The latest news from Levy Economics Institute   THE LEVY NEWS April 30, 2024 Our Site Research Events Publications ANNOUNCEMENTS   The 31st Annual Levy Economics Institute Conference is a one-day, virtual event organized around the topics of Economic Prospects for the US Economy, The Revival of Industrial Policy, Causes and Measurement of Inequality, and Aging and Public Policy: Debunking Myths, Providing Solutions. Presenters will include: Reda Cherif, International Monetary Fund (IMF); James K. Galbraith, LBJ School of Public Affairs & Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; Teresa Ghilarducci, The New School for Social Research; Fuad Hasanov, International Monetary Fund (IMF) & Georgetown University; Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs; Michelle Holder, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Ed Lane, Lane Asset Management; Tom Masterson, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; R.C. Whalen, Whalen Global Advisors LLC; L. Randall Wray, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; Ajit Zacharias, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; and Gennaro Zezza, University of Cassino, Italy & Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Conference program, livestream link, and further details will be posted on our website as they become available. REGISTER NOW NEW EPISODE OUT NOW Subscribe to our new podcast series, The Levy Institute Podcast. The newest episode features Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray on Social Security, what people misunderstand about the implications of aging societies, and his unorthodox path to becoming an economist. Find the Levy Institute Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts!     New Publications Research Project Report | February 2024 Integrating Nonmarket Consumption into the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey Ajit Zacharias, Fernando Rios-Avila, Nancy Folbre, and Thomas Masterson In spring 2021, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) kicked off a major initiative—to produce a measure of consumption to supplement the release of consumer expenditures. The production of such a measure would fill a data gap regarding household economic well-being. The following report includes the Levy Institute’s findings in developing an empirical methodology and identifying data sources to extend the consumer expenditure data collected by the BLS by incorporating household production (nonmarket and nongovernmental services such as do-it-yourself home repairs and childcare). Under contract with the BLS, the researchers—Ajit Zacharias, Fernando Rios-Avila, Nancy Folbre, and Thomas Masterson—found that an overwhelming share of home production is provided by women. Distinct from most previous research, this research extends the scope of household production to include supervisory childcare and care received by household members from people outside their household. Estimates are generated for various major components of household production, such as childcare and cooking, rather than a single category. Included are estimates by alternative methods with monetary values of household production. This research represents an extension of the work the Levy Institute has been doing in bringing the realm of household production into economic analysis, including the creation of alternative measures of economic well-being (LIMEW) and poverty (LIMTIP).  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1040 | February 2024 COP28 and Environmental Federalism: Empirical Evidence from an Emerging Economy, India Lekha S. Chakraborty, Amandeep Kaur, Ranjan Kumar Mohanty, Divy Rangan, and Sanjana Das Against the backdrop of COP28, Research Scholar Lekha S. Chakraborty et al. investigate the impact of intergovernmental fiscal transfers (IGFT) on climate change commitments in India. Their findings substantiate the fiscal policy impacts for climate change commitments within the fiscal federal frameworks of India, and the significance of IGFT in increasing the forest cover in India, which has policy implications for the Sixteenth Finance Commission of India in integrating a climate change–related criterion in the tax-transfer formula in a sustainable manner.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1041 | February 2024 Amazon Green Recovery and Labor Market in Brazil: Can Green Spending Reduce Gender and Race Inequalities? Luiza Nassif Pires, Gilberto Tadeu Lima, Pedro Romero Marques, Tainari Taioka, and José Bergamin This article presents a counterfactual analysis by assessing the impacts of green spending in the Amazon on the labor market, quantitatively—in terms of the number of jobs created—and qualitatively—exploring the distribution of those jobs by region and according to gender and race categories. Research Scholar Luiza Nassif Pires et al. build synthetic sectors representing each area of investment in a two-region input-output matrix (“Brazilian Amazon” and “Rest of Brazil”), and, using employment multipliers, simulate a demand shock on the Amazonian economy and its impact on job creation in the two regions with results that suggest green spending in the Amazon offers good perspectives (but also highlights limitations) for a just transition to a low-carbon economy in Brazil.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1042 | February 2024 Saving Social Security Edward Lane In this paper, Edward Lane aims to address the issues surrounding the future of Social Security by suggesting legislative changes that will protect the Social Security system indefinitely, help ensure the adequacy of benefits for retirees and their survivors and dependents, and remove confusing and misleading legislative and administrative complexity. In making recommendations, Lane demonstrates that the Social Security Trust Funds are essentially an artificial accounting contrivance within the US Treasury that have become a tool to force program changes that will likely shift an increasing financial burden onto those who can least bear it.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1043 | February 2024 Interest Rate Dynamics: An Examination of Mainstream and Keynesian Empirical Studies Tanweer Akram and Khawaja Mamun Tanweer Akram and Khawaja Mamun critically review both mainstream and Keynesian empirical studies of interest rate dynamics. They assess the key findings of a selected number of these studies, surveying the debates between the mainstream and the Keynesian schools. They also explore the debates on interest rate dynamics within the Post Keynesian school of thought. Lastly, the paper identifies the critical questions relevant for future empirical research.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1044 | February 2024 Empirical Models of Chinese Government Bond Yields Tanweer Akram and Shahida Pervin Tanweer Akram and Shahida Pervin, in this paper, econometrically model the dynamics of long-term Chinese government bond (CGB) yields based on key macroeconomic and financial variables. Their findings show that the short-term interest rate has an economically and statistically significant effect on the long-term CGB yield of various maturity tenors. The paper’s findings evince that Keynes’s claim—that the central bank’s policy rate exerts an important influence over long-term government bond yields through the short-term interest rate—holds for China. This means that policymakers in China have considerable leeway in fiscal and monetary operations, government deficit finance, and central government debt management.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1045 | March 2024 Social Security and Gender Inequality Liudmila Malyshava and B. Oak McCoy This inquiry examines the role of federal policy in gender inequality using the principles of institutional adjustment (Foster 1981; Bush 1987) in the context of the Veblenian dichotomy of habit formation. Specifically, Research Associate Liudmila Malyshava and B. Oak McCoy assert that Social Security, though exclusive at its inception in 1935, has undergone significant institutional adjustment. Today, Social Security plays a determining role in providing the appropriate institutional space for not only increasing economic security for older women, but also for reducing gender inequality overall.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1046 | March 2024 The Aggregate Production Function and Solow’s “Three Denials” Jesus Felipe and John McCombie This paper offers a retrospective view of the key pillar of Solow’s neoclassical growth model, namely the aggregate production function. Research Associate Jesus Felipe and John McCombie review how this tool came to life and how it has survived until today, despite three criticisms that undermined its raison d’être. They are the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies, the Aggregation Problem, and the Accounting Identity. These criticisms were forgotten by the profession, not because they were wrong but because of the key role played by Robert Solow in the field. Today, these criticisms are not even mentioned when students are introduced to (neoclassical) growth theory, which is presented in most economics departments and macroeconomics textbooks as the only theory worth studying.  » Read complete text Working Paper No. 1047 | March 2024 “Just Transition” in India and Fiscal Stance: Analyzing the Tax Buoyancy of the Extractive Sector Lekha S. Chakraborty and Emmanuel Thomas Against the backdrop of fiscal transition concomitant to energy transition policies with climate change commitments, revenue from the extractive sector needs a recalibration in the subnational fiscal space. The extractive tax is the payment due to the government in exchange for the right to extract the mineral substance. The extractive tax has been fixed and paid in multiple tax regimes, sometimes on the measures of ad valorem (value-based) or profits or as the unit of the mineral extracted. Using the ARDL methodology, Research Associate Lekha S. Chakraborty and Emmanuel Thomas analyze the buoyancy of extractive revenue across the states in India, for the period 1991–92 to 2022–23 and analyze the short- and long-run coefficients and their speed of adjustment.  » Read complete text SUPPORT OUR PROGRAMS Levy Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy Learn More Now Backed by over 30 years of proven policy impact, the Levy Institute Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy provide innovative approaches to topics such as time use, poverty, gender, student debt, and employment that other programs neglect, encouraging students to evaluate policies, examine behavior, and dig deeper into the social phenomena that underlie economic outcomes. Along with a challenging academic environment, the Levy Institute programs also offer a supporting and caring community where students benefit from sharing their research with faculty and their peers to promote academic exchanges and intellectual collaboration. To find out more, visit bard.edu/levygrad or follow the program’s Facebook page. Interested students should contact the Institute at [email protected] for more information. Scholarships are available. Media and News Coverage A Levy Institute research report conducted under contract with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was picked up by Axios and in a pair of items in Bloomberg (here and here), focusing on the research of Institute scholars Ajit Zacharias, Fernando Rios-Avila, Nancy Folbre, and Thomas Masterson on developing a methodology to incorporate household production into the consumer expenditure data currently collected by the BLS. The work of Research Scholar Pavlina Tcherneva has become the focus and study of US debate teams at the high school level. Read more here in the article featured in the Bard College news. Tcherneva was also featured in a podcast episode of Money on the Left, released on April 1. Levy Institute Alum Daniel Witzani-Haim published an op-ed piece titled "Insecure Europe—a job guarantee needed," for Social Europe with co-authors Dennis Tamesberger and Simon Theurl. Senior Scholar and Director of Graduate Programs at the Levy Institute, Tom Masterson presented "Trends in Time and Income Poverty in the United States between 2005 and 2022" at UAM Xochimilco on April 15. Featuring Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray on "Defining Value," a new episode of the podcast Macro n Cheese released on April 6. Research Scholar Yeva Nersisyan was also featured on Macro & Cheese on March 9 with the episode "Demystifying Sellers Inflation." On February 14, Research Associate Lekha Chakraborty delivered a talk on the macroeconomic framework of Union Budget 2024 at the Kannur University Department of Economics.     Our Website | Press Room | Donate   Levy Economics Institute | Blithewood, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY 12504-5000 (P): 845-758-7700 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected] powered by Try email marketing for free today!