Archive

John Kenneth Galbraith noted in 1973 that establishment economics had become the “invaluable ally of those whose exercise of power depends on an acquiescent public.” If anything, economists’ embrace of that role has grown stronger since then.

Asset markets are indispensable in harnessing society’s diverse views and insights about future business performance. But those views are shaped as much by emotion and crowd mentality as by rational expectations.

Economic distress in rural areas and opioid exposure in cities are key indicators of overdose deaths

For years, governments in India and much of the developing world have followed the advice of a paper arguing that labor regulations actually hurt workers. The problem? The research was wrong.

Journalist Andrea Gabor’s new book heralds a “quiet revolution” in education you didn’t know was happening

Central bankers pursue a “neutral” rate that doesn’t exist

U.S. GDP accounting underestimates intangible capital, overstates financial capital, and is all but oblivious to the the erosion of human and social capital. A serious growth slowdown is coming.

Thomas Piketty and his colleagues have insisted that tax records are better for measuring inequality than income surveys. They’re wrong.

America’s new “philanthrocapitalists” are enabling social problems rather than solving them

Wishful thinking and tinkering won’t cut it. Nothing short of a mass mobilization for deep de-carbonization across the global economy can avert the looming climate catastrophe.

Hope for mitigating climate catastrophe may not be lost, but the scale of political change needed is no cause for optimism

A response to economists who doubt our capacity to decarbonize while maintaining robust growth

Market tweaks and incentives won’t save us from climate catastrophe. Only radical policy change will.

The new IPCC Report is overly optimistic about global productivity growth and fossil fuel energy use. More dramatic, immediate action is needed

A new report shows an economically viable path to net-zero CO2 emissions in key industries by 2060

Prejudice and collusion, not simply research quality, drive journal citations

Until 2008, rising home values gave the middle class a cushion amid growing income inequality. But following the financial crisis, that wealth has failed to return.

Instead of rewarding the taxpayers and employees who actually create value for the tech giant, Apple is doling out massive stock buybacks

António Guterres and CGET Commissioners discuss cooperating on inequality, climate change, multilateralism, and more

Adolph Reed, who researches race and politics, warns that “identitarian” politics can conceal the structural inequities of capitalism

Conventional wisdom asserts that American politics is becoming more and more tribal. But the chiefs of the tribes share a lot in common: dependence on big money.

Contrary to the dominant media narrative, social issues like racism and sexism on their own can’t explain Trump’s success.

The current international monetary system is costly, unfair, and risky. “Economic nationalism” and deregulation in the U.S. will make it worse. A multilateral alternative is needed.

To connect across difference is the only thing that will save us from rule by the privileged few.

William Lazonick has shown how the doctrine of “shareholder value” has hurt wages in the United States. But in Latin America, where family corporations dominate, the story is more complicated.

Reactions to the size of the proposed plan rely on discredited assumptions and betray a fundamental misunderstanding of economic growth—and austerity 

Economists who dismiss inequality as a problem secondary to poverty miss the point: Inequality is part of what drives poverty

Getting published in a top five economics journal is a near-requirement for tenure. But it’s a poor measure of research quality within a system that punishes creativity.

Ten years after the crisis, financial regulation leaves taxpayers holding the bag for banks’ safety net.

A Nobel Prize-winning economist and the second-most-famous democratic socialist in America sit down together

After Sweden’s elections, a look at how immigration and economics explain a political puzzle

Back in 2008, a critical opportunity was missed when the burden of post-crisis adjustment was tilted heavily in favor of creditors relative to debtors. The result was not only prolonged stagnation, but also the Republican Party’s embrace of demagogic populism and the election of Donald Trump.

A financial industry safety net enriches bankers and their shareholders — at our expense

Ten years after Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the Wall Street casino is running amok

Distracted by the perceived threat of a Chinese savings glut, mainstream macroeconomists missed the writing on the wall of the 2008 crisis

Both before 2008 and today, there’s a disturbing tendency in Washington to not take mortgage fraud seriously

Despite disparate policy beliefs, MMT and orthodox macro rely on many of the same theoretical foundations

In Europe and the United States, stock-based compensation discourages long-term corporate sustainability

Ten years ago, the financial crisis washed away faith and trust in economics as a guide to social prosperity. Filling a void is difficult. We are still hard at work. 

When a small group of companies can dominate a labor market, wages—and workers—suffer

Expanding, rather than cutting, Social Security is the solution

It’s not just Turkey­—from India to Indonesia, external financial liabilities are a looming threat

To understand labor productivity—and growing inequality—you have to look at the “dual economy”

In China, the government uses the purses strings of state-owned enterprises to control social unrest

The anthropologist David Graeber has argued that as much as 30% of all work is performed in “bullshit jobs,” which are unnecessary to produce truly valuable goods and services but arise from competition for income and status. But the deeper problem is that more and more economic activity performs a merely distributive function.

INET Global Commissioner Peter Bofinger breaks down cryptocurrencies, and why they’re actually far from “anonymous”

A new report examines the path to global social progress. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers

State-issued digital money may avoid some pitfalls of cryptocurrency, but it’s no financial panacea

To understand the rise of the League and 5 Star Movement, look at economic indicators

How corporate raiders coopted “shareholder democracy” for their own ends

Places hit hardest by austerity cuts were more likely to vote for UKIP and Leave

Journal rankings are a rigged game. The blacklist of history of economic thought journals isn’t a fluke nor a conspiracy—it exposes how citation rankings really work

Alissa Quart’s new book chronicles the pain of a disgruntled class that could change the country’s political landscape.

Clear rules and sound principles for debt restructuring would level the playing field between developing countries and creditors

The social and medical sciences depend on randomised control trials – though they face more assumptions and biases than commonly thought.

Was Martin Luther King a socialist? New book may surprise you.

The Koch brothers scandal at George Mason University

When politics is defined in terms of “populism” vs. “the mainstream,” the possibility for real economic reform is diminished.

Edoardo Nesi’s new book tracks the destructive march of globalization and neoliberal capitalism through his own life and the places, like Italy, that lie broken in its wake.

A light-hearted economic analysis of the World Cup

70 years ago today, Edward A. Tenenbaum helped pull off an astounding feat—successfully reforming Germany’s currency after World War II

By evading regulation of credit default swaps, the major U.S. banks put taxpayers—and the entire economy—at risk

The election of Italy’s right-wing, populist government exposes the economic and democratic shortcomings of the European project and its nationalist rivals

A change in macroeconomic policies will not be sufficient to set Argentina on a path of inclusive and sustained economic development. But, as last month’s currency scare showed, abandoning the approach adopted by President Mauricio Macri’s administration at the end of 2015 is a necessary step.

The World Bank and IMF say developing economies can’t afford to have strong labor laws. Actually, they can’t afford not to.

The removal of term limits for Xi Jinping may be a better indicator of economic health—or crisis—than official statistics

In “celebration” of the late Pete Peterson’s 92nd birthday (see guest list), an excerpt from 19th Century historian Lord Macaulay’s History of England, on hundreds of years of unwarranted panic about government debt.

The “dean of short sellers” says bitcoin is the last thing he’d want to own in the event of a catastrophe.

Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

In a memo for the G20, INET calls for changes to the evaluation of economic research to ensure that economic theory—and policy—is more rigorous, innovative, and in service to society. 

Introducing INET’s body of work on dysfunctions in research evaluation, Rob Johnson shows how breaking academic conformity is vital for the economics profession—and the economy itself.

With growth fueled by an increase in debt, Argentina is facing an uncertain economic future, despite investors’ generally rosy view. The government of Mauricio Macri has options to address the country’s macroeconomic risks, but none of them will be free of tough choices.

200 years after Marx’s birth, many elites have taken unabashed pride in capitalism, a term that originally had negative connotations. To make our economy more just, we must reclaim Marx’s understanding of capitalism’s contradictions.

200 years after Marx’s birth, a look at how two economists sought to reconcile his idea of common ownership with market mechanisms

Global public goods, from health to peace to security, crisscross national and social boundaries. We need a new economic theory to understand their pivotal role in the global economy.

It’s time to connect political violence with economic violence.

Wage suppression—not monopoly power—is fueling corporate profits and the growing gap between rich and poor

For the BRICS countries to not just grow their economies but also raise the standard of living of their people, inclusive growth that prioritizes poverty reduction is a must

But the five countries must still support greater investment in other emerging and developing economies

Newspapers consistently underplay wide public support for higher taxes on businesses and the wealthy

The BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—play a crucial and growing role in the world economy. Sanjay Reddy kicks off our series exploring shifting social and economic dynamics within these countries, and what they mean for the global economy.    

Training first-world children for a third-world life

The economist reflects back on the racial justice leader who showed him the limits of his academic training.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders relied on black entrepreneurs to make their work possible

The vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years later, and the relevance of his economic ideas today

In the last years of his life, King was boldly forging a radical, multi-racial movement for economic justice

The renowned linguist, cognitive scientist, and historian on where we stand as an economy, as a country, and as human beings

The renowned economist reflects on the rise of neoclassical economics, the post-2008 surge of interest in non-mainstream, heterodox thought, and how young economists can remain independent in the face of biased evaluation systems

What 200 Years of Government Interventions in Financial Markets Can Tell Us

Reflections on the Radical Vision of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Major Speech

As the U.S. Congress works to undo financial regulation, INET reflects on the lessons of the Bear Stearns bailout

From the Archives: In the wake of the Bear Stearns bailout in 2008, INET Research Director Tom Ferguson and President Rob Johnson say taxpayers rescuing banks are owed their due: “If the public is going to pay for [bailouts]… it should also get paid back for them.”

Unregulated, speculative lending markets nearly brought down the global financial system 10 years ago. Now, Western banks are exporting this failed model to the developing world.

Ten years ago when Bear Stearns crashed, the Fed decided to bail out first, ask questions later. It was a mistake that set a bad precedent.

Banks are pushing for deregulation and roll backs of Dodd-Frank’s regular check-ups on their financial health. We should be worried. 

Cuba’s entirely state-owned biopharmaceutical industry has been remarkably successful, and can serve as a model for other nations

Despite assembling a formidable data set and leveling a bold argument, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has theoretical and accounting flaws that distort its central findings

Workers, innovation, and productivity all suffer when corporations spend their new U.S. tax breaks on stock buybacks.

Why women experts are denied the same scholarly authority conferred to men, and what we should do about it

By pushing workers into precarious, part-time work, “Third Way” governments of the past 20 years helped to create the disturbing economic trend that’s vexing orthodox economists