"Profits: The Views of Jerome Levy and Michal Kalecki"

Profits are the incentive for production and therefore employment in almost all of the world's economies; they also may represent exploitation of workers and consumers. Jerome Levy, using a complex process, derived the profits identity during the years 1908-1914. Michal Kalecki, taking advantage of the development of national accounting, derived it in the 1930s. Levy viewed the equation as a tool for developing policies that would enable capitalist economies to achieve high rates of employment. Recent American experience gives weight to his views. Kalecki's insights from the identity strengthened his belief that unemployment was inescapable under capitalism. He would find empirical support in Europe's high unemployment rates during the past two decades.

"The Economics of Aging, Can We Afford Grandma and Grandpa?"

Levy presents a preliminary study of the consumption patterns of retirees and nonretirees during the 1980s, paying particular attention to the distribution of the national consumer product. The consumer product increased in aggregate size during the period, but the retirees' portion of it grew four times faster than the working households' share. Indeed, the standard of living for much of the working population declined. Levy finds that the incremental portion of the "economic pie" absorbed by retirees is tantamount to a "tax" on nonretirees that falls most heavily on lower-income people. Although analysts anticipate a peak in the proportion of retirees to workers in the population around the year 2025, Levy asserts that problems created by this situation are, to a serous degree, already present. He recommends raising the retirement age and encouraging retirees to engage in public service activities. He believes, however, that the fundamental issue in enlarging the economic pie for everyone is unemployment. Levy cites as results of unemployment the increasingly common early retirement programs and the unwillingness of employers to undertake the costs of training older workers. He also contrasts the policies of the early postwar era that emphasized economic growth and enterprise with contemporary policies that are influenced by the interests of retirees in preserving their income and wealth.

Profits: The Views of Jerome Levy and Michal Kalecki

Profits are the incentive for production and therefore employment in almost all of the world's economies; they also may represent exploitation of workers and consumers. Jerome Levy, using a complex process, derived the profits identity during the years 1908–1914. Michal Kalecki, taking advantage of the development of national accounting, derived it in the 1930s. Levy viewed the equation as a tool for developing policies that would enable capitalist economies to achieve high rates of employment. Recent American experience gives weight to his views. Kalecki's insights from the identity strengthened his belief that unemployment was inescapable under capitalism. He would find empirical support in Europe's high unemployment rates during the past two decades.

"Overcoming America's Infrastructure Deficit, A Fiscally Responsible Plan for Public Capital Investment"

Condemned bridges, dilapidated school buildings, contaminated water supplies, and other infrastructure shortcomings threaten American growth, productivity, and prosperity. S Jay Levy and Walter M. Cadette propose a plan for financing infrastructure projects that is designed to have minimal effect on the federal budget and to promote sound fiscal operation. Federal zero-interest mortgage loans to state and local governments for capital projects specified by Congress can cut the cost of such projects, achieve needed improvements in the nation's infrastructure, and thereby contribute to the American economy's future.

A consideration of two attacks upon the sharp analytic-synthetic distinction

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this essay is to reply to the attacks upon the sharp analytic-synthetic distinction made by Quine in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and by White in "The Analytic and the Synthetic: An Untenable Dualism". This essay attempts to show not only that these attacks are ill-conceived, but also that Carnap's semantic methods can be used to explain analytically in natural languages. The two attacks are, in effect, attacks upon the conception of the analytic as being definitely different from the synthetic. Quine's attack is directed primarily at three of Carnap's basic concepts -- state-description, explication, and semantic rule. These he regards as separate attempts to explain analytically. White attacks the claim that some natural language has the sharp analytic-synthetic distinction of an artificial language. He does this by considering primarily two imagined experiments [TRUNCATED

How to Restore Long-term Prosperity in the United States and Overcome the Contained Depression of the 1990s

Special Report of the Institute

Flood fatalities in eastern Kentucky and the public health legacy of mountaintop removal coal mining

Heavy rains at night caused severe flooding in eastern Kentucky on 28 July 2022, resulting in 39 deaths. Using publicly available information, we assembled a database of these fatalities, including demographic characteristics and location of death. We perturbed fatality locations and plotted them on a topographical map highlighting mountaintop removal mining with valley fill sites, where mountaintops were excavated to mine thin seams of coal. This map reveals many flood fatalities occurred along rivers or streams near such sites. Previous research suggests that surface mining has contributed to the majority of land cover change in this region, and this has increased storm water runoff. The legacy of coal mining in Central Appalachia could thus present immediate challenges to public health and safety beyond more frequently studied health outcomes associated with occupational and environmental exposures. A review of prior surface mining legislation to assess its effectiveness is warranted