Archive

LEPC VII will bring together leading thinkers, practitioners, and policymakers to analyze the drivers behind this sub national success, and to chart actionable pathways for the future. Each session outlined explores a foundational dimension of India’s growth story, with attention to both policy diagnosis and on-the-ground innovation.

The LEPC is a flagship initiative, designed to bring together leading voices in Law, Economics, and Public Policy to engage with complex, real-world challenges in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary manner.

The argument that free trade is always the correct policy is based on a flawed welfare analysis. Free trade results in winners and losers and economists are not competent to analyze the impact on well-being as a whole or the spillover social consequences of the discontent of the losers.

From political slugfests to classroom battles, historian Marc Egnal talks with INET’s Lynn Parramore about the need for a new approach to our national story.

The richest Americans control $46 trillion in wealth—but many pay little or no federal tax.

The idea is finally catching on, but many still miss how deeply it’s driving inflation, masking wage losses, and complicating recovery.

The new $100,000 H-1B fee tacitly acknowledges what early policy architects signaled: expanding temporary tech visas can depress domestic wages. By bringing the fully loaded cost of a new H1B hire closer to what the local market would require to recruit and retain comparable talent, it narrows the wedge between visa-enabled staffing and hiring Americans at market rates.

Here’s the breakdown on what’s really driving America’s runaway drug prices — and whether any of the current plans stand a chance to lower your pharmacy bill.

The IMF and World Bank can no longer function as instruments that discipline some member countries while deferring to others. Their challenge is to transform the exercise of power among member countries into a framework of mutual respect and cooperation.

The GENIUS Act is a disastrous law that poses grave and unacceptable threats to our financial and economic future. Congress must remove those threats by (1) repealing the GENIUS Act and passing legislation that requires all stablecoin providers to be FDIC-insured banks, and (2) adopting legislation that requires all crypto derivatives to comply with the rules governing non-digital derivatives under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act.

INET’s new data archive of historical political finance records at the National Archives assembles all campaign finance reports filed by political parties and presidential candidates up to 1974, the year before the Federal Election Commission was established.

This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI); returns are diminishing rapidly; (ii) the AI-LLM industry and the larger U.S. economy are experiencing a speculative bubble, which is about to burst.

INET’s new data archive of historical political finance records at the National Archives marks a major step toward filling this factual void. This INET Working Paper outlines what users need to know to navigate the archive effectively and locate the data they require.

We examine the World Bank’s protracted and conflicted attempts at shareholding reform from 2008 to the present, situating them within the broader context of multipolarity and intensifying geopolitical rivalries.

Hughes discusses his recent book Marketcrafters, and how markets are deliberately built with outcomes that can serve the public good – or not. He uses this lens to unpack today’s economic flashpoints, from the Fed to crypto to climate.

This paper examines the World Bank’s protracted and conflicted attempts at shareholding reform from 2008 to the present, situating them within the broader context of multipolarity and intensifying geopolitical rivalries.

Why are life-saving drugs so expensive—especially when taxpayers already fund much of the science behind them?

This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI); returns are diminishing rapidly; (ii) the AI-LLM industry and the larger U.S. economy are experiencing a speculative bubble, which is about to burst.

INET’s new data archive of historical political finance records at the National Archives assembles all campaign finance reports filed by political parties and presidential candidates up to 1974, the year before the Federal Election Commission was established.

In a significant new study published by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Canadian economist Mohsen Javdani reveals that gender shapes views on power, equality, and inclusion in ways politics alone can’t explain.

How much of modern economics is shaped by religion?

How women economists expand orientations and perspectives that can transform economics into a pluralistic, critically engaged, and socially responsive discipline.

The argument that free trade is always the correct policy is based on a flawed welfare analysis. Free trade results in winners and losers and economists are not competent to analyze the impact on well-being as a whole or the spillover social consequences of the discontent of the losers.

Contrary to what many economic models suggest, salaries aren’t constantly recalibrated based on skills or technology. They follow the economy and politics—and common sense: hire when needed, promote from within, and slow hiring when budgets tighten.

Two economists who have studied Intel warn that Trump’s move to take a stake in the company amounts to flashy optics, incoherent strategy, and a creeping politicization of economic policy.

The famed short-seller reminds us that technology might advance, but we’re still a pretty predictable bunch of apes.

How America’s chip leader lost its edge.

How women economists expand orientations and perspectives that can transform economics into a pluralistic, critically engaged, and socially responsive discipline.

What are the hidden risks and trade-offs in letting machines decide — and how can we protect fairness without stifling innovation?

Why do market-centric fixes for “unequal exchange” fall short? Sidelining social relations and production power turns colonialism into a pricing problem—and hides the mechanisms that keep uneven development in place.

Without transparent accounting practices and proper risk management, the Federal Reserve’s current financial losses—unprecedented in scale—and the questionable accounting practices it uses to downplay their impact threaten public trust, economic stability, and the integrity of fiscal policy.

The Federal Reserve is experiencing something new in its history: sustained and sizable operating losses. These losses—currently running at more than $100 billion a year on an annualized basis—stem largely from the sharp rise in short-term interest rates, which has increased the interest the Fed pays on bank reserves while the income from its long-term securities portfolio remains comparatively low.

Phillip Alvelda, a former DARPA program manager, reveals how a fracturing federal system has opened the door for bold state leadership. Will blue states rise to build a healthier, more just future?

Deutschlandfunk

The focus of this year’s monsoon school is on pluralistic approaches to research on inequality, bringing together perspectives from varied streams of economic thought. It will provide an interactive platform for advanced-level PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and scholars affiliated with Indian research institutes to engage with diverse concepts, debates, and methodologies related to inequality.

The best ideas may never make it to the patent office.

Inflation persists not just because of spending or interest rates, but because underlying social conflicts over income, expectations, and power remain unresolved.

How inflationary inertia, driven by distributional conflict, disrupts the economy’s path to an effective demand equilibrium.

How do we prepare for a world of constant shocks—climate disasters, financial crises, pandemics, conflict, and inequality?

Altmetric

The Healthcare Policy Podcast

Why real reform in American politics won’t come from slogans, scandals, or new parties — but from breaking the grip of investor politics and rebuilding power from the ground up.

The urgency of the climate crisis cannot be overstated, particularly given its disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities in the Global South.

Scientific American

Without strong privacy laws and aligned incentives, increased AI competition worsens surveillance, manipulation, and disinformation—threatening privacy, autonomy, and democracy.

We typically view competition as a positive force that lowers prices, improves quality and service, and increases variety. However, competition can sometimes be toxic.

Union membership is at its lowest level in a century. Why, despite viral organizing campaigns at Amazon and Starbucks, has union density flatlined?

New York Times

Dr. David Mussington, cybersecurity expert with two decades of experience, reveals why the clock is ticking on U.S. vulnerabilities under Trump.

Has the Inflation Reduction Act hindered pharmaceutical innovation? Evidence shows that the pharma industry can strategically manage disruptive change.

The most essential work in society isn’t accounted for in economic statistics.

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Kalecki’s seminal lecture in Mexico on financing economic development, Jan Toporowski’s INET Working Paper considers the relevance of structuralism and Kalecki’s view of economic development for today.

Kalecki challenged the structuralist view by pointing to the internal social class barriers to development, and the need to assure supplies of basic wage goods in order to avoid inflationary pressures that could derail the development process.

CNN

In Capitalism and Its Critics, New Yorker writer John Cassidy brings to life the figures who warned of monopoly power, inequality, environmental peril, and authoritarianism—forces still at work today. He discusses his book with Lynn Parramore.

Universities have always been centers of learning—and centers of power.

In Treasury markets, there are no libertarians, only grateful recipients of single-payer insurance for ailing financial markets.

Four months of the Trump presidency have already changed the world as we knew it. How did we get here? What consequences have the tariffs had and will have? How will U.S.-European trade relations evolve? What about the confrontation with China?

How to guide innovative AI efforts to increase labor demand and create better-paying jobs?

We need a dual approach to AI: steer technology in the short term while building new systems for the long term.

What does economic inequality look like when we account for gender identity, sexual orientation, and lived experience?

Times have changed. Now we have David Brooks, of The New York Times, and economics blogger Noah Smith defending neoliberal globalization from the pincer movement of anti-trade populists from both the right and the left.

Misaligned incentives account for many of the most troubling features of the pharmaceutical industry’s present practices and performance.

A new INET Working Paper by Yaroslav Melekh, James Dixon, Katrina Salmon, and Michael Grubb, interrogates the contradictions between fossil lock-in through LNG import capacity and overcontracting, and policy-driven demand reduction. Here is a summary of the paper’s main findings.

This paper examines in detail the interrelationships between the EU’s concerns, its energy policies, and the resulting challenges and uncertainties facing European gas through the rest of the decade, and beyond.

Economist William Lazonick reveals how the extraction model of American corporations has migrated from business to government.

Faced with a shrinking list of options to trim the budget, Republicans are now eyeing Medicaid - but will that fly among Trump supporters?

Understanding the forces shaping our digital future.

The most likely outcome of the second Trump administration is a recession and an exacerbation of inequalities, and a further degradation of the living standards of working and middle-class Americans.

The future of work is already here—but our social policies are stuck in the past.

The money to support well-paid American jobs exists—it’s just being hoarded at the top. Economist William Lazonick argues that this is not just unfair; it’s a failure of the whole economic system.

We need a new approach to research—one rooted in trust, lived experience, and the stories data often overlooks.

New York Times & others

Robert Pollin challenges the myth that climate action hurts working people—and explains why a just transition must be at the heart of a global Green New Deal.

Professor Marc Egnal of York University joins the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s Lynn Parramore to explore why historians cling to an inaccurate and misleading narrative, and what we can learn from the real history about tyranny, checks and balances, imperialism — and resistance.

Top money-and-politics expert Thomas Ferguson breaks down the real drivers of Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda, from big crypto plans to a new world order emerging.

with THOMAS FERGUSON, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, INET

Trump ran in both 2016 and 2024 on a promise to reverse the deindustrialization caused by globalization and free trade, using tariffs as his main tool. But the critical question now is: Can it work?

Bloomberg

The Guardian

Barron’s

Drug development can better serve public needs—especially in neglected diseases—by reimagining the balance between government, private industry, and nonprofit models.

The conference, which is part of our Academy’s ‘Future of Humankind’ initiative, will provide a global forum of discussion to scholars engaged in analytically understanding the evolution of world dynamics as a process involving a plurality of mechanisms, viewpoints and intersecting trajectories.

Big data reveals where opportunity thrives—and where it vanishes—offering powerful tools to reverse the decline in economic mobility.

Sara Wynn-Williams, defying Facebook’s attempts to silence her, reveals the company’s toxic culture and global damage, exposing unethical practices and a profit-at-any-cost approach. The key question she leaves us with: How can this be changed?

We invite doctoral students and early career researchers/assistant professors (within 7 years of their Ph.D.) to a two-day conference that aims to foster cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogues with attention to SDG goals for India.

AI has the potential to fuel historic levels of wealth concentration, leaving workers behind while a handful of companies profit. Or we can choose policies that steer us toward shared prosperity. The future is still up to us.

The IFMR Graduate School of Business, Krea University, in collaboration with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and its Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) is organising a conference on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in Agriculture: Strategies for Sustainable Development in South Asia

To understand politics in America, follow the money. When we do, we find good cause to expect McConnell’s shadow to live long beyond his tenure.

Recent rulings are rolling back federal regulatory authority, echoing past constitutional battles over administrative governance.

Understanding India’s Northeast from Emerging Perspectives

Phillip Alvelda, a scientist and entrepreneur with past roles at NASA and DARPA, sounds the alarm on cuts that threaten the innovative capacities that have made America a global powerhouse.

The conference aims to examine the complex interplay of housing, law, economics, and spatial justice in an unequal world, and we welcome scholars and practitioners to participate.

How do we build communities that actually work for people?

Consumer demand by America’s most affluent citizens is driving consumer spending, and consumer spending, in turn, is the main force keeping inflation so high

Efforts to erase race-conscious policies threaten broader equality initiatives.

As the world grapples with rapid technological advancements, demographic shifts, environmental challenges, and governance transformations, new forms of inequality are emerging.

The New York Review

What if billionaires paid their fair share—no matter where they lived?