Finance

Discussions on the key conceptual and policy themes for sovereign debt sustainability with a view to proposing possible policy reforms.

Morale hazard can turn into a darker ‘moral’ hazard

There needs to be a safe place for businesses to place their reserves and working capital

There is a banking crisis. Again. Banking regulators were asleep at the switch. Again.

A federal government guarantee or 100% reserve banking? Which is better?

Bank failures don’t threaten most deposits, but they do threaten jobs

The explanation of systematic breakdowns in supervisory oversight over time must include the shift in Federal Reserve culture during and after the 1990s

Austerity for ordinary citizens and bank rescues for the affluent is a toxic mix

This time is different. But is it?

In the following conversation, law and economics expert Walker Todd explains how a financialized system creates havoc and why it’s time to rethink banking

INET Research on Financial Sector Weakness and Too Big to Fail

On the dereliction of key US-based business corporations to take the lead in making the investments in organizational learning required to generate cutting-edge communication-infrastructure products.

Cryptocurrency was supposed to change the economic outlook for Black America. For many, it made things worse.

This research project develops an approach to policy analysis in the context of a macroeconomic model that does not assume that people in the economy forecast the economy’s future evolution under any given policy in the same way as the policy analyst’s own model does.

This research project develops, estimates, calibrates, and deploys a new class of stock flow consistent macroeconomic models to try to understand Ireland’s macroeconomic collapse since 2007.

We are in the midst of another global transformation, but this time we might have the tools to get it right.

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are considered “passive” investors and are exempt from corporate tax. But in reality, they play a very active role in reshaping whole industries, like healthcare.

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are considered “passive” investors and are exempt from corporate tax. But in reality, they play a very active role in reshaping whole industries, like healthcare.

Central banks can encourage climate-friendly investments by offering financial institutions favorable haircuts on green collateral

Central banks can encourage climate-friendly investments by offering financial institutions favorable haircuts on green collateral

Economic sanctions against Russia are adding to a major redistribution of income from workers and middle-class consumers to profits in international trade.

UNCTAD Director Richard Kozul-Wright and Kevin Gallagher, Global Development Policy professor at Boston University, discuss their book, The Case for a New Bretton Woods. Ever since the post-war economic order was dismantled beginning in the 1980s, a re-design of the global economic order has become increasingly urgent in light of the social and ecological crises that we face.

Evidence from Survey Data of Inflation Forecasts

Stock buybacks come at the cost of technological innovation

Where are the US and Europe now and where could they be going?

Analyzing corporate conference calls reveals the way that countries perceive and spread risk through the global financial system

Analyzing corporate conference calls reveals the way that countries perceive and spread risk through the global financial system

Large-sale debt relief for indebted households could be a game changer.

Does the COVID recession still have the potential to turn into a broader financial meltdown?

Is r/wallstreetbets really leading a financial revolution?

George Soros’ latest op-ed in the Project Syndicate reasserts his view how perpetual bonds could help the European Union overcome its deadlock on fiscal spending.

What are the 100 most pertinent economic questions facing our global societ?

What is the current situation in credit markets? Will an overhang of debt on corporate balance sheets slow down the recovery from the COVID recession and be a drag on investment going forward? Does the COVID recession still have the potential to turn into a broader financial meltdown?

Like master illusionists, bank accountants conceal losses from federal regulators, putting the whole economy at risk

The study seeks to explain why the instruments of central banking inevitably break down over time.

Despite post-2008 regulations, the boom-bust credit cycle continues to run wild

Despite post-2008 regulations, the boom-bust credit cycle continues to run wild

How and Why Bankers Still Enjoy a Global Rescue Network

A look at Dodd-Frank’s impact

As protests erupt on the streets of America and the world, current power structures no longer feel tenable. Can this popular uprising break the neoliberal grip on the state and create lasting structural change that will empower the disenfranchised?

We find empirical evidence that changes in market sentiment drive unforeseeable change in how stock returns unfold over time, thereby engendering Knightian uncertainty.

We reveal a novel channel through which market participants’ sentiment influences how they forecast stock returns: their optimism (pessimism) affects the weights they assign to fundamentals.

What ails the EU Green Deal is exactly what troubles the Union in general — an absence of social democracy at work

Dr. Chen Long, Director of the Luohan Academy, explains why the digital revolution is so different from the industrial revolution

The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF are the continent’s austerity police

Stock buybacks are giveaways for greedy investors at the expense of everyone else.

How Investor-owned Physician Practices Are Driving up Healthcare Costs

Risky lending took down the global economy in 2008. Tracking it now is a vital job for economists, says Juliane Begenau

We adapt simple tools from computational linguistics to construct a new measure of political risk faced by individual US firms: the share of their quarterly earnings conference calls that they devote to political risks.

When the stock market grows faster than the housing market, the gains of the top 1% outpace those of the middle class

Richard Vague and Rob Johnson discuss the role of excessive lending in causing financial crises throughout history

Shaped by the 2008 financial crisis, a new generation of economists is expanding the boundaries of economic thinking on credit cycles, private debt, and financial stability.

Steven Pressman says in the next few years, we could see rising interest rates bring about a recession

Matthew Baron challenges conventional myths about booms and busts

The state has long used law to back private money—with dire consequences, then and now

A report of the Commission on Global Economic Transformation’s subcommittee on Macroeconomics & Finance

Modern Monetary Theory is problematic. Launching large scale fiscal programs that rely on it would be skating on thin ice.

Low interest rate policy can only do so much to bring the relief to American borrowers that they deserve: past monetary policies, credit market regulations and stagnant labor productivity growth all get in the way. Interest rate policy activism is part of the problem, not the solution.

At a G20 preparatory meeting in Berlin, an INET panel analyzed how governments can prevent banks from exploiting taxpayer-funded bailout guarantees

Modern monetary theorists ignore how their policies could hurt developing countries

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.

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.

Chaired by Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Spence, INET has assembled a global team of leaders and scholars calling for new thinking & new rules for the world economy

The Private Debt initiative is an opportunity to articulate how private debt impacts the economy and to specify the pathways for its effects. The initiative will also lead to better knowledge for the use of regulators, policymakers, journalists, and the public. Finally, the Private Debt initiative will open a better-informed dialogue towards tangible solutions to the problems posed by excessive private debt.

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.

Microfinance and then financial inclusion have become buzzwords in international development. Such initiatives have mobilised and generated  large amounts of development funding, despite substantial amount of critique. Such critiques call for a more impartial assessment of the effectiveness of financial inclusion on the grounds that funds for microfinance, they argue, displaced development spendings on healthcare, education or infrastructure. In addition, the focus on expansion of financial markets to ‘bank’ and financially ‘include’ the poor may divert attention from more comprehensive and effective poverty reduction strategies. Critiques of this ‘way of doing development’ are often sidelined and labelled as ‘extreme’, ‘sloppy’ or ideology-driven rather than evidence-based. We believe that there is a need for contemporary development scholars from all disciplines to engage in those debates. This half-day workshop would bring in such scholars to discuss what we have learned from a decade of research on the microfinance, and how financial inclusion and the emergence of fintech may offer new opportunities - as well as risks - in for inclusive global development. 

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.

What did societies and politicians learn from the crash? What have been theoretical achievements in orthodox and heterodox economic thinking since then? Where do we go from here?

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.

The YSI Economics of Innovation, Economic Development and Africa Working Groups, in partnership with Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation and Competence Building Systems (GLOBELICS), Globelics Alumni, are organizing the 1st GLOBELICS Pre-Conference for Young Scholars entitled ‘Financing of Innovation and Infrastructure for Development’.

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

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

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

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

“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.

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

George Soros and Rob Johnson Discuss the Causes and Consequences of the 2008 Financial Crisis

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

In 2008 a global financial meltdown was just barely contained. But Adam Tooze says that the crisis of confidence has had long aftershocks

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