Gerald Epstein is Professor of Economics and a founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He received his PhD in Economics from Princeton University in 1981. Epstein has written articles on numerous topics including financial crisis and regulation, alternative approaches to central banking for employment generation and poverty reduction, economists’ ethics and capital account management and capital flows and the political economy of financial markets and institutions. Most recently his research has focused on the impacts of financialization (Gerald Epstein, ed. Financialization and the World Economy, Elgar Press, 2005), alternatives to inflation targeting (Gerald Epstein and Erinc Yeldan, eds. Beyond Inflation Targeting: Assessing the Impacts and Policy Alternatives, Elgar Press, 2009.) and financial reform, and the Great Financial Crisis (Martin Wolfson and Gerald Epstein, eds.) The Handbook of The Political Economy of Financial Crises, Oxford, 2013. He is writing a book in connection with an INET project on the social inefficiency of the current financial system and approaches to financial restructuring.

His book, Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us, University of California Press will soon appear.

By this expert

Intra-Financial Lending, Credit, and Capital Formation

Paper Working Paper Series | | Dec 2014

This paper examines the effects of intra-financial lending – claims between financial institutions – on aggregate investment and credit to the non-financial sector in the United States.

Long-term trends in intra-financial sector lending in the U.S. 1950 - 2012

Paper Working Paper Series | | Nov 2014

This paper examines the evolution of intra-financial sector lending in the United States, 1950- 2012, presenting estimates constructed from the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds Accounts.

Featuring this expert

Banks: How Big Is too Big?

Video | Aug 15, 2011

We all know it: The financial sector is bloated and banks are too big to fail. But just how bloated is it, and how much should it be shrunk?