:: Levy Economics Institute of Bard College ::

Strategic Analysis | April 2008
Fiscal Stimulus—Is More Needed? In its November 2007 Strategic Analysis, the Levy Institute’s Macro-Modeling Team called for an immediate, sustained fiscal stimulus of 2 percent of GDP, as well as a plan for a much larger additional fiscal stimulus should the economic slowdown continue over the next two to three years. Since then, conditions have significantly worsened. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The State of the U.S. and World Economies

Public Policy Briefs | April 2008
Financial Markets Meltdown In this new Public Policy Brief, Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray explains today’s complex and fragile financial system, and how the seeds of crisis were sown by lax oversight, deregulation, and risky innovations such as securitization. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The State of the U.S. and World Economies | Monetary Policy and Financial Structure

Public Policy Brief Highlights | April 2008
Minsky’s Cushions of Safety: Systemic Risk and the Crisis in the U.S. Subprime Mortgage Market In this brief, Senior Scholar Jan Kregel reviews Hyman P. Minsky’s concept of financial fragility—in short, that the structure of a capitalist economy becomes more fragile over a period of prosperity—and concludes that the current crisis is in fact the result of insufficient margins of safety based on how creditworthiness is assessed in the new “originate and distribute” financial system. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
Monetary Policy and Financial Structure

Policy Notes | January 2007
The April AMT Shock Anyone who reads a newspaper knows that most Americans have accumulated excessive levels of debt, and realizes that as interest rates climb, it becomes more difficult to service financial liabilities. To add insult to injury, wage growth has been slow, while prices—especially for energy—have risen sharply. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The State of the U.S. and World Economies

Working Papers | May 2008
Argentina: A Case Study on the Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados, or the Employment Road to Economic Recovery After the 2001 crisis, Argentina—once the poster-child for pro-market structural-adjustment policies—had to define a new strategy in order to manage the societal demands that had led to the fall of the previous administration. The demand by the majority of the population for employment recovery spurred the government to introduce a massive employment program, the Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados (Program for Unemployed Male and Female Heads of Households). [more]

LIMEW Reports | April 2007
How Well Off Are America’s Elderly? Given the aging of the American population and the widening gap between rich and poor, not to mention the controversy surrounding the future viability of Social Security, the economic welfare of the elderly is an extremely topical issue. This report provides a new look at America’s elderly, and shows that the official measures drastically understate their level of economic well-being. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW)

Book Series | October 2007
Government Spending on the Elderly The results are in: we are aging—individually and collectively, nationally and globally. In the United States, as in most countries with an advanced economy, the aging of the population will be a primary domestic public policy issue in the coming decades. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW)

Report | April 2008
Report April 2008 In a new Public Policy Brief, Senior Scholar Jan Kregel reviews Hyman P. Minsky’s concept of financial fragility, and concludes that the current financial crisis is the result of insufficient margins, or "cushions," of safety based on how creditworthiness is assessed in the new originate-and-distribute financial system. [more]

Summary | April 2008
Summary Spring 2008 This issue highlights a series of working papers under the Monetary Policy and Financial Structure program that analyze the current instability within the financial industry in the United States. In each case, the author calls for policy and political reform in order to prevent “it” (the Great Depression) from happening again. [more]

Conference Proceedings | April 2007
16th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies The 2007 Hyman P. Minsky Conference focused on monetary and fiscal policies for continued growth and employment; currency markets fluctuations and the consequent exchange-rate misalignments, as well as possible cures; and the United States' households and trade deficits, their implications for growth and employment, and their effect on the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy. [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The State of the U.S. and World Economies

Conference Audio | May 2008
17th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference: Credit, Markets, and the Real Economy: Is the Financial System Working? The focus of this year's conference was the current economic and financial crisis in the United States and its effects on the world economy. Topics included the causes and consequences of the “Minsky moment”; the impact of the credit crunch on the economic and financial market outlook; dislocations and policy options; the rehabilitation of fiscal policy; margins of safety, systemic risk, and the U. [more]

Press Releases | April 2008
Larger Fiscal Stimulus Needed to Limit Impact of Downturn, New Levy Economics Institute Analysis Says [more]
Associated Research Program(s):
The State of the U.S. and World Economies

Biennial Reports | April 2008
Biennial Report, 2006–2007 Throughout 2006–07, the Levy Institute continued to make significant contributions to the public policy discussions on many economic issues. In addition to organizing conferences, workshops, and lectures with distinguished representatives of the academy, the business community, and government, the Levy Institute used its wide range of print and online publications to disseminate information about, and foster debate on, numerous policy issues. [more]

In the Media | September 2007
Prepare for the Credit Crisis to Spread FT.com, September 3, 2007. Copyright 2007 The Financial Times Limited. “FT” and “Financial Times” are trademarks of the [more]