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-?-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,
[log in to unmask] 
 
Fadhel Kaboub