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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
In his 2010 book, Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister Gordon Brown took great pride in his fiscal stimulus in early 2009. His intention, as that of all well-meaning Keynesians, was laudably to increase output. However, the United Kingdom has persistently underperformed in terms [...]
I am in Sweden now, and public opinion against a Tobin tax here is massive. The Swedish Social Democratic government enacted a transaction tax on stocks, bonds, options, and some other securities in 1983. The tax, named after the economist James Tobin, was abolished by the new nonsocialist government in 1991. The tax rates varied [...]
In the 1970s, the Scandinavian or Swedish economic model was popular among leftwingers around the world. Today, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Scandinavian model has achieved a new popularity but not with the left. Instead it is admired by the socially responsible, yet free-marketeering right. The old social welfare state model [...]
Having lived through the Swedish banking crisis in the 1990s, I am struck by how poorly the American public understands what really was a successful cure that remains relevant to the current situation. In fact, the Swedish example would probably provide the best, most capitalist, solution for the United States. All indications are that the [...]