Despite decades of policies aimed at improving the economic position of African Americans in terms of relative income and earnings, they remain substantially behind whites, and research presented in this brief indicates that the wealth gap is even more staggering. Following families over time in...

This brief assesses the experiences of Europe's policy regime in the two years since the introduction of the euro in 1999, particularly the performance of the European Central Bank (ECB), the institution in charge of conducting monetary policy for the euro area. Conventional accounts of European...

The "American Model" serves as a point of reference in discussions of economic policy around the world especially in Europe; many claim that the American version of the free market represents an ideal type-it is the highest form of capitalism. The author argues, however, that the United States...

With health care delivery increasingly shaped by market and budgetary discipline, the provision of health care for all seems an ever-more-distant goal.The high cost of American health care is the inevitable by-product of its method of financing. Cadette proposes shifting the tax subsidies to...

Is the current labor market as tight as official statistics would seem to indicate? If incumbent workers increase their hours of work, it is irrelevant to the unemployment rate, but hardly irrelevant to the level of labor supply. Bluestone and Rose find that job insecurity and stagnating wages...

According to Godley, the significance of the deficit in the U.S. balance of payments has been underestimated in both public policy and academic discussions despite the fact that U.S. markets are increasingly dominated by foreign manufacturers and the main cause of the 20-year deterioration in...

The fact that every change in the minimum wage requires an act of Congress means that debate over the wisdom of having a minimum is repeatedly returned to the political arena. As inflation continues to erode the value of the minimum wage, each legislative delay means that a larger increase is...

Experience with a variety of targets has cast doubt on the likelihood that a single variable can be found to be closely and reliably linked to future inflation; it is even less likely that such a variable, should it be found, would somehow be under the control and manipulation of the Federal...