This paper sets out to investigate the forces and conditions that led to the emergence of global imbalances preceding the worldwide crisis of 2007–09, and both the likelihood and the potential sustainability of reemerging global imbalances as the world economy recovers from that crisis. The...

This paper reconsiders fiscal policy effectiveness in light of the recent economic crisis. It examines the fiscal policy approach advocated by the economics profession today and the specific policy actions undertaken by the Bush and Obama administrations. An examination of the labor market...

The estimation of an ordered probit model for currency reforms trying to end 31 hyperinflations and three big inflations of the 20th century shows that the introduction of an independent central bank and the adoption of a credibly fixed exchange rate are crucial for the success of a currency...

This paper provides empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the secular price increase in the 16th century is mainly caused by money supply developments as the discovery of new mines in Latin America. First we review price developments for several European countries over the 16th...

This paper investigates why Europe fared particularly poorly in the global economic crisis that began in August 2007. It questions the self-portrait of Europe as the victim of external shocks, pushed off track by reckless policies pursued elsewhere. It argues instead that Europe had not only...

We analyse the long-run imbalances of finance-dominated capitalism underlying the present crisis - which began in 2007 - with a focus on developments in the US and Germany. We argue that beyond inefficient regulation of the financial sector, the severeness of the present crisis has been mainly...

The severity of the financial and economic crisis which started in 2007 cannot be understood without examining the medium- to long-run developments in the world economy since the early 1980s. The following long-run causes for the crisis can be identified: inefficient regulation of financial...

The paper evaluates the fiscal policy initiatives during the Great Recession in the United States. It argues that, although the nonconventional fiscal policies targeted at the financial sector dwarfed the conventional countercyclical stabilization efforts directed toward the real sector, the...

This paper analyzes the causes of the 2008 - 2009 global financial crisis together with its manifestations, using a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model. The analysis is conducted on a cross-section of 85 countries. It is found that more financially integrated countries do not seem to...

The increasing dominance of finance starting in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the US and the UK, and somewhat later in other countries, was associated with two fundamental and structural processes generating the contradictions of this phase of development and finally the financial and economic...