EH.N: ANN: The Revival of Political Economy Conference, Drew University

[Fadhel Kaboub]

The Department of Economics at Drew University 
presents "The Revival of Political Economy"

An all-day conference with distinguished scholars in Political Economy

Saturday February 9, 2008
9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Hall of Sciences, HS 4

Drew University, 36 Madison Ave., Madison, NJ 07940
Conference Webpage: http://depts.drew.edu/econ/RPE/

Nancy Folbre, author of The Invisible Heart: 
Economics and Family Values (2001), and Professor 
of Economics at the University of Massachusetts 
at Amherst, presents "You Go, Girls! Feminism and 
Political Economy." The presentation explores the 
intellectual history of feminism and economics, 
reviewing classic debates between liberal and 
socialist feminists and emphasizing their 
relevance to the current day. Dr. Folbre will 
provide an overview of feminist economics today 
with an emphasis on the discourse of "care" and 
growing empirical research on the "care sector" 
of the economy.

James K. Galbraith, author of Created Unequal 
(1998), Professor of Economics at the University 
of Texas at Austin, and Senior Scholar at the 
Levy Economics Institute, presents "The 
Political-Economy of U.S.-China Relations" in 
which he examines the mutual interdependence that 
now exists between the U.S. and China, the 
peculiar - even unique - characteristics of 
China's economic expansion, the implications of 
China's rise for the development strategies of 
other countries, especially in Latin America, and 
the consequences of China's financial boom for 
its economic statistics, many of which including 
the trade surplus are distorted and misunderstood 
as a result.

Michael Hudson, author of Super Imperialism (1972 
and 2003), Distinguished Research Professor of 
Economics at the University of Missouri - Kansas 
City, and President of the Institute for the 
Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), 
presents "The U.S. and Global Bubble Economy" in 
which he explains the essence of the increasingly 
financialized Bubble Economies and their impact 
on the global payments system. Dr. Hudson argues 
that the United States enjoys an international 
free ride by virtue of the dollar hegemony as key 
currency in international payments, thus allowing 
the U.S. to run up debts without international 
constraint. Dr. Hudson challenges the claim that 
U.S. consumer demand is the "engine" that drives 
world economic growth; a claim that is used as a 
threat to foreign central banks who are forced to 
relend their inflow of surplus dollars to the 
U.S. Treasury, otherwise their currencies will 
rise, reducing their competitive position 
vis-à-vis dollar-area exporters. Foreign 
economies therefore have held down their exchange 
rates by keeping their own interest rates low, 
spurring financial and real estate bubbles of 
their own. Dr. Hudson concludes that for the 
global economy, dollar hegemony has become a form 
of international economic overhead.

Jan Kregel, Distinguished Research Professor at 
the Center for Full Employment and Price 
Stability (UMKC), and Senior Scholar at the Levy 
Economics Institute, presents "Savings Gaps, 
External Resources and Debt Crises in Latin 
America: Towards a New Model of Development in 
Latin America." Dr.Kregel questions the 
traditional development theory which identifies 
the obstacles to development in the lack of 
domestic resources and domestic savings in 
developing countries. It thus supports reliance 
on external resources in the form of official 
assistance and foreign borrowing. Latin America 
has followed this model and the result has been a 
series of increasingly devastating debt crises. 
In the 2005 Global Summit Outcome, the UN shifted 
emphasis to give greater weight to domestic 
employment policy - one of the most underutilized 
domestic resources in developing countries. After 
the 2001 crisis, Argentina has initiated a new 
approach based on producing domestic growth 
before it attempts to return to borrowing in 
international capital markets. Do these changes 
in emphasis represent the basis for a New Model 
of Latin American development?

For Directions & Accommodations click here: 
http://depts.drew.edu/econ/RPE/Directions.html

This event is free and open to the public, and is 
co-sponsored by the Economics Department, the 
Economics Club, and The Presidential Initiative 
Fund of Drew University.

For more info please contact Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, 973-408-3764, fkaboub at drew.edu

Fadhel Kaboub