Email from Levy Economics Institute New Levy Institute Website and Navigating an Unpredictable Economy THE LEVY NEWS Our Site Research Events Publications CONTRIBUTE April 23, 2025 HIGHLIGHTS   Dear Friends, I am pleased to share the Levy Institute’s new website and the revival of our blog with a new piece by James Galbraith on the Institute’s role in nurturing critical alternatives to mainstream economics. We invite you to register for our flagship conference on June 16, 2025 – our first post-pandemic in-person conference. As uncertainty looms over the economy, this is a critical year for rethinking public policy. What is the future of finance, government budgets, trade policy, and the safety net? Join us in a conversation as we interrogate all of these themes and more. Registration is now open. Among our latest publications, the Institute’s macro modeling team offer an analysis of President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs (“[the tariffs] will backfire, directly harming US businesses”); and, upon the passing of Pope Francis, I share reflections on his call for a universal basic wage. We also welcome three new Board of Advisors members: Mariana Mazzucato, Robert Skidelsky, and Rebeca Grynspan, longtime friends and supporters of the Institute, whose expertise will continue to guide us in our mission to advance economic thinking and policy in service of the public good. This month, the Levy Institute is co-sponsoring a panel at the UN Women side event during the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, April 30–May 1, 2025, United Nations Headquarters, New York. The event will launch a toolkit and research papers—including work by Levy scholars Ajit Zacharias and Thomas Masterson—on engendering fiscal space. Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for your continued support, Pavlina R. Tcherneva President Levy Economics Institute HIGHLIGHTS   The Levy Institute is proud to welcome three new members to our Board of Advisors. Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General, UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, University of Warwick & Member of the British House of Lords and Mariana Mazzucato, Professor, Economics of Innovation and Public Value, University College London & Founding Director UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) BLOG | The Levy Institute and the Future of Economics by James K. Galbraith The Levy Institute is Minskyan, Godleyan – and Keynesian in the sense that Minsky, Godley and Kregel have understood. But these words are too narrow to describe the economics now in progress there. Moreover, “pluralist” is too vague and “heterodox” is not quite right, since it defines itself in opposition to the orthodox mainstream. The work of the Levy Institute defines itself not as critique, but as an independent, multi-faceted, internally coherent discipline. Read More NEWS | Ajit Zacharias Appointed to NAS Committee on Measuring the Care Economy Senior Scholar Ajit Zacharias has been appointed to serve on the Committee on a Data Infrastructure for Measuring the Care Economy with The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. This panel, created to assess the current data available on the care economy, will provide conclusion and recommendations on the potential for improving, expanding, and integrating the care data infrastructure to more fully understand the care economy in the United States. Read More UPCOMING EVENTS   We are excited to announce that registration is open for the 32nd Annual Levy Economics Institute Conference, Money, Finance, and Economic Strategies in Fractured Times, This event, taking place on Monday, June 16, 2025, returns to its in-person format. This year’s annual conference will feature panels on Minskyan analyses of current sources of financial fragility; new directions in public finance; visions for the next progressive policy agenda; climate finance, balance of payments constraints, and the global economy; and more. Preliminary speakers include: James K. Galbraith, Rogerio Studart, Stephanie Kelton, Dan Alpert, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, L. Randall Wray, Yan Liang, Ndongo Samba Sylla, Scott Fullwiler, and Leila Davis. REGISTER NOW   FEATURED PUBLICATIONS   That “Vision Thing”: Formulating a Winning Policy Agenda by Pavlina R. Tcherneva and L. Randall Wray There are many ways to lose a presidential election, and pundits have come up with a long list: President Biden hung on too long; voters still weren’t ready for a female of color—too many are racist and sexist; too many leftists supported third party candidates. Others offer contradictory views: it’s the voters fault; she was too radical; she was too centrist; she didn’t sufficiently separate herself from Biden; she never clearly stated her position on the war in Gaza; she didn’t give enough press conferences and interviews; and she spent more time campaigning with Cheneys than with presidents of labor unions. While all probably contributed to her loss, more commentators are increasingly pointing to her inability to articulate and sell her vision of the nation she would like to help create. It’s that vision thing, again.. Read More Greece: Growing on an Unsustainable Path by Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Nikolaos Rodousakis, Giuliano Toshiro Yajima, and Gennaro Zezza Greece has been among the fastest growing economies among the EU member states in the post-COVID-19 period. However, in a previous (February 2024) report, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Nikolaos Rodousakis, Giuliano Toshiro Yajima, and Gennaro Zezza raised serious concerns regarding Greece’s dependency on imports. In their latest report, the authors argue that these problems have worsened, and the relatively high growth rates the country has recently achieved have been at the expense of an increase in foreign indebtedness, as well as an increasing transfer of real estate property rights to foreigners—a pattern that cannot be sustained for long.  Read More Remembering Pope Francis’s Call for a Universal Basic Wage by Pavlina R. Tcherneva On April 21, 2025, a day after Easter Sunday, the world mourned the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis. Five years earlier, on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020—amid the devastating COVID-19 pandemic—he issued a powerful plea for economic justice, urging leaders to address the deepening crisis of insecurity faced by workers. His call for a universal basic wage (distinct from a universal basic income) sought to guarantee dignity and rights for all laborers—during the pandemic and beyond—underscoring the value of essential work. Read More Trump's Tariffs: Ending Globalization by Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Giuliano Toshiro Yajima, and Gennaro Zezza The Trump administration is reintroducing a number of 40-year-old, Reagan-era economic and military policies, but is particularly preoccupied with the imposition of tariffs for all of the country’s imports. Trump, in his inaugural address, placed significant emphasis on what the imposition of tariffs would represent, in his view: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.” The same theme was echoed by his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who indicated in a CNBC television interview that “[tariffs] are going to reduce the deficit and balance the budget.” Read More GRADUATE PROGRAMS   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. Find out more and apply now. IN THE NEWS   The Levy Institute will serve as co-sponsor of the final plenary of the annual ILO meeting, July 2-4, 2025 as well as for the UN Side Event at the 4th PrepCom for the Fourth Financing for Development (FfD4). This event, titled, "Engendering Fiscal Space: The Role of Macro-Level Economic Policies, External Debt, Concessional Finance, Special Drawing Rights, and Economic Modelling," aims to provide a platform for gender equality advocates to put financing for gender equality at the forefront of the discussions during FfD4. It will help shape the broader discourse on public finance and the importance prioritizing gender equality as a goal in itself. Research Scholar Stephanie Kelton was interviewed on The Hill in a segment titled "Why Social Security Remains the Third Rail" on March 25. Kelton was also interviewed on All in with Chris Hayes on April 10, where she discussed "the chaos economy," following recent tariff activity. Senior Scholar James K. Galbraith wrote a piece for The Nation, titled "Trump’s Economics—and America’s Economy." Galbraith's new book, Entropy Economics: The Living Basis of Value and Production is out now. The book presents a thrilling framework for understanding the world as it is and will be keenly relevant in the context of current economic challenges. To discuss his new book, Galbraith was invited on the Bloomberg podcast Merryn Talks Money on April 10. Institute President Pavlina R. Tcherneva was featured on the Marketplace Morning Report on March 11, the fifth anniversary of the global pandemic declaration of COVID-19, to speak on the long-standing effects of the pandemic on the economy. On April 1, Tcherneva returned to Marketplace to discuss the importance of small business behavior in market analysis during times of volatility. Tcherneva also spoke on WAMC's The Roundtable with Joe Donahue. In this discussion, Tcherneva explains how COVID relief was the most recent teachable moment about how the government pays for any federal program. For The Hill, Scholar Yeva Nersisyan wrote an opinion piece "The Trump tax cuts don’t have to be paid for," focused on the efforts of President Trump and the Republicans to cut taxes by reducing government spending. Senior Scholar Ajit Zacharias will be a keynote speaker at the Monsoon School on Inequality 2025. His keynote, "Economic Inequality in the United States: What's Class Got to Do With It?" will be given at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum, India. The Levy Institute's Strategic Analysis titled "Economic Challenges of the New U.S. Administration," written by scholars Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Nikolaos Rodousakis, Giuliano Toshiro Yajima, and Gennaro Zezza, was translated into Spanish by De El Trimestre Economico. How did you like this email?   Our Website | Press Room | Donate   Levy Economics Institute | Blithewood Bard College | Annandale-On-Hudson, NY 12504-5000 US Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice