Articles
Articles and analyses from the INET community on the key economic questions of our time.
Institute Grantee Appointed Central Bank Governor
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.
$1.90 Per Day: What Does it Say?
The Efficiency of Markets
The Fairness of Markets
A student of microeconomics learns that any desirable efficient market allocation can be sustained by a competitive equilibrium (the Second Theorem of Welfare Economics), given appropriate lump-sum wealth redistributions. This is typically understood as a means to correct unfair market outcomes. What are the real world implications of the second theorem? How well does it address distributional concerns?
Jim Chanos on China: The Emperor is In His Underwear
The best-known China bear says the emperor is not yet naked, but getting there.
Is it Just a Greek Problem?
In the last couple of months, Greece has once again become the center of attention of politicians, academics, and the general public. The debate has, for a large part, focused on Greece’s fiscal deficit as if it were just a self-inflicted Greek problem. But is it?
Is Financial Success a Product of Inherited Genes?
Comparing outcomes for biological and adopted children sheds light on the intergenerational transmission of wealth.
Rising Inequality is Holding Back the US Economy
A four percent growth goal for first term of the next president is not only possible, but is what we should strive to achieve.
How Dated Theories & Underlying Research Misguide Policy
The financial crisis of 2008 was unforeseen to a significant extent. One reason is that the dominant academic theories influencing political decision makers ignore recent advances and instead rely largely on models and decision science dating back to the Second World War.
Is There a Quantitative Turn in the History of Economics (and how not to screw it up)?
The (very) recent rise of quantitative analysis in history of economics working papers calls for a closer examination of the prospects and limitations of this approach, and of the impediment to its large-scale development.
Greece Has Made Tough Choices. Now It's the IMF's Turn.
The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, recently asked a simple and important question: “How much of an adjustment has to be made by Greece, how much has to be made by its official creditors?” But that raises two more questions: How much of an adjustment has Greece already made? And have its creditors given anything at all?