Archive

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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

A review of Perry Mehrling’s book, Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System, and an exploration Mehrling’s discussion of the 1982 correspondence between Charles Kindleberger and Ben Bernanke examining their theories concerning financial crises.

New research reveals that rising insurance costs, reckless building, regulatory inaction, and big banks’ fossil fuel investments are driving a dangerous cycle that jeopardizes homeowners — and financial stability for everyone.

DeepSeek’s appearance is changing the AI landscape in more ways than we might think.

The distinguished economist talks about the power of entropy in shaping a new economic reality and viewing current events. His new book, Entropy Economics: The Living Basis of Value and Production, challenges flawed mainstream models that lead to distortions and bad policy.

New book reveals how and why hedge-fund activists have been able to suck the life from big-name companies like J.C. Penney and Samsung with their short-sighted profit-grabs. Can their harmful activities be stopped?

If there is no universally accepted outside authority to tell us how to judge theories then knowledge is only going to progress by means of debate

Fifty years ago the actions of the Federal Reserve mattered. Today, so far as the aggregate measures of the American domestic economy go, they do not.

Sociologist Michael A. McCarthy’s latest book shows how ordinary people can take back control of financial capitalism and make it work for them.

The country’s flawed insurance model, driven by greed, leads to inefficiency, inequality, and denied care - a colossal scam that has sparked fury across the nation.

An interview with Thomas Ferguson on the 2024 US election conducted by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod and Tim Barker for Phenomenal World

Industrial organization economists have caused antitrust to cling to an antiquated and disproven economic theory.

Dr. Victor Gurewich, a researcher and Harvard Medical School faculty member since 1965, discovered a breakthrough drug treatment for heart attacks and strokes with the potential to save millions, but institutional resistance and a U.S. healthcare system that puts profits over patients are keeping it out of reach.

The Utah Project on Antitrust and Consumer Protection hosted a conference on the future of consumer financial services law on October 11, 2024, which was supported by an INET grant.

What Japan, the US, and Europe have in common is growing popular anger over the economy despite high stock prices and low unemployment.

The firehose of affluent consumption continues to drive inflation, not the stimulus package

Earlier investments make large-scale emission reductions easier to do over time because their unit costs drop

Ever since 2016, INET researchers confirmed the significance of economic issues in Trump’s ascendency.

Many voters, feeling disillusioned, are searching in vain for narratives that resonate with their experiences.

The key role coal industrialists played in supporting and financing the eventual Nazi triumph

In his new book, Mindless, acclaimed economic historian Robert Skidelsky urges readers to pause and reflect on the delicate balance between advancing technology and our human essence.

The limitations of the benchmark E-DSGE framework and how these limitations restrict the ability of this framework to meaningfully capture the macroeconomics of the climate crisis.

As artificial intelligence reshapes our economy, policymakers must act swiftly to prevent a winner-take-all scenario in the rapidly evolving market for AI foundation models.

In a fresh release from INET’s book series with Cambridge University Press, renowned German economic historian Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich uncovers the startling truth behind German currency reform usually hailed as the foundation of the post-war German economic miracle: Ludwig Erhard, who cooperated with the Nazis, unjustly claimed the spotlight, overshadowing the real architect, Edward Tenenbaum.

The biggest factor in accounting for the strength in the economy is the continuing importance of the wealth effect in sustaining consumption by the affluent.

Medicare Needs a Perspective on “Collective and Cumulative Learning” in Inflation Reduction Act Negotiations

The financialization of U.S. firms making critical products endangers both American global leadership and, in Tesla’s case, climate change progress.

From the perspective of innovative enterprise, we ask how Musk might abuse his power of strategic control—and what that would mean for corporate governance reform.

A new book, The Hamilton Scheme, explores a very different founder than the one we’ve come to think we know.

By 1812 the U.S. already had more business corporations than any other country and possibly more than all other countries combined.

The IRA has the potential to rectify the imbalance between public benefit and private incentives

Patrick Gelsinger stepped down as INTEL’s CEO on December 1. We published an analysis last August that provides context for why this is significant for the company and the US economy.

Cybersecurity expert Muayyad Al-Chalabi assesses CrowdStrike’s update failure and its broader implications for cybersecurity in a discussion with Lynn Parramore.

Increasing evidence that the IRA is probably not harming pharmaceutical innovation.

Dr. Phillip Alvelda tells INET’s Lynn Parramore about persistent political and public health failures exposing us to devastating diseases, while vastly underestimating their long-term health effects.

The McKinsey report’s highlighting of an extremely high job vacancy ratio in recent years does not reflect the true state of the U.S. labor market.

New technologies appear to yield long-lasting benefits for the pioneer locations where they were originally developed.

Journalist Peter Goodman delves into the persistent problems with supply chains and how to fix them his new book, “How the World Ran Out of Everything,” in conversation with the Institute for New Economic Thinking

The most crucial issue in European policy, and one on which no big party campaigned and no important public discussion took place, was the fiscal policy stance for the next few years.

An excerpt from Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide by David N. Gibbs, published by Columbia University Press (2024)

In persisting with its high rates policy, the Fed is acting like James Dean in the famous “chicken run” auto race in Rebel Without a Cause.

The $48 Billion Stock-Option Package and its Implications for the EV Transition

In a candid discussion with INET’s Lynn Parramore, Dr. Phillip Alvelda highlights the imminent dangers of long COVID, criticizing governments and health agencies for ongoing preventable suffering and deaths. *This is Part 2 of a two-part interview.

An ensemble of mechanisms enables cloud hegemons (Microsoft, Google, Amazon) to plan the whole AI knowledge and innovation network by weaponizing interdependence in networks.

Stuck in a fog of misleading narratives, most of us don’t see the true extent of COVID’s persisting—and intensifying—threats. INET’s Lynn Parramore talks to Dr. Phillip Alvelda about the dangers we’re missing and the failures of public health agencies to inform and protect us. *This is Part 1 of a two-part interview.

How have the macroeconomic problems in the US blinded many participants and observers to the actual state of the American economy as the election approaches?

In a political system whose primary currency is not the vote but the dollar, McConnell’s role as leader has plainly been well-earned.

Experts are clear that working into old age often threatens the health and well-being of U.S. seniors.

Wang Hui, author of The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, now available in English, provides conceptual guidance for understanding China’s intellectual progress in a conversation with INET’s Lynn Parramore.

The American state has lost the capacity for concentrated and decisive effort at the forefront of technology and the associated science.

Predetermined profit margins and prices hidden in the back end of a transaction are really just market failures.

Bernanke and Blanchard have made another failed attempt to salvage establishment macroeconomics after the massive onslaught of adverse inflationary circumstances with which it could evidently not contend.

Behind bogus promises of job creation and economic growth lies a dangerous agenda to shred social safety nets.

Programs for expedited review may be preferentially reducing the development costs for conditions with lesser disease burden, potentially making investments in addressing the most significant disease burdens even less appealing and exacerbating the market failure further.

The discrepancy between technocratic rhetoric and economic facts is colossal.

Industry lobbyists vehemently oppose Medicare drug price negotiations. However, physician-scientist Fred Ledley and economist William Lazonick debunk their arguments.

The “maximum fair price” for a drug must not only be equitable to those with unmet medical needs who may benefit from the use of the drug but also provide equitable returns on both public and private sector investments.

Connecticut is the first state to fund and enact a baby bonds program, inspiring more states to create their own plans. Can it make a difference?

It was a mistake to accept a ‘reference price’-determination process for basic commodities led by finance

This year’s New Hampshire primary testifies to the disintegration of the Republican Party

White House contenders ignore root causes threatening the program, potentially worsened by cuts. Is it due to reliance on wealthy donors?

The key issue is the regulation of the liquidity of all financial markets, and not just that of the banking system

Reinterpreting Bagehot’s mature work as the origin of the key currency tradition

When working within the same employment spell, female workers, particularly those of color and those working in low-wage service and care jobs, earn significantly less when facing greater volatility than their male counterparts or those working in non-service, non-care occupations.

Alessandro Roncaglia has mulled the topic of power over his long and distinguished career – a topic most economists avoid. His new book explores the historical dynamics of power and asks how we can change its distribution today.

Eric Laursen, author of The People’s Pension, explains to INET’s Lynn Parramore what’s at stake for Americans in a year of sneak attacks and misinformation.

Germany’s debt brake and EU fiscal rules will make it well neigh impossible for EU countries to fund the investments needed to decarbonize their economies.

Which households are more exposed to financial risk and to what extent is their debt systemically relevant?

In an exclusive interview, Benjamin Page discusses urgent reforms needed to tackle critical challenges, from undemocratic institutions to economic inequality.

Reindustrialization vs Financialization

“If we get our policy, politics, and institutions right, African economies and society could gain greater energy and food security, built on green competition and taking strong action on climate change.“ —Professor Chuks Okereke, Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Development at Alex Ekwueme Federal University

Walker Todd and Bill Bergman expose the untold story of banking instability, regulatory battles, and the struggle to protect the public from financial chaos

Why did so many Dutch voters vote for the far-right Geert Wilders?

What sort of effective democratic political system does the United States want and need?

In his new book, Let Them Eat Crypto, Peter Howson cautions that the technologies are not just fraudulent but causing indefensible harm to both humanity and the planet.

The famed short-seller talks Sam Bankman-Fried, why Wall Street is still so keen on crypto, and how technology is making us dumber.

Recent developments in AI have added fuel to debates that have long simmered amongst economists, which could lead to a rethinking of economics itself.

The theoretical approaches to analyzing crises have behind them contrasting conceptions of the way the economy works

In accepting mass unemployment, post-communist governments and the democratic parties that constituted them removed the economic foundation for Poland’s democracy.

The impenetrability of this continuously expanding Ptolemaic New Keynesian paradigm is maddening

Post-Chicago Economists vs. New Brandeisians on the New Merger Guidelines

What is GM CEO Mary Barra’s take-home pay? (It’s more than you are being told)

The tech giant is in the hot seat, but it’s going to be a “big fight,” warns antitrust expert Mark Glick.

We have made progress but not enough to forestall crises

The “liquidity” support provided by the Fed to megabanks through cross-border lending in fact acted as subsidies

What lessons need to be drawn on this anniversary?

By all accounts infection rates have ebbed. But were we good or were we lucky?

New technologies are not the problem. It’s a system distorted by a flawed ideology.

ProMarket’s new “Addendum to Retraction,” written it appears in response to our recent INET post, doubles down on its critique of our piece which showed that it is feasible for increased output to lead to reduced welfare. The ProMarket addendum is notable for its economic errors.*

Economists had to distort economic theory to fashion their merger “efficiency” arguments

Losing jobs isn’t the only thing workers have to worry about. AI may make many jobs worse.

Stock buybacks as a mode of predatory value extraction

ProMarket and the Consumer Welfare Standard An output increase is not sufficient to increase welfare. Allocation—how goods are distributed—matters.