From 1999 to 2004, the European Union had in place a moratorium on new genetically modified (GM) products. This moratorium created a tense trade dispute between the United States and the EU. While the moratorium has now been lifted, differences remain between the EU's and US's approach to GM...

The subprime crisis raised some fundamental questions about the usefulness of mainstream economics. This paper considers the shortcomings of the new neoclassical synthesis and the new macroeconomic consensus in analysing the causes and consequences of the crisis. It demonstrates that the major...

This paper provides an overview of the evolution of macroeconomic thought from 1936, the year John Maynard Keynes published his general theory of employment, interest and money to the year 2010. It explores the reasons for the extension of the business cycle during the postwar period. The paper...

Many are currently studying the origins of the financial crisis in an attempt to answer two seemingly simple questions: why did it happen, and can another crisis be prevented? Those two questions have proved incredibly divisive. The majority opinion of The United States Financial Crisis Inquiry...

This paper analyzes the causes and implications of recent financial crises. Financial crises in general lead to changes in both theory and practice of economics. The paper takes an historical overview. The global consensus of economic theory during the 20th century is discussed. The paper...

Building on recent work on the role of speculation and inventories in oil markets, we embed a competitive oil storage model within a DSGE model of the U.S. economy. This enables us to formally analyze the impact of a (speculative) storage demand shock and to assess how the effects of various...

"It is widely agreed that randomized controlled trials - social experiments - are the gold standard for evaluating social programs. There are, however, many important issues that cannot be tested using social experiments, and often things go wrong when conducting social experiments. This paper...