Before we can reform the financial system, we need to understand what banks do—or, better yet, what banks should do. Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray examines Hyman Minsky’s views on banking and the proper role of the financial system—not simply to finance investment in physical capital but...

It's a mistake to interpret the unfolding disaster in Europe as primarily a "sovereign debt crisis." The underlying problem is not periphery profligacy, but rather the very setup of the European Monetary Union (EMU)—a setup that even now prevents a satisfactory resolution to this crisis. The...

The 2007-08 global financial crisis was the second most disastrous global economic event of the last 80 years. Thanks to severe austerity measures and a fanatical commitment to fiscal consolidation, Europe’s overall economy is now close to stagnation and extremely high levels of unemployment...

Several years before the onset of the recent financial crisis, ex -- Federal Reserve Board Member Lawrence Meyer wrote that the Fed "is often called the most powerful institution in America," its key decisions made by 19 people whose names are known by few, meeting regularly behind closed doors....

President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen make the case that the recession has turned into a prolonged and very unusual slump in growth, preventing a labor-market recovery—and the government lags far behind in creating the new jobs needed to deal with this disaster.

The stability of the international reserve currency's purchasing power is less a question of what serves as that currency and more a question of the international adjustment mechanism, as well as the compatibility of export-led development strategies with international payment balances....

Since adopting a policy of gradually opening its economy more than three decades ago, China has enjoyed rapid economic growth and rising living standards for much of its population. While some argue that China might fall into the middle-income "trap," they are underestimating the country's...

The Levy Institute Measure of Time and Consumption Poverty (LIMTCP) is a two-dimensional measure that takes into account both the necessary consumption expenditures and the household production time needed to achieve a minimum standard of living -- factors often ignored in official poverty...

Should we allow the fiscal cliff, with its across-the-board spending cuts and big tax increases that will affect almost every American, to take effect? Economists have been weighing in on such fiscal policy questions in what seems to be the most intense election-year debate in many years. To...

The recent report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on the operations of JPMorgan Chase's Synthetic Credit Portfolio unit--aka the London Whale--has brought renewed attention to the risks of proprietary trading for insured banks, and provides depth to the larger risks...