Articles

Articles and analyses from the INET community on the key economic questions of our time.

Article

Simon Johnson: The Problem of Too Big to Fail Is Even Bigger Than Before 2008

Sep 17, 2013

Simon Johnson, Professor at MIT and former chief economist of the IMF, calls for much higher capital requirements for big banks.

Article

Dilemma Not Trilemma: The Global Financial Cycle and Monetary Policy Independence

Sep 6, 2013

The global financial cycle has transformed the well-known trilemma into a ‘dilemma’. Independent monetary policies are possible if and only if the capital account is managed directly or indirectly. This column argues the right policies to deal with the ‘dilemma’ should aim at curbing excessive leverage and credit growth. A combination of macroprudential policies guided by aggressive stress‐testing and tougher leverage ratios are needed. Some capital controls may also be useful.

Article

When Is the Time for Austerity?

Jul 26, 2013

Recent austerity policies have been guided by ideology rather than research. This column discusses research that reconciles disparate estimates of fiscal multipliers in the literature. It finds that common identification assumptions are problematic. Matching methods based on propensity scores show how contractionary austerity really is, especially in economies operating below potential.

Article

Did Capitalism Fail? The Financial Crisis Five Years On

Jul 24, 2013

Did the global economic collapse in 2008 stem from structural failures in the capitalist system?

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The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths

Jun 12, 2013

is the public sector really sclerotic and conservative in contrast with a dynamic and innovative private sector?

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On the Link between Inequality, Credit, and Macroeconomic Crises

Jun 12, 2013

To what extant do existing mainstream models properly address issues such as heterogeneity and interactions, which are considered central ingredients to understand economic crises as emergent, endogenous phenomena.

Article

A chronology of economics at Carnegie (in progress)

Apr 22, 2013

To illustrate the previous post on the difficulties in putting together a chronology, here is tentative chronology of economics at Carnegie. It’s still in process, and links, sources and entries will be updated as I read.

Article

I like IKE

Apr 4, 2013

Imperfect knowledge economics, or IKE to their friends, is popular with all the popular kids. George Soros, Bill Janeway and Anatole Kaletsky were in attendance as Roman Frydman and Michael Goldberg - or more properly, their students - showed the latest work in progress.