This paper presents new nonlinear regression estimates of the relationship between inflation and economic growth for 80 countries over the 1961- 2000 period, using middle-income and low-income countries. We also consider the four separate decades between 1961 and 2000. The paper consistently...

This article first examines the question, “What is a living wage?†and provides a range of specific dollar amounts derived through a conceptual assessment of the term. It then provides a series of cost estimates of living wage laws in various cities. Based on these cost estimates, the...

After the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, commercial banks in the United States began accumulating huge cash reserves in their accounts at the Federal Reserve. By the middle of 2011, reserves had reached $1.6 trillion, more than 10 percent of U.S. GDP, an order of magnitude for commercial...

This paper examines three sets of major issues regarding the current U.S. government’s fiscal deficit and outstanding debt, tied to the 2009 economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvest-ment Act (ARRA). First, I consider the claim that high levels of government borrowing...

Amid the wreckage of the 2008-09 Wall Street collapse and Great Recession, orthodox economists and political elites in both the United States and Western Europe have been strongly pushing the idea that austerity is the only viable policy option. The basis for the austerity hawks' claim is that...

This paper considers policies for promoting productive investments in the United States, especially as regards the project of building a clean energy economy. The four main policies examined are: 1) Expanding public investments throughout the economy and gaining the crowding-in benefits that...

This study focuses on the employment effects of military spending versus alternative domestic spending priorities, in particular investments in clean energy, health care and education. We first present some simple alternative spending scenarios, namely devoting $1 billion to the military versus...