Senior Scholar James K. Galbraith argues the fundamental illusion of viewing the US economy through the free-market prism of deregulation, privatization, and a benevolent government operating mainly through monetary stabilization - the prevailing view among economists over the past three...

By general agreement, the federal budget is on an "unsustainable path." Try typing the phrase into Google News: 19 of the first 20 hits refer to the federal debt. But what does this actually mean? One suspects that some who use the phrase are guided by vague fears, or even that they don't quite...

The concept of a labor market, responding to familiar underpinnings of supply and demand, completely colors thought on the relationship between employment, wages, and inflation, according to James K. Galbraith. However, he asserts, wages are determined not by such market forces, but by what he...

The "American Model" serves as a point of reference in discussions of economic policy around the world especially in Europe; many claim that the American version of the free market represents an ideal type-it is the highest form of capitalism. The author argues, however, that the United States...

This paper uses industrial wage data and a systematic if unconventional selection of methods to examine changes in the inter-industry structure of wages between 1920 and 1947. We first sort among the available data on wage change by industry and occupation for blocs that exhibit common patterns...

Year-to-year economy-wide measures of income distribution, such as the Gini coefficient, are rarely available for long periods except in a few developed countries, and as a result few analyses of year-to-year changes in inequality exist. But wage and earnings data by industrial sectors are...

A group of experts associated with the Economists for Peace and Security and the Initiative for Rethinking the Economy met recently in Paris to discuss financial and monetary issues; their viewpoints, summarized here by Senior Scholar James K. Galbraith, are largely at odds with the global...

The global abatement of the inflationary climate of the past three decades, combined with continuing financial instability, helped to promote the worldwide holding of U.S. dollar reserves as a cushion against financial instability outside the United States, with the result that, for the United...

Today's federal budget deficits are a preoccupation of many American citizens and more than a few political leaders. Is the American government going bankrupt? Does our fiscal condition warrant radical surgery, as some now prescribe? Or, are we in such deep trouble that there is no plausible...