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Direct cash transfers to households during the COVID-19 pandemic, including relief checks and Child Tax Credit payments, were delayed by weeks for recipients without bank accounts and were not received by many non-filers who lacked the time or resources to complete necessary paperwork. A postal banking system has the potential to expand access to financial infrastructure and enable the rapid distribution of resources to households in need during economic downturns – often the same households that are currently excluded from the financial system. This paper examines the history of the US Postal Savings System and the feasibility of a return to postal banking using evidence on the socioeconomic and spatial patterns of financial exclusion. We find that postal banks would be well positioned to compete with both alternative and conventional financial institutions, address issues with physical branch access, and improve outreach to vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium focuses on the relationship between financialization and the social economy, specifically examining the role of finance and financial markets in the lives of US households. Financialization refers to the growth and dominance of the financial system, extending beyond the financial sector itself to impact social relationships and households' economic decision-making. The articles in this symposium explore various aspects of financialization, including the economic precarity of US households, the concentration of asset management, and the potential for alternative financial institutions to mitigate dependence on private institutions. The papers also address racial disparities in access to financial infrastructure and the conflicts of interest within asset management firms. Overall, these articles provide valuable insights into the intersection of financialization, inter-household relationships, public policy, and households' financial security. [Extracted from the article]

In recent decades, and in particular since the shift towards independent central banks, there has been no explicit coordination of fiscal and monetary policy. In the Eurozone, this lack of coordination represents an important flaw, especially since the Eurozone is not an optimal currency area. Complementing monetary union with a transfer union represents one possible solution. This paper argues that the negative impact of post-2008 and post-Covid-19 unconventional monetary policy on income inequalities provides a second reason to coordinate fiscal and monetary policy. Among various institutional arrangements to implement such coordination, the paper defends the idea that the European Central Bank should be sensitive to distributive considerations when formulating its monetary policy. Such an arrangement would help both to contain the distributive side-effects of monetary policy and to at least partially remedy the flaw at the heart of the Eurozone as long as an outright transfer union remains unfeasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU is a new form of political organisation which can be defined as an "experimental polity". Its distinctiveness lies in a novel assemblage of the constituent elements of polity (boundaries, binding authority, and bonding ties), and in the constant testing of new combinations of such elelements when facing functional and political challenges. Experimentalism is not always successful and can occasionally trigger off dynamics of polity disruption. The paper illustrates two instances of 'bad experiments' along the bounding and binding dimensions, i.e. Brexit and the euro crisis. It then focuses on the Covid 19 crisis and shows that in this case EU leaders were able not only to launch an ambitious plan of response based on joint action, but also to re-establish an "ethos of togetherness" among the Member States, on which to build for securing both social solidarity and political stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]