DOCSLIB.ORG

Unequal Incomes, Unequal Outcomes?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Unequal Incomes, Unequal Outcomes? Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic September 1999 Policy Review Volume 5 Number 3 Unequal Incomes, Unequal Outcomes? Economic Inequality and Measures of Well-Being Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York EDITOR FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK PAUL B. BENNETT ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW ASSOCIATE EDITORS ADVISORY BOARD LINDA S. GOLDBERG KENNETH N. KUTTNER Andrew Abel Richard J. Herring HAMID MEHRAN Wharton, University of Pennsylvania Wharton, University of Pennsylvania PHILIP E. STRAHAN Ben Bernanke Robert J. Hodrick Princeton University Columbia University Timothy Bollerslev R. Glenn Hubbard Duke University Columbia University Charles Calomiris Christopher M. James EDITORIAL STAFF Columbia University University of Florida, Gainesville Valerie LaPorte Stephen G. Cecchetti Kose John Mike De Mott Ohio State New York University Richard Clarida Edward Kane PRODUCTION STAFF Columbia University Boston College Carol Perlmutter Francis X. Diebold Deborah Lucas Jane Urry New York University Northwestern University Franklin Edwards Richard Lyons Columbia University University of California, Berkeley Henry S. Farber Frederic S. Mishkin Princeton University Columbia University The ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW Mark Flannery Maurice Obstfeld is published by the Research and University of Florida, Gainesville University of California, Berkeley Market Analysis Group of the Mark Gertler Raghuram G. Rajan Federal Reserve Bank of New New York University University of Chicago York. The views expressed in the Gary Gorton Kenneth Rogoff articles are those of the individual Wharton, University of Pennsylvania Princeton University authors and do not necessarily James D. Hamilton Christopher Sims University of California, San Diego Yale University reflect the position of the Federal Bruce E. Hansen Kenneth D. West Reserve Bank of New York or the University of Wisconsin University of Wisconsin Federal Reserve System. John Heaton Stephen Zeldes Northwestern University Columbia University Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review September 1999 Table of Contents Volume 5 Number 3 Unequal Incomes, Unequal Outcomes? Economic Inequality and Measures of Well-Being Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York May 7, 1999 1TO OUR READERS William J. McDonough 3SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Erica L. Groshen, Chinhui Juhn, James A. Orr, and Barbara L. Wa lter SESSION 1: HEALTH STATUS OF CHILDREN AND HOUSEHOLDS IN POVERTY 9POVERTY, CHILDREN’S HEALTH, AND HEALTH CARE UTILIZATION Barbara L. Wolfe 23 ECONOMIC INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL DIFFERENTIALS IN MORTALITY Arline T. Geronimus 37 COMMENTARY Carol Rapaport DISTINGUISHED ADDRESS 43 PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE PUBLIC AGENDA Kevin Thurm SESSION 2: AFFORDABILITY OF HOUSING FOR YOUNG AND POOR FAMILIES 51 HOUSING OUTCOMES: AN ASSESSMENT OF LONG-TERM TRENDS James A. Orr and Richard W. Peach 63 A LOOK AT REAL HOUSING PRICES AND INCOMES: SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR HOUSING AFFORDABILITY AND QUALITY Joseph Gyourko and Joseph Tracy 79 COMMENTARY Christopher J. Mayer SESSION 3: EDUCATION AND CRIME IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS 87 THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INCOME AND CRIME VICTIMIZATION Steven D. Levitt 99 ECONOMIC INEQUALITY AND THE PROVISION OF SCHOOLING Thomas A. Downes and David N. Figlio 111 COMMENTARY Derek Neal SESSION 4: ECONOMIC INEQUALITY AND LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES 117 FROM JOHN LINDSAY TO RUDY GIULIANI: THE DECLINE OF THE LOCAL SAFETY NET? Edward L. Glaeser and Matthew E. Kahn 133 EARNINGS INEQUALITY AND CENTRAL-CITY DEVELOPMENT Edwin S. Mills 143 COMMENTARY James M. Snyder, Jr. SESSION 5: SOCIAL INDICATORS IN NEW YORK CITY 149 SOCIAL INDICATORS AND THE STUDY OF INEQUALITY Marcia K. Meyers and Irwin Garfinkel 165 COMMENTARY Howard Chernick CLOSING DISCUSSION: SOCIAL POLICY IMPLICATIONS 171 GENERAL COMMENTARY Katherine McFate 175 GENERAL COMMENTARY Timothy Smeeding 179 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS To Our Readers: We are pleased to bring you this special issue of the Economic Policy Review, dedicated to the proceedings of the conference “Unequal Incomes, Unequal Outcomes? Economic Inequality and Measures of Well-Being.” The conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 7, 1999, continues this Bank’s tradition of supporting informed public discussion of economic issues that go beyond the workings of monetary policy. The United States has experienced an extraordinary rise in income inequality over the past few decades. The gap between rich and poor Americans—like that between skilled and unskilled workers—has reached its highest level in the postwar era. Although the trend toward increased pay disparity has in recent years shown some signs of abating, there is little doubt that the real incomes of the poor are lower today than they were twenty years ago. While the growing divide between high- and low-income groups has received considerable attention, its larger consequences have been less widely discussed. The organizers of this conference—Erica Groshen, Chinhui Juhn, and James Orr of the Research and Market Analysis Group—chose to focus on the impact of income inequality on several broad measures of material well-being. Specifically, they asked those presenting papers at the conference to consider whether the deterioration in income experienced by the poor has been accompanied by a deterioration in outcomes—in health, housing, education, and crime. Recognizing that progressive public policies have to some extent offset the income disadvantages of the poor, the organizers wished to explore the net effects of the income gap on individuals’ ability to secure certain very basic goods and services. In addressing these issues, conference participants pointed to numerous improvements in the economic prospects of the poor over the past several decades. They stressed, however, that unsettling problems remain. For example, crime is down, but the mortality rates of the inner-city poor are still unacceptably high. Housing affordability has improved dramatically across income groups—except among the poorest Americans. As a collection, the papers in this issue of the Review demonstrate the manifold ways in which poverty undermines the material welfare and potential productivity of many of our citizens. Accordingly, we hope that the volume will provide a fuller understanding of the causes and consequences of income inequality and spur further research into the most effective policy responses. William J. McDonough, President Federal Reserve Bank of New York Summary of Observations and Recommendations Erica L. Groshen, Chinhui Juhn, James A. Orr, and Barbara L. Walter At last year’s Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City sym- effectively draws attention to those suffering the worst out- posium on income inequality, Alan Greenspan suggested comes. Specifically, Wolfe spoke about the strong link that measures of income changes, however reliable, cannot between poverty and health. According to her, in 1994 fully explain trends in the material or economic well-being only 10 percent of children under age five in families making of the population. “Ultimately,” he noted, “we are inter- $35,000 or more were in less than very good or excellent ested in whether households have the means to meet their health. By comparison, one-third of young children in needs for goods and for services, including . education and families with income below $10,000 were in less than very medical care, which build and maintain human capital.”* good health. Moreover, in recent years the number of poor With these observations in mind, the Federal children whose health is fair or poor has increased relative Reserve Bank of New York organized this conference— to the number of nonpoor children in these same health “Unequal Incomes, Unequal Outcomes?”—to focus on the categories. In 1987, for every nonpoor child with health evolution of more direct measures of the material well- problems, there were close to two children in poverty in being of Americans. Of particular concern was the impact poor health; by 1996, that ratio had risen to 2.7. of income inequality on trends in health, housing, and Geronimus identified a set of young people at crime victimization. Conference participants also examined particular risk of high mortality rates. She observed that some of the changes in policymakers’ responses to these in some U.S. communities—especially urban areas in the trends, especially in the areas of education financing and North—young people cannot expect to survive through local governance. Finally, the participants discussed efforts middle-adulthood. Whites generally fare substantially to evaluate the social consequences of policy reforms and better than African-Americans, yet whites in poor neigh- offered some guidelines on the best direction for future borhoods in northern cities experience mortality rates research and policy initiatives. roughly comparable to those of African-Americans nation- wide. Furthermore, among the urban African-American UNEQUAL OUTCOMES poor, mortality rates worsened relative to those of whites from 1980 to 1990. Geronimus also indicated HEALTH that circulatory disease—not homicide—has been the most Both Barbara Wolfe and Arline Geronimus focused on important contributor to the higher mortality rates health as a direct measure of economic well-being that across all poor populations. FRBNY ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW / SEPTEMBER 1999 3 Examining health issues in a special address to the increased reliance on theft-prevention devices by higher conference,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • NBER Reporter Online, Volume 1981
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (Ed.) Periodical Part NBER Reporter Online, Volume 1981 NBER Reporter Online Provided in Cooperation with: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, Mass. Suggested Citation: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (Ed.) (1981) : NBER Reporter Online, Volume 1981, NBER Reporter Online, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/62107 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, INC. SPRING 1981 Program Report I nternational Studies William H. Branson The research in NSER's Program in International Studies falls into three major categories: exchange rates, com­ parative macroeconomics, and long-run structural changes in the world economy.
    [Show full text]
  • 2018 Meeting Program
    2018 Eastern Finance Association 54th Annual Meeting Philadelphia, PA EFA Eastern Finance Association Welcome to the 54th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Finance Association President David Becher Vice-President – Program Michael Goldstein Vice-President – Local Arrangements Edward Nelling Executive Director David Lange Vice-President – Planning Anne Anderson Vice-President – Finance Jon Fulkerson 2018 Eastern Finance Association i Table of Contents Welcome Message – Michael Goldstein, Vice-President – Program 2018 1 Events & General Information 2 EFA Leadership – Officers & Directors 3 EFA Program Organizers 4 EFA Program Committee Members 5 List of EFA Distinguished Scholars 8 2018 Distinguished Scholar Award 9 Outstanding Paper Awards 10 Exhibitors 13 Sessions Summary 14 Thursday Sessions 18 Friday Sessions 37 Saturday Sessions 53 Participant Index 62 Future Meeting Information 69 Hotel Floor Plan Map 70 2018 Eastern Finance Association ii Dear EFA Members and 2018 Meeting Participants, Welcome to Philadelphia! The EFA O cers and Directors, Track Chairs, members of the Program Committee and I welcome you to the 54th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Finance Association. With nearly 225 research papers in 82 academic sessionsffi including 12 special sessions, and Professor Joel Hasbrouck as our keynote speaker, it promises to be an exciting meeting. Professor Joel Hasbrouck, of the Stern School of New York University, is the recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Scholar Award. Joel has published widely in the area of markets and trading. He has published numerous articles in leading peer‐reviewed journals, currently serves as an associate editor for a number of finance journals, and is a former editor of the Review of Financial Studies.
    [Show full text]
  • Policy Brief
    Policy Brief 2009-PB-06a September 2009; revised April 2010 Unmet Duties in Managing Financial Safety Nets Edward J. Kane Abstract: Officials must show that they understand why and how the public’s confidence in the federal government’s ability to manage financial turmoil was lost. Leaders of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must face up to their institutions’ roles in an uncomfortable sequence of events. First, procedures adopted at private firms and federal agencies for supervising securitization activity at commercial banks, investment banks, and government-sponsored enterprises inappropriately shortcut due diligence by outsourcing the monitoring and policing of the safety-net consequences of potential defects in the securitization process to private parties. Second, when the adverse consequences of this imprudent arrangement emerged, officials falsely claimed that the difficulties that short-funded, highly leveraged firms were facing in rolling over debt reflected a shortage of market liquidity rather than a shortage of economic capital at key firms. Among knowledgeable parties, this raised severe doubts about the integrity and competence of the officials in charge of rescuing the industry. Finally, the panicky way that the Treasury and President recharacterized the nature and extent of the industry’s accumulated losses in September 2008 created an extreme urgency that subsequent delays in implementation revealed to have been dangerously exaggerated. That authorities and financiers violated common-law duties of loyalty, competence, and care they owe taxpayers indicates a massive incentive breakdown in industry and government. What is needed is a thorough-going reorientation of: (1) how regulatory agencies report both on their performance and their interactions with Congress and the Administration, and (2) the contract structures and performance measures that determine how top managers and top staffers are graded and paid, not only in the financial industry but in government as well.
    [Show full text]
  • Enforcements in Financial Disputes: a Case for An
    ENFORCEMENTS IN FINANCIAL DISPUTES: A CASE FOR AN INTERBANK AWARD CLEARING FRAMEWORK Mohamed Raffa U1320615 A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of East London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Law Supervisors Dr. Iwa Salami University of East London Law Department School of Business and Law 2 Abstract Resolving disputes resulting from high speed and fast-moving financial transactions has become an essential requirement for the stability of global financial markets as proven by previous crises. In the 2007 crisis, millions of investors ended with worthless investment agreements. The public did not believe they could pursue claims in state courts and had no faith in the operating regulatory systems. Delays in the enforcement of compensatory awards drained the concept of justice of its meaning. Bankers were bailed out instead of being made to pay for acts of recklessness, information asymmetry and mis-selling. The result was panic and a run on investment banks and the financial crisis ensued. The question is whether an arbitration process that guarantees immediate payment of arbitral awards can accelerate recovery from a crisis and alleviate the burden on state bailouts using taxpayers’ money? Empirical research show that enforceable and swift dispute resolution for financial disputes can establish certainty in the financial markets and assist in deterring imbedded acts of moral hazard within the financial sector. This in turn will impede the main ingredient for financial crises generated within the financial institutions sector and reduce the possibility of recurrences of financial crises such as that of 2007/2008.
    [Show full text]
  • Economic Policy Review Advisory Board
    Federal Reserve Bank of New York April 2000 April Economic Volume 6 Number 1 Volume Policy Review Fiscal Policy in an Era of Surpluses: Economic and Financial Implications Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW ADVISORY BOARD EDITOR Andrew Abel Richard J. Herring Wharton, University of Pennsylvania Wharton, University of Pennsylvania Paul B. Bennett Ben Bernanke Robert J. Hodrick Princeton University Columbia University ASSOCIATE EDITORS Timothy Bollerslev R. Glenn Hubbard Duke University Columbia University Linda S. Goldberg Charles Calomiris Christopher M. James Kenneth N. Kuttner Columbia University University of Florida, Gainesville Hamid Mehran Stephen G. Cecchetti Kose John Philip E. Strahan Ohio State University New York University Richard Clarida Edward Kane Columbia University Boston College Francis X. Diebold Deborah Lucas EDITORIAL STAF F New York University Northwestern University Valerie LaPorte Franklin Edwards Richard Lyons Columbia University University of California, Berkeley Mike De Mott Henry S. Farber Frederic S. Mishkin Princeton University Columbia University PRODUCTION STAFF Mark Flannery Maurice Obstfeld Carol Perlmutter University of Florida, Gainesville University of California, Berkeley Mark Gertler Raghuram G. Rajan David Rosenberg New York University University of Chicago Jane Urry Gary Gorton Kenneth Rogoff Wharton, University of Pennsylvania Princeton University James D. Hamilton Christopher Sims University of California, San Diego Ya le Un iver si ty Bruce E. Hansen Kenneth D. West University of Wisconsin University of Wisconsin John Heaton Stephen Zeldes Northwestern University Columbia University The ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW is published by the Research and Market Analysis Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    [Show full text]
  • Europe's Zombie Megabanks and the Differential Regulatory Arrangements That Keep Them in Play Edward Kane*+ Working Paper
    Europe’s Zombie Megabanks and the Differential Regulatory Arrangements that Keep Them In Play Edward Kane*+ Working Paper No. 64 September 15, 2017 ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the link between Kamakura Risk Information Services (KRIS) data on megabank default probabilities and credit spreads. It develops an “eye-ball” test for the extent of individual-bank “zombieness” whose grade turns on how weakly a bank’s credit spread responds to movements in KRIS default probabilities calculated over different horizons. The intuition underlying the test is that the more decapitalized a bank is allowed to become, the more creditors must be relying on someone other than stockholders to absorb the firm’s risk of default. The tests show that the recovery of European megabanks from the 2008-09 crisis has been incomplete. Creditors of Europe’s giant banks still seem to be relying on implicit guarantees. In particular, credit spreads on the bonds of these banks appear to be relatively insensitive to the level of the issuer’s longer-term probabilities of default. Coupled with the high pairwise correlation that KRIS default probabilities show between major US and European banks, this finding suggests that creditors do not expect the EU’s bail-in requirements to play much of a role in resolving megabank insolvencies during the next crisis. * Professor of Finance at Boston College and NBER research associate. + We thank: (1) the Institute for New Economic Thinking for financial support, (2) Donald van Deventer for generously granting me access to the KRIS database that is central to this research, and (3) Robert Dickler (especially), Thomas Ferguson, Stephen Buser, George von Furstenburg, and Larry Wall for valuable criticism of earlier versions of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • George Soros, a Long-Time Critic of Classical Economic Theory, for His Support of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and This Conference
    THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE CRISIS IN ECONOMICS April 8–11, 2010 CAMBRIDGE, UK WELCOME We are delighted to welcome you to the Inaugural Conference of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at King’s College Cambridge. Our goal in founding the Institute for New Economic Thinking is to create an environment nourished by open discourse and critical thinking where the next generation of scholars has the support to go beyond our prevailing economic paradigms and advance our understanding of the economic system as a tool to meet social objectives. The economics profession’s reputation as experts, who should be trusted to give guidance to society, has suffered significantly as a result of the recent crisis. Over the next three days we will have a series of speakers and panels to address many of the questions that surround the methods and practice of economics and we will explore a number of the issues that have been revealed as blind spots of the profession. It is important to engage in a wide-open dialogue to explore many of these dimensions on a path toward creating the fresh thinking that will support those who have responsibility for policy making, and the society that they represent, as we navigate through the difficult conditions that have grown out of the economic crisis. John Maynard Keynes, in response to the tremendous social strain of the slump in the UK and the worldwide depression in the 1930s was inspired to write his General Theory of Employment Interest and Money. That creative and courageous endeavor is an inspiration to us all as we now face the challenges to repair the fault lines of the prevailing paradigms of economic theory and method that were unmasked by the financial crisis of 2008.
    [Show full text]
  • Are All the Sacred Cows Dead? Implications of the Financial Crisis for Macro
    Are All the Sacred Cows Dead? Implications of the Financial Crisis for Public Disclosure Authorized Macro- and Financial Policies Downloaded from Aslı Demirgu¨c¸-Kunt † Luis Serve´n http://wbro.oxfordjournals.org The recent global financial crisis has shaken the confidence of industrial and developing countries alike in the very blueprint of the financial and macropolicies that underlie the Western capitalist systems. In an effort to contain the crisis from spreading, the auth- orities in the United States and many European governments have taken unprecedented Public Disclosure Authorized steps of providing extensive liquidity, giving assurances to bank depositors and creditors that include blanket guarantees, structuring bail-out programs that include taking large ownership stakes in financial institutions, and establishing programs for direct provision of credit to nonfinancial institutions. Emphasizing the importance of incentives and ten- at International Monetary Fund on March 10, 2010 sions between short term and longer term policy responses to crisis management, the authors draw on a large body of research evidence and country experiences to discuss the implications of the current crisis for financial and macroeconomic policies going forward. JEL codes: G01, G21, G28, G32, E52, E58, F32 The financial turmoil that started as a meltdown in structured securitization instruments in the summer of 2007 in the United States and the United Kingdom Public Disclosure Authorized has quickly spread to the rest of the industrial world, and has now become a full- blown global financial crisis. In an effort to contain the crisis from spreading, the authorities in the United States and many European governments have taken unprecedented steps of providing extensive liquidity, giving assurances to bank depositors and creditors that include blanket guarantees, structuring bail-out pro- grams that include taking large ownership stakes in financial institutions, and establishing programs for direct provision of credit to nonfinancial institutions.
    [Show full text]
  • September 25, 2000 List of Signatories of ACIT Anti-Sweatshop
    September 25, 2000 List of Signatories of ACIT Anti-Sweatshop Campaign Letter 1. U.S. Academic Economists and Other Faculty Members Auburn University Henry Thompson Cornell University Nancy Chau Babson College Kent Jones Columbia University Kyle Bagwell Boston College Jagdish Bhagwati James Anderson Padma Desai Edward Kane Todd Idson Elliott Smith Ron Miller David Weinstein Brandeis University Elliot Zupnick (Emeritus) Chad Bown Gary Jefferson Dartmouth College Rachel McCulloch Douglas Irwin Miguel Villanueva Matthew Slaughter Brigham Young University DePaul University Scott Bradford Adam Gehr Richard Butler Animesh Ghoshal Clayne Pope Duke University Brown University Enrique Mendoza Pravin Krishna Edward Tower Vernon Henderson Florida International University Carnegie-Mellon University Devashish Mitra Allan Meltzer Russell Chuderewicz Case Western Reserve University Fordham University Asim Erdilek Dominick Salvatore City University of New York George Mason University Robert Lipsey (Emeritus) Kenneth Reinert Clark University George Washington University Daniel Bernhofen Joseph Cordes John Brown Michael Moore Attiat Ott Steven Suranovic College of William and Mary Georgetown University David Feldman Rodney Ludema Georgia College and State University New York University Douglas Walker Thomas Pugel Bernard Yeung Georgia Tech Usha Nair North Carolina State University Thomas Grennes Gordon College, MA Michael McElroy Stephen Smith Ohio State University Grinnell College Eric Fisher Jack Mutti Pennsylvania State University Grove City College
    [Show full text]
  • 6Th Annual Bank Research Conference Presenter Biographies
    Sanjiv Das Santa Clara University Sanjiv Das is Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business, and previously held faculty appointments as Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and UC Berkeley. He holds post-graduate degrees in Finance (M.Phil and Ph.D. from New York University), Computer Science (M.S. from UC Berkeley), an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and he did undergraduate work in Accounting and Economics (University of Bombay, Sydenham College), and is also a qualified Cost and Works Accountant. He is an Associate Editor for Management Science, senior editor of The Journal of Investment Management, co-editor of The Journal of Derivatives, and edits other academic journals. Prior to being an academic, he worked in the derivatives business in the Asia-Pacific region as a Vice-President at Citibank. His current research interests include: the modeling of default risk, algorithms for harvesting financial information from the web, derivative pricing models, and portfolio theory. Olivier De Jonghe Ghent University Olivier De Jonghe is a fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research (Flanders). He is a PhD student at the Financial Economics department of Ghent University, Belgium. His research focuses on "Bank competition, bank risk-taking and financial stability" and is supervised by Prof. Dr Rudi Vander Vennet. The expected date of completion of his PhD dissertation is April/May 2007. Parts of his dissertation are accepted for publication in the Journal of Banking and Finance. He is currently working, via an internship, at the Financial Stability and Supervision department of the European Central Bank (September- November).
    [Show full text]
  • A World Upside Down? Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession
    SPRING 2011 3 International Journal of Political Economy, vol. 40, no. 1, Spring 2011, pp. 3–47. © 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0891–1916/2011 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/IJP0891-1916400101 THOMAS FERGUSON AND ROBER T JOHNSON A World Upside Down? Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession Abstract: This paper analyzes U.S. budget debates in the context of the G-20’s turn toward austerity at the 2010 Toronto Summit. It begins by looking at claims by Reinhart and Rogoff and the International Monetary Fund that rising ratios of government debt/gross domestic product pose serious threats to economic growth. Then the paper considers Alesina and Ardagna’s contention that deep cuts in deficits somehow stimulate economies. The paper shows that none of these arguments is empirically well founded, especially for major reserve currency countries like the United States, which cannot depreciate without crushing the rest of the world. The paper analyzes competing accounts of how to measure the deficit over time and draw special attention to the Congressional Budget Office’s unheralded Thomas Ferguson is a professor of political science at the University of Massachu- setts, Boston; senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute; and a member of the Advisory Board of INET (University of Massachusetts, Boston, Wheatley Hall, 5th floor, room 102; tel.: (617) 287-6928; e-mail: [email protected]). Robert Johnson is the executive director of INET; is a senior fellow and the director of the Project on Global Finance at the Roosevelt Institute; and was formerly managing director at Soros Funds Management and a chief economist of the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Report of the Editor for His Tenure and 1999*
    THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE • VOL. LV, NO. 4 • AUGUST 2000 AMERICAN FINANCE ASSOCIATION Report of the Editor for His Tenure and 1999* Since this is my last report as editor of the Journal, I report both on my tenure as editor and on the year 1999. The first part of this report discusses my tenure briefly, and the second part reports on 1999. Statistical data are detailed in the tables in Appendix A. Part I. Report on My Tenure In 1987, I was visiting the University of Chicago when I unexpectedly received a phone call from Richard Roll, who, as head of the search commit- tee, asked me whether I would be interested in becoming editor of the Jour- nal of Finance. At that time, I was one of the editors of the Journal of Financial Economics ~JFE!. Dick and his coconspirator Merton Miller suggested that I ask two of my colleagues to become coeditors, Stephen Buser and David Mayers. Editing the Journal of Finance was an exciting opportunity even though at that time the launching of the Review of Financial Studies ~RFS! was increasing the competition for papers and making the task of the editor of the Journal more difficult. For the Journal to function efficiently, sub- stantial financial help would have to be provided by the Ohio State Univer- sity. After securing the funding from the Ohio State University with the help of a University President who was a member of the AFA and getting Stephen Buser and David Mayers to agree to become coeditors, I told Dick that he had found an editor and two coeditors.
    [Show full text]