 Census is that two older questions on race and Hispanic origin will be combined into a single question on ethno-racial origin. The […]
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Working Paper No. 857
December 17, 2015
Ethno-Racial Origin in US Federal Statistics: 1980–2020
AbstractThis paper describes the transformations in federal classification of ethno-racial information since the civil rights era of the 1960s. These changes were introduced in the censuses of 1980 and 2000, and we anticipate another major change in the 2020 Census. The most important changes in 1980 introduced the Hispanic Origin and Ancestry questions and the […]
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One-Pager No. 51
December 11, 2015
Completing the Single Financial Market and New Fiscal Rules for the Euro Area
AbstractUntil market participants across the euro area face a single risk-free yield curve rather than a diverse collection of quasi-risk-free sovereign rates, financial market integration will not be complete. Unfortunately, the institution that would normally provide the requisite benchmark asset—a federal treasury issuing risk-free debt—does not exist in the euro area, and there are daunting […]
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Working Paper No. 856
December 10, 2015
Redistribution in the Age of Austerity
AbstractWe examine the relationship between changes in a country’s public sector fiscal position and inequality at the top and bottom of the income distribution during the age of austerity (2006–13). We use a parametric Lorenz curve model and Gini-like indices of inequality as our measures to assess distributional changes. Based on the EU’s Statistics on […]
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Working Paper No. 855
November 30, 2015
The Two Approaches to Money
AbstractThe scientific reassessment of the economic role of the state after the crisis has renewed interest in Abba Lerner’s theory of functional finance (FF). A thorough discussion of this concept is helpful in reconsidering the debate on the nature of money and the origin of the business cycle and crises. It also allows a reevaluation […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 140
November 18, 2015
The ECB, the Single Financial Market, and a Revision of the Euro Area Fiscal Rules
AbstractMario Tonveronachi, University of Siena, builds on his earlier proposal (The ECB and the Single European Financial Market) to advance financial market integration in Europe through the creation of a single benchmark yield curve based on debt certificates (DCs) issued by the European Central Bank (ECB). In this policy brief, Tonveronachi discusses potential changes to […]
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Working Paper No. 854
November 16, 2015
The Roads Not Taken
AbstractStandard presentations of stock-flow consistent modeling use specific Post Keynesian closures, even though a given stock-flow accounting structure supports various different economic dynamics. In this paper we separate the dynamic closure from the accounting constraints and cast the latter in the language of graph theory. The graph formulation provides (1) a representation of an economy […]
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Working Paper No. 853
November 09, 2015
Finance, Foreign Direct Investment, and Dutch Disease
AbstractIn recent years, Colombia has grown relatively rapidly, but it has been a biased growth. The energy sector (the “locomotora minero-energetica,” to use the rhetorical expression of President Juan Manuel Santos) grew much faster than the rest of the economy, while the manufacturing sector registered a negative rate of growth. These are classic symptoms of […]
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