We support dynamic ideas through wide-ranging research that embraces both pure theory and applied work where advances in economics can help solve the great challenges of the 21st century. The Institute’s research is interdisciplinary, incorporating concepts from fields including history, political science, psychology, the physical sciences and the humanities.
Research Papers
Working Paper Series
We support in-depth, multidisciplinary research that carefully examines the conceptual frameworks of economic thinking. This series focuses on critical areas in the discipline that are relevant right now. View details
1
US Pharma’s Financialized Business Model
Price gouging in the US pharmaceutical drug industry goes back more than three decades.
2
The Qualitative Expectations Hypothesis
Model Ambiguity, Consistent Representations of Market Forecasts, and Sentiment
3
On The Career of a Microeconomist
An autobiographical paper by William J. Baumol, in which he recounts his academic life and career. The paper is a contribution to a series of recollections and reflections on the professional experiences of distinguished economists which the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review (now PSL Quarterly Review) started in 1979.
4
The Political Economy of Mass Incarceration: An Analytical Model
This paper presents a model of mass incarceration in the United States, which has the largest proportion of its population imprisoned among advanced countries.
5
The New Normal: Demand, Secular Stagnation and the Vanishing Middle-Class
The U.S. economy is widely diagnosed with two ‘diseases’: a secular stagnation of potential U.S. growth, and rising income and job polarization. The two diseases have a common root inthe demand shortfall, originating from the ‘unbalanced’ growth between technologically ‘dynamic’ and ‘stagnant’ sectors.
6
Marketization and Financialization
How the U.S. New Economy Business Model Has Devalued Science and Engineering PhDs
7
How & Why Government, Universities, & Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists & High-Tech Workers
Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies. That is not to say that they don’t exist. They are created when employers or government agencies tamper with the natural functioning of the wage mechanism.
8
Experts on Trial: A Symposium
Widespread criticism of elites and their ‘experts ’ raises questions about how economists should perceive their role, and what role societies should give them. We invited four scholars to start an online conversation by sharing their perspectives
9
Tides and Prejudice: Racial Attitudes During Downturns in the United States 1979-2014
This paper analyzes white attitudes towards African Americans in the United States at different points in a business cycle from 1979- 2014.
10
The Value-Extracting CEO: How Executive Stock-Based Pay Undermines Investment in Productive Capabilities
The business corporation is the central economic institution in a modern economy. A company’s senior executives, with the advice and support of the board of directors, are responsible for the allocation of corporate resources to investments in productive capabilities. Senior executives also advise the board on the extent to which, given the need to invest in productive capabilities, the company can afford to make cash distributions to shareholders. Motivating corporate resource-allocation decisions are the modes of remuneration that incentivize and reward the top executives of these companies. A sound analysis of the operation and performance of a modern economy requires an understanding of not only how much these executives are paid but also the ways in which the prevailing system of executive pay influences their decisions to allocate corporate resources.
11
The Equal Employment Opportunity Omission
On June 2, 1965, under a mandate established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. Congress created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws related to employment. The expectation was that African Americans would be prime beneficiaries of the EEOC. There was no assumption that the EEOC, on its own, could reverse deep-rooted employment discrimination against blacks. But in the late 1960s there was optimism that, in combination with equal educational opportunity and the strong demand for unionized workers in the well-paid manufacturing jobs that marked the post-World War II decades, the EEOC could help to ensure that an ever-increasing number of blacks would ascend to the American middle class.
12
The Personal Wealth Interests of Politicians and the Stabilization of Financial Markets
We examine whether personal wealth interests affect politicians’ decisions about stabilizing financial markets.
13
The EuroZone “Debt” Crisis: Another “Center” – “Periphery” Crisis Under Financial Globalization?
This paper analyzes the Euro crisis in light of the experience of center-periphery relations over the last 40 years of renewed financial globalization.
14
The “Natural” Interest Rate and Secular Stagnation: Loanable Funds Macro Models Don’t Fit the Data
The main point of this paper is that loanable funds macroeconomic models with their “natural” interest rate don’t fit with modern institutions and data. Before getting into the numbers, it makes sense to describe the models and how to think about macroeconomics in the first place.
15
The performativity of potential output: Pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies
This paper analyzes the performative impact of the European Commission’s model for estimating ‘potential output’, which is used as a yardstick for measuring the ‘structural budget balance’ of EU countries and, hence, is crucial for coordinating European fiscal policies.