Archive

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

In the face of  laissez-faire capitalism at home and resurgent nationalism across the globe, INET offers an innovative look at the causes of—and solutions for—the problems that ail a fissuring world economy.

Economist Morton Schapiro, president of Northwestern University, and his colleague, literary critic and Slavic studies scholar Saul Morson, argue that—contrary to popular belief—studying the humanities is the key to not getting outsourced.

France, like many Western European countries, has strong campaign finance laws and a vibrant multiparty system. Yet even there, money has had a corrosive effect on democracy, as private donations have an outsized impact on electoral outcomes.

Banks have long had undue influence in society. But with the rapid expansion of a financial sector that transforms all debts and assets into tradable commodities, we are faced with something far worse: financial markets with an only abstract, inflated, and destabilizing relationship with the real economy. To prevent another crisis, finance must be domesticated and turned into a useful servant of society. 

Contrary to the neoclassical model’s assumptions, shifts in aggregate demand have persistent effects on GDP

Over the next year, the Bitcoin price could double, soar tenfold, or collapse by 95% or more, and no economic analysis can help predict where in that range it will lie. Like other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin serves no useful economic purpose, though in macroeconomic terms, such currencies probably also do little harm.

The African Development Bank has laid out a plan for economic prosperity in the continent. But to get there, African countries must first confront jobless growth and underfunded infrastructure projects.

The corporate titans of yore once offered a sizable wage premium over smaller employers—but not anymore. What happened?

The shocking—but illustrative—example of how an Italian government agency concocted statistics to evaluate scholarship, hid them from the public, and masqueraded them as science. It’s a growing phenomenon

Behind towering figures like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. were the taxi dispatchers, pharmacists, grocers, and other small business owners who were instrumental in making civil rights a reality.

China is now the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter, accounting for over 25% of the global total. But the country has also demonstrated a growing understanding that a truly green economy promises to improve quality of life and create enormous opportunities for technological and political leadership.

To get justice, targets must show measurable harm. Economists can help

It wasn’t Comey or the Russians. Trump prevailed because his campaign carefully targeted key states with late infusions of big money from private equity, casinos, and other far right contributors, a remarkable wave of donations from small donors, and substantial infusions from the candidate himself.

The renowned feminist economist discusses the importance of heterodoxy, radicalism, and social justice to the discipline

Sen. Tammy Baldwin features arguments in questions to SEC nominees, pharmaceutical industry witness

Contrary to conventional wisdom, government stimulus can improve the health of the economy for years after, without inflationary side effects 

Forget the myth of a savings glut causing near-zero interest rates. We have a shortage of aggregate demand, and only public spending and raising wages will change that.

Summers discusses inequality, the GOP tax plan, and our economic future

Inequality isn’t driven by taxes—it’s driven by the power of capital in relation to workers

Skewed measures of “research output” hold back women who think differently or study smaller subfields in economics—and it’s harming the discipline as a whole

Two years after the 2015 Paris Agreement, where we stand today is better than you may think 

Austerity measures have battered the region and created instability throughout the Eurozone. Here’s one way out of the mess.

With unemployment reaching very low levels in major economies, despite low – and slowly rising – inflation, it’s time for central banks to rethink their reliance on the so-called natural rate. No numerical target for this rate can serve as an anchor for monetary policy.

From the Rust Belt to Rural America, Economic and Social Distress Helped Shape the 2016 US Presidential Election Outcome

The 2008 financial crisis was a shock to faith in entirely free financial markets. But the neoliberal assumptions underlying the previously dominant “Washington Consensus” continue to inform much Western commentary on China’s economy.

How Women Are Forced to Conform to the Research Habits and Interests of Men

How Germany, the EU and the economics field itself suffer from myopia—and what we can do about it

What can today’s economists learn from the 18th century Scottish thinkers who grappled with societal and economic change?

Animal rights, child welfare, social equality are all a direct legacy of the “cult of feeling” 

Financial Globalization and its Cryptocurrency Discontents

Once again, an out-of-control industry is threatening public health on a mammoth scale

Why it’s time to repeal the debt ceiling and replace it with a ‘truth in borrowing’ act

The Idea That Businesses Exist Solely to Enrich Shareholders Is Harmful Nonsense

The path of austerity could spread economic pain and social woes far beyond the Caribbean island, says public debt expert Martin Guzman 

In this episode of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Robert Johnson, about the political economy, inequality, and the failings of our technocratic institutions.

An examination of some little-known ways nation states and central banks prop up megabanks

New research shows that access to elite colleges varies by parents’ income—reinforcing inequality across generations 

When an economic model fails, it is reality—and the people living in it—who pay the bills while the model lives on, unscathed.

The same angst that Americans and Europeans have about the future of jobs is an order of magnitude higher in Asia.

Back-room deals on corporate tax reform won’t increase growth

The prevailing stock market ideology enriches value extractors, not value creators

As the Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow noted in 1987, computers are “everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Since then, the so-called productivity paradox has become ever more striking. Automation has eliminated many jobs. Robots and artificial intelligence now seem to promise (or threaten) yet more radical change. Yet productivity growth has slowed across the advanced economies; in Britain, labor is no more productive today than it was in 2007.