Government & Politics

As the collapse of global supply chains highlights the fragility that comes with economic interdependence, the pandemic is fueling the rise of ethnonationalism. Policy decisions in response to the crisis will play an important role in determining the fate of the world economy.

Regardless of what Trump says, the economic pain of the pandemic isn’t going anywhere

Every country has had a different policy response to the crisis; and within countries different political parties have championed various approaches. How has COVID-19 affected politics and social life in developed western countries?

Abstract, “basic science” research is essential to drug discovery. It is also largely funded by the public sector.

The economic and social costs of the global lockdown have been astronomical but as governments look to begin the process of reopening economies it will be critical to develop strategies that balance both the health and economic risks of the pandemic.

Over five phased announcements last week, the Indian government set in motion an unprecedented fiscal stimulus. Gaurav Dalmia looks at India’s near-term economic challenges and offers a prescription on how privatisation can help India achieve its objectives.

A webinar panel discussion, moderated by Gillian Tett, US Managing Editor of the Financial Times, with Laurence Boone, OECD Chief Economist, Moritz Schularick, INET Research Fellow, and Adam Tooze, Director of the European Institute at Columbia University.

To able to deal with these consequences, our crisis response now should not lock us in into a permanent state of austerity, greater inequality and heightened vulnerability to future health calamities. New-old social democratic solutions are needed more than ever before.

The popular discontent and rise of ‘populist’ political parties is closely related to the failure of New Labor to navigate social democracy’s dilemma.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust us into a new reality, and any course we set now will have huge and lasting repercussions on public health and the economy.

A Template to Prevent a Global Debt Crisis?

As the COVID crisis threatens to overwhelm both federal and state government services, getting the digital component of government services to function effectively is mission critical.

Just before the crisis, European countries were designing austerity reforms that would increase inequality and reduce internal demand. Could they return?

Economists have gone to great lengths to write humans out of economics, pushing self-interest and generally providing two choices—faith in markets or the state.

A call to action for a world economy in crisis

Financial industry donations to members of Congress lead to the adoption of pro-bank policies

The links between campaign contributions from the financial sector and switches to a pro-bank vote were direct and substantial

IMPORTANT: Due to growing concerns around the coronavirus, the INET Conference, as well as these workshops will be postponed. Applicants will soon be provided further information.

Much historical commentary emphasizes how pandemics restructure long-standing social and political arrangements. The observation applies to macroeconomics as well.

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

Effective and quick federal policy response is critical to create conditions for a quick recovery.

It’s time for business executives, employees, and taxpayers to come together to help get us out of the pandemic and create conditions for a sustainable and equitable future

If the public is to be called upon for the second time in twelve years to bail out businesses, it should get something back for its money. Bailed out firms should be compelled to issue convertible bonds to the government.

New research points to critical role of public funding in drug discoveries and development for the last decade

A report from the Commission on Global Economic Transformation’s meeting in West Africa

Lower Income Towns in New Hampshire Voted Heavily for Sanders; Richer Towns Did the Opposite.

On the Modern Economic Theory of Incentives, Markets, and Socialism

In an economic context that remains uncertain, the biggest loser of the UK elections may well be our health and that of the environment.

The Irresistible Force Meets the Immovable Object?

One thing is clear – the ‘get Brexit done’ slogan resonated in a country which had been living on a series of knife edges as one ‘crunch’ time after another came and went.

Brexit uncertainty has already taken an economic toll

Using tools from computational linguistics, we construct new measures of the impact of Brexit on listed firms in the United States and around the world

Many of the challenges facing the new EU Presidency will need to be addressed not only at the European level but within a reinvigorated multilateral framework.

An update from the meeting of the Commission on Global Economic Transformation (CGET) in Cape Town

The New York Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum explains the role Democratic presidents, from Kennedy to Obama, in moving economic policy to the right

Economist James K. Boyce explains how to fight climate change and rising income inequality in one shot

The Chicago School has long used bankrupt assumptions to strangle antitrust policy

The Chicago School has long used bankrupt assumptions to strangle antitrust policy.

Political risk—and what firms do about it

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.

Frequent civil conflicts in African countries may erode national identity, thus highlighting a reason why civil conflict is costly for growth and development

Frequent civil conflicts in African countries may erode national identity, thus highlighting a reason why civil conflict is costly for growth and development

How free electricity could fight climate change and inequality

A collection of our research on populism, globalization and nationalism

One of America’s leading socialists discusses how a collectively owned economy would be structured, the limits of the welfare state, and what Keynes understood that Marx didn’t

The Chicago School’s weakening of antitrust law hurt the economy

This paper presents an historical analysis of the antitrust laws.

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

“Facebook is undermining our country, our democracy.”

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.

Facebook engaged in an elaborate bait and switch on user data: Privacy disappeared when competition did. Laws governing competition could change that.

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

Part of INET and the Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) roundtable series, “Vikàsàrth: Development and the Economy.”

Modern monetary theorists ignore how their policies could hurt developing countries

The most popular political philosopher of his generation on liberal responsibility worldwide for the rise of the hard right

Author Samuel Stein talks about how capitalism shapes housing and what economists have in common with city planners

Decades before it caught on with other economists, Sadie Alexander was the first economist to recommend a government jobs guarantee in the US

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.

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.

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.

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

Learn about the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and join a panel discussion on Political Economy and New Economic Thinking with Thomas Ferguson, Perry Mehrling, and Katharina Pistor.

A panel discussion on the importance of the role of the state alongside private enterprise to encourage innovative entrepreneurship, productivity and economic growth in an “Innovation Economy.”

Organized by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi in collaboration with the Institute of New Economic Thinking, New York, the aim of the Law Economics Policy Conference series is to bring together legal, economic, and public policy thinkers to consider a variety of real world issues in India in a holistic manner.

LSE Director Minouche Shafik says that for democracy to work, we must keep the market out of certain domains

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. 

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

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.

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

Right-wing news sources have stopped playing by the rules of journalism

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.

This paper critically analyzes voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Donald Trump, democracy, and how the wealthy crush the American Dream

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’.

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

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

Young scholars in the fields of behavioral and experimental economics, philosophy, and related disciplines will be given the opportunity to present their work at a workshop in New York. Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute), Shaun Hargreaves Heap (King’s College London) and Mario Rizzo (New York University) will also present their work and give feedback to the young scholars.

“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.

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

Expanding, rather than cutting, Social Security is the solution

The Economics of Innovation Working group and the Economic History Working Group together with the Département d’histoire, économie et société at the University of Geneva, are launching the event Political Economy of Capitalism to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on 27-28-29 August 2018.

Using datasets on transactions within business groups and social sentiment in China, I show that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) use internal funds to address social unrest, complying with the government’s political goals.

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

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

This paper explains how hedge-fund activists are exerting power over corporate resourceallocation far in excess of the actual voting power of their shareholdings.

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

James Galbraith says academic economics is in need of radical reform

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 Latin America Working Group and the Keynesian Economic Working Group of the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) of the Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) are hosting the workshop “Technology, Globalization and the Environment: Latin American Development in the XXI Century” to be held at the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC) in Santiago de Chile on the 23-24 July 2018.

Journalist Steven Brill discusses how the U.S. lost sight of the common good