Finance

We can land planes safely at crowded airports, yet we can’t manage to make our financial system safe. Why?

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.

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

Starting with the literature on the estimates of the natural rate of interest, this paper critically analyzes the modern practice of identifying the benchmark rate of monetary policy with an equilibrium or neutral interest rate reflecting “fundamental forces” unaffected by monetary factors.

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.

The American economy changed rapidly in the last half-century. The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) were designed before these changes started. They have stretched to accommodate new and growing service activities, but they are still organized for an industrial economy.

Neoclassical economics dismisses the role of money and the state in the economy. Keynes scholar Robert Skidlesky says it’s time for a re-evaluation.

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

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.

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

“We don’t look after each other at all,” says Jeffrey Sachs on America today

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

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.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. …This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not before.” This YSI Webinar and Reading Group aims to contribute to the historicization of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and its repercussions.

This paper concerns itself with the joint effect of implicit subsidies that are built into the US housing-finance system and financial safety net.