The humankind wisdom is supposed to be a related and open-deeper turning point. An equivalent type of statement may be referred to generosity, creativity, solidarity. Homo Sapiens, as a species, is distinguished clearly from other species by their socio-cultural nature, drawing on a deep inner...

We review macroeconomic performance over the period since the Global Financial Crisis and the challenges in the pursuit of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. We characterize the use of forward guidance and balance sheet policies after the federal funds rate reached the effective lower bound....

The humankind wisdom is supposed to be a related and open-deeper turning point. An equivalent type of statement may be referred to generosity, creativity, solidarity. Homo Sapiens, as a species, is distinguished clearly from other species by their socio-cultural nature, drawing on a deep inner...

This paper tests whether Rodrik's (1999) results that institutions for conflict management are associated with the ability to react to economic shocks are robust to different ways of defining the quality of such institutions. We measure the quality of conflict management institutions with two...

In his influential and highly readable book Collapse, Jared Diamond claims that human-induced ecological and environmental degradation and the over-use of natural resources have caused civilizations to collapse. The term ‘collapse’ means “… a drastic decrease in human population size,...

In his influential and highly readable book Collapse, Jared Diamond claims that human-induced ecological and environmental degradation and the over-use of natural resources have caused civilizations to collapse. This paper examines the collapse thesis in light of recent research on the way...

This paper asks two questions. First, can we explain Japan's ongoing financial crisis by means of an institutional analysis similar to the one Hyman P. Minsky applied to the U.S. economy during thepostwar period? Second, what are the implications of this analysis for what is going on in...

The Italian economy is often said to be on a declining path. In this paper, we document that: (i) Italy's current decline is a labor productivity problem (ii) the labor productivity slowdown stems from declining productivity growth in all industries but utilities (with manufacturing contributing...

The Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology gives its visitors much to ponder. Established at the site in Nagoya where in 1911 Sakichi Toyoda founded his automatic loom factory (the basis of the family fortune, which later funded his son Kiichiro's development of automobile...

In this paper we argue that a better understanding of the relationship between inequality and growth can be obtained by shifting the analysis from the space of final achievements to the space of opportunities. To this end, we introduce the Opportunity Growth Incidence Curve, that can be used to...