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Bard’s Levy Economics Institute Holds 40th Anniversary Conference

On May 8, at Blithewood Manor, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College convened its annual conference marking 40 years since the Institute’s founding. The occasion drew the kind of distinguished assembly of economists, journalists, and policymakers that Levy has become known for, united by a shared conviction that conventional economics has consistently failed to reckon with the realities facing the global economy and working Americans.
 
The keynote was delivered by William H. Janeway, distinguished affiliated professor at Cambridge, veteran venture capitalist, and cofounder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. The connection was fitting: in 1986, Hyman Minsky—Levy senior scholar and foremost expert on financial instability—asked a young Janeway to address the American Economic Association. 40 years later, Janeway returned the gesture, opening a conference devoted to Minsky’s enduring relevance.
 
The event’s panels brought together leading voices that have long defined Levy Institute conferences. Former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair joined Bloomberg’s Tom Keene in conversation on the next financial crisis. John Cassidy of the New Yorker moderated the opening session on AI and the US economy. Isabella Weber of UMass Amherst and James Galbraith of the LBJ School discussed the global energy crisis and China’s domestic price stabilization policies. Finally, Levy Institute President Tcherneva spoke alongside Darrick Hamilton, chief economist of the AFL-CIO and economic adviser to NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, on employment and economic security.
 
“The inescapable reality — the single most defining feature of our economy — is that it no longer works for most Americans,” Tcherneva said. “Everything else follows from this.” 
 
Tcherneva’s opening address was both retrospective and strategic. She traced four decades of the Institute’s real-world impact: predicting the private-sector debt bubble, calling the 2008 housing collapse before it arrived, and anticipating the doubling of central bank balance sheets. Since then, Levy has become a go-to source on financial instability and monetary policy, its influence reaching from the US Congress and European Parliament to the highest levels of the Chinese government, shaping legislation, stabilization policy in Greece, and methodological work by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and international statistical agencies.
 
Looking ahead, Tcherneva identified two research and policy priorities: economic security for American families and the financial architecture on which that security depends. “Finance must be checked and economic security must be built — those are the twin pillars of Levy’s agenda.” she said. She sounded an alarm on GENIUS/STABLE coin legislation, anticipated a paradigm shift under incoming Fed Chair Warsh, and called for a fundamental rethinking of the 21st-century job—encompassing paid leave, childcare, healthcare, and retirement security alongside direct job creation.
 
The conference also celebrated the Institute’s graduate program and inaugurated the Levy Alumni Impact Award, presented to Oscar Valdés Viera, Senior Economist at Americans for Financial Reform, recognized for his work on private equity’s threat to retirement accounts. 40 years on, Levy’s ideas have never been more central to economic debate — and the work of the next four decades has already begun.
 
 

Post Date: 05-20-2026

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Professor Emanuele Citera Coedited a New Book on European Banking

Assistant Professor of Economics Emanuele Citera coedited a book on central banking and crisis management. Central Banking, Monetary Policy, and the European Central Bank: Coping with the Challenges features essays by over a dozen authors on theoretical and practical issues including inflation, climate change, and future financial crises. Citera was also featured on Faculti, a research and technology platform focused on academic literature. He says the book was originally inspired by the internal and external crises experienced by the European banking system, including the pandemic and the 2012 Euro crisis. “We’ve seen different types of shocks [that] the European central bank has been dealing with pretty well,” he said, “[and] we’re more concerned about the legal institutional structure. Would it be possible for the Central Bank to [act] promptly and effectively?”

The Economics Program trains students to think critically about the economy and its social, political, and historical context. Small classes, encouragement of student research, and close interaction with the Levy Economics Institute are distinctive features of the experience.

Post Date: 01-27-2026

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The Levy Economics Institute Drafts Open Letter to Indian Government

The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College has drafted an open letter to the government of India and gathered signatures in defense of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the largest rights-based public employment program in the world. Spearheaded by Levy Institute President Pavlina R. Tcherneva, leading international experts have added their names to the open letter in support of the program, which is facing imminent repeal by the Indian government.

MGNREGA, signed into law in 2005, is set to be replaced by the Viksit Bharat G RAM G Bill (2025), which would consolidate authority over the program in the central government while transferring greater and likely unsustainable obligations for administration and payment to the states. MGNREGA aims to guarantee the right to work, and generates over 2 billion person-days of work annually for approximately 50 million households in India. More than half of all workers in the program are women, and about 40 percent are from Scheduled Castes or Tribes. The early years of MGNREGA coincided with unprecedented rural wage growth, and studies confirmed the program’s positive effects on economic output and efficiency.

“Originally passed with unanimous parliamentary support, MGNREGA transcends political lines. Its foundational principle—that the national government must guarantee an employment safety net—affirms economic dignity as a fundamental right,” the letter states. Dismantling the program, the letter concludes, would be a “historic error.” 

Post Date: 12-19-2025

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Economist Pavlina Tcherneva Speaks with Marketplace About Labor Market

Pavlina Tcherneva, president of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, spoke with Marketplace about the current state of the US labor market. Without jobs data from the federal government, it is difficult for economists to predict the course the national market is taking, but according to one source, US companies announced more layoffs in October 2025 than in any October since 2003. Tcherneva told Marketplace that the macroeconomic picture of the labor market is worsening. “Now the slowdown in hiring is turning into more layoffs,” Tcherneva said. “So, I think basically, we are slowly moving towards a vicious cycle in the labor market that is likely to get worse.”

The Levy Economics Institute Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy were created to offer students an alternative to mainstream programs in economics and finance. These programs combine a rigorous course of study with the exceptional opportunity to participate in advanced economics research alongside Institute scholars. The Levy Institute’s programs also give Bard College undergraduates the opportunity to meet prominent figures who give seminars, attend conferences, and serve on the research staff.

Post Date: 11-11-2025

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Bard College’s Levy Economics Institute Launches New Capitol Hill Series in D.C. on November 19

On November 19, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is launching its Capitol Hill Series, which will bring together financial experts, academics, and policymakers in Washington, D.C., to discuss the most pressing issues facing the economy. The inaugural session, “Rethinking the Federal Reserve’s Policy Framework and Independence,” aims to foster dialogue on critical economic issues among policymakers, congressional staffers, experts, and the public, featuring panels on whether the Fed’s current policy is framework sufficient for the challenges of today, whether it risks becoming impervious to necessary political oversight, and what form oversight should take to ensure both effective governance and democratic accountability.

Speakers include Pavlina R. Tcherneva, president of the Levy Economics Institute; Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors; James K. Galbraith, professor at the University of Texas at Austin; L. Randall Wray, professor at the Levy Economics Institute; and William Bergman, former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. A Q&A period will follow, moderated by Claire Jones, US economics editor at the Financial Times.

The event will take place on Wednesday, November 19 from 1:30 – 3:30 pm at the Rayburn House Office Building (Room 2045) in Washington, D.C., followed by refreshments and appetizers. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required and space is limited. Learn more about the event and registration here.


SPEAKER SCHEDULE

Introduction | Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Levy Economics Institute

“Why Fed Independence Matters” | Claudia Sahm, New Century Advisors

“Congress and the Federal Reserve” | James K. Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin

“The Fed Is Still Flying Blind” | L. Randall Wray, Levy Economics Institute

“When Does ‘Independence’ Become Tyranny?” | William Bergman, Former Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago


William Bergman is a semi-retired independent scholar with four decades of financial market and related educational experience, in private and public sector roles. From 1990 to 2004, he served as an economist and financial markets policy analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He earned an MBA (Finance) and an MA (Public Policy) from the University of Chicago in 1990.

James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin. He chairs the board of Economists for Peace and Security and directs the University of Texas Inequality Project. He was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee in the early 1980s. From 1993 to 1997, he served as chief technical adviser to China’s State Planning Commission for macroeconomic reform, and in the first half of 2015 as an informal counselor to the Greek minister of finance.

Claudia Sahm is the chief economist at New Century Advisors. She is a highly regarded expert on monetary and fiscal policy with many years of experience advising key decision-makers at the Federal Reserve, White House, and Congress. She developed the Sahm rule, a closely followed indicator of recessions. Sahm holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan (2007), and a bachelor’s degree in economics, political science, and German from Denison University (1998).

Pavlina R. Tcherneva is president of the Levy Economics Institute, a professor of economics at Bard College, and founding director of the Bard Economic Democracy Initiative. She specializes in modern money and public policy. Tcherneva’s book The Case for a Job Guarantee (Polity 2020) is a timely guide to the benefits of one of the most transformative public policies being discussed today, recognized by the Financial Times in 2020 and published in nine languages. Tcherneva has collaborated with experts from the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Labor Organization, members of the European Parliament, as well as policy makers from the United States and abroad on designing and evaluating employment programs. She also worked with the Sanders 2016 Presidential campaign, and in 2020 she was invited to serve on the Biden-Harris economic policy volunteer committee, during their Presidential run.

L. Randall Wray is a professor of economics at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and Emeritus Professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is one of the developers of Modern Money Theory and his newest book on the topic is Understanding Modern Money Theory: Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies (Elgar). He is the 2022 Veblen-Commons Award winner for lifetime contributions to Institutionalist Thought. He has been a Fulbright Scholar to Italy (twice) and to Estonia, and a visiting professor at the Universities of Paris, Bologna, Bergamo, Rome, UNAM in Mexico City, UNICAMP in Brazil, Tallinn University in Estonia, Nankai University, China, and a visiting professor on a continuing basis at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. He was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Willamette University, Oregon, in 2022-23.

Post Date: 10-29-2025

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Economist Pavlina Tcherneva Speaks About Labor Market for Marketplace 

Pavlina Tcherneva, president of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, spoke with Marketplace about the state of the national employment market. As the government shutdown has halted all nonessential operations, including the jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economists turn to other available sources to gather data on the current labor market. Tcherneva says that although large firms, with 500 or more employees, added jobs last month, “this is such a small proportion of total employment, it makes no difference to the overall trends,” adding that 90% of employers have fewer than 100 workers. “It’s another look at the weakening labor market.”
 

Post Date: 10-07-2025