Documents Post-Keynesian Economics Society, Leeds 11 results

"In the face of the perceived high public and private debt levels and sluggish recovery that has followed the financial crisis of 2007-08, there have been calls for greater fiscal-monetary coordination to stimulate nominal demand. Policy debates have been focused upon the inflationary expectations that may be generated by monetary financing or related policies, consistent with New Consensus Macroeconomics theoretical frameworks. Historical examples of fiscal-monetary policy coordination have been largely neglected, along with alternative theoretical views, such as post-Keynesian perspectives that emphasise uncertainty and demand rather than rational expectations. This paper begins to address this omission. First, we provide an overview of the holdings of government debt by both central banks and commercial banks as an imperfect but still informative proxy for fiscal-monetary coordination in advanced economies in the 20th century. Second, we develop a new typology of forms of fiscal-monetary coordination that includes both direct and less direct forms of monetary financing, illustrating this with case-study examples. In particular, we focus on the 1930s-1970s period when central banks and ministries of finance cooperated closely, with less independence accorded to monetary policy and greater weight attached to fiscal policy. We find a number of cases where fiscal-monetary coordination proved useful in stimulating economic growth, supporting industrial policy objectives and managing public debt without excessive inflation."

"The last decade has witnessed a significant revival of belief in the efficacy of fiscal policy and mainstream economics is now reverting to the standard positions of mid-1970s Keynesianism. On the coattails of that revival, increased attention is being given to the doctrine of Modern Money Theory (MMT) which makes exaggerated claims about the economic costs and capability of money-financed fiscal policy. MMT proponents are now asserting society can enjoy a range of large government spending programs for free via money financed deficits, which has made it very popular with progressive policy advocates. This paper examines MMT's assertion and rejects the claim that the US can enjoy a massive permanent free program spree that does not cause inflation. As has long been known by Keynesians, in a static economy money financed deficits can be used to finance programs when the economy is away from the full employment - inflation boundary. However, that window will be temporary to the extent that those deficits drive the economy to full employment. Since the programs are permanent they have to be paid for with taxes or they will generate inflation. That is the economic logic behind the unpleasant Keynesian arithmetic."

"Piketty's main theoretical prediction is that a small elite will own all wealth if capitalism is left to its own devices. We formulate and calibrate a Post-Keynesian model with an endogenous distribution of wealth between workers and capitalists. The model permits Piketty's corner solution of all wealth held by capitalists; however, it also shows that interior solutions with a stable, non-zero wealth share of workers, a stable wealth-to-income ratio, and a stable and positive gap between the profit and the growth rate determined by the Cambridge equation. Furthermore, simulations show that the model conforms to Piketty's empirical findings in a transitional phase, in which the wealth share of capitalists rises to over 60%, the wealth-to-income ratio increases, and income inequality rises. Finally, we show that the introduction of a wealth tax as suggested by Piketty could neutralize the rise in wealth concentration."

"The recent integration of post-Keynesian insights into Comparative Political Economy is an exciting development. Post-Keynesian theory differs from neoclassical and Marxist theories in its analysis of the role of income distribution and of finance. It allows for wage-led demand regimes and it regards finance to be endogenously created and a source of instability. The paper contributes to the debate on the integration of demand regimes in the Varieties of Capitalism analyses. It contrasts post-Keynesian theory to the New Keynesian three equation model. It highlights that post-Keynesian theory gives prominence to the role of income distribution and allows for wage-led demand regimes; financial variables play a key role, which gives rise to endogenous instability and financial cycles (Minskyan debt cycles); economic growth is regarded as a path dependent process (with unemployment hysteresis due to wage norms) and is not anchored in a supply side equilibrium. However, PKE has so far mostly provided a normative analysis of government interventions. The ability to generate income and wealth rather than competitiveness is regarded as key criteria for a viable variety of capitalism."

"Wage restraint plays an important role in the conventional economic history explanation of the post-war golden growth experience of industrialized economies. Conversely, wage increases harming investment and increasing unemployment have been proffered as explanations for some of the high unemployment during the interwar period. This article argues that the conventional account implicitly only considers effects of wage growth on investment and not the advantageous effects on consumption. Thus, the evaluation of the effects on GDP growth is lop-sided. We employ a Post-Keynesian model to estimate effects of growth in the wage share of national income on consumption, investment, exports and imports separately, and weigh the effects together to estimate total effects on GDP growth, in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) 1900–2010. Furthermore, we estimate the positive effects of wage pressure on productivity, showing it to be significant and positive in all three countries. We show that the postwar wage push had small positive effects on GDP growth in Denmark and Sweden, and a small negative effect in Norway. Thus, wage restraint is not a valid explanation for the postwar growth miracle. We propose a more comprehensive macroeconomic framework for understanding the implications of labour-capital distribution."

"The 2008 global financial crisis that began in the US housing sector mutated into a sovereign debt crisis and an economic depression for countries in southern Europe, threatening the very existence of the Eurozone. The paper contrasts analyses of the eurocrisis based on the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach and post-Keynesian analysis. The VoC analysis has argued that the eurocrisis is ultimately a crisis of incompatible institutional settings, in particular wage bargaining institutions, tied together in a monetary union. The Mediterranean Market Economies lack the institutional capacities to restrain wage growth. The Coordinated Market Economies (in northern Europe) have managed to maintain modest wage growth and inflation because export-oriented sectors play the role of wage leader. Post-Keynesian analysis has interpreted the crisis as the outcome of the unsustainable growth models and neoliberal policies in Europe; i.e. a neo-mercantilist export-led demand regime in the North and a debt-driven demand regime in the South and the EMU policies of financial deregulation that accompanied European economic integration. What is specific to the Euro area is the absence of adequate central fiscal stabilization or effective lender of last resort facility for the member countries. The ECB was hesitant in its unconventional monetary policy and began buying government bonds of countries under pressure only at a late stage of the crises. The imbalances resulted in a full blown sovereign debt crisis. We argue that the VoC analysis has important shortcomings as it focuses excessively on labour market institutions and that the post-Keynesian approach integrates financial factors and economic policy in explaining the crisis."

"The last forty years have witnessed a third wave of globalization which can be termed “neoliberal globalization”. Now, there are indications that the era of neoliberal globalization might be drawing to a close, as evidenced by the trade war between the US and China. This paper argues the fracturing of neoliberal globalization reflects the growing impact of economic resentments and geopolitical contradictions. The paper presents a simple analytical framework that constructs the global economy in terms of a core consisting of the US, China, and the EU. It then examines how globalization creates economic resentments and geopolitical tensions within and between members of the core, thereby fracturing globalization. The rise of US – China geopolitical competition promises to twist the character of the global economic order, which stands to be shaped by strategically motivated economic integrations and recalibrations rather than generalized global economic integration. The paper then extends the analysis to non-core country blocs and examines how they are impacted by globalization and the rise of US – China geopolitical competition."

"The publication of the seventh edition of Blanchard's textbook (Blanchard 2017) and of the third edition of the textbook authored by Blanchard, Amighini and Giavazzi (2017) represents a significant opportunity to assess the impact of the Great Recession on macroeconomic theory and on the teaching of macroeconomics. The authors acknowledge that the mainstream economic model presented in the previous editions of their textbooks is unable to offer a significant explanation of the causes of the crisis as it completely neglects the role of the financial system. They believe that the economics profession has learned the lesson of the crisis since economists understood the limitations of the theoretical model elaborated over the last decades. In the revised editions of their textbooks they present a new theoretical model taking into account the financial system. The objective of this work is twofold: i) to show that the new model does not allow to elaborate a coherent explanation of the Great Recession and: ii) to present the pillars of an alternative theoretical model based on the lessons of Keynes, Schumpeter and Minsky."

"In this article, we analyze the implications of financialization for domestic demand formation by linking the concept of financialization to the post-Keynesian analysis of demand regimes. We examine how the financialization of households in advanced economies gave rise to distinct but interdependent demand regimes. In the Anglo-Saxon and southern European countries, financialization in the form of property price inflation and rising household debt contributed to the development of a debt-driven demand regime with large current account deficits. Economic development in eastern Europe was shaped by catching-up through foreign direct investment from northern Europe and accompanied by worsening current account positions. Northern Europe, in contrast, relied on an export-driven demand regime with a weaker role for financialization. The export-driven demand regime relies on the financialization of southern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries, which helped create export demand for northern Europe. We argue that this constellation of demand regimes gives rise to divergent economic performance and macroeconomic instability. While with deleveraging the growth effects of the debt-driven model have gone into reverse, the fundamental configuration has not changed since the crisis."

"Fiscal policy has a strong role to play in the transition to an ecologically sustainable economy. This paper critically discusses the way that green fiscal policy has been analysed in both conventional and post-Keynesian approaches. It then uses a recently developed post-Keynesian ecological macroeconomic model in order to provide a comparative evaluation of three different types of green fiscal policy: carbon taxes, green subsidies and green public investment. We show that (i) carbon taxes reduce global warming but increase financial risks due to their adverse effects on the profitability of firms and credit availability; (ii) green subsidies and green public investment improve ecological efficiency, but their positive environmental impact is partially offset by their macroeconomic rebound effects; and (iii) a green fiscal policy mix derives better outcomes than isolated policies. Directions for future heterodox macroeconomic research on the links between fiscal policy and ecological sustainability are suggested."