Kalecki on money and finance

It is argued that Kalecki had a greater appreciation of the role of the monetary sector than has been generally recognized, and that Kalecki presented ideas which can be seen as now embedded in the structuralist post Keynesian analysis of endogenous money and in the circuitist approach. Six key features of Kalecki's monetary analysis are identified. The paper outlines Kalecki's dismissal of the ‘Pigou effect’ and the ‘Keynes effect’, and then discussion the relationship between the ‘principle of increasing risk’ and the nature of the supply of credit. It discusses interest determination in Kalecki's writings and the manner in which he distinguished different types of money.     

Financial institutions and the Cambridge theory of distribution

This paper shows how the Cambridge theory of distribution isaffected by the nature of financial intermediation. When creditmarkets are akin to loanable funds markets in which lenderstransfer resources to borrowers, the Cambridge theory holdsand steady-state income distribution is independent of workers'saving behaviour. However, when credit markets embody endogenouslygenerated bank money, the Cambridge theory does not hold. Financialinstitutions and endogenous money therefore matter for long-runsteady-state outcomes, just as they do for short-run macroeconomicoutcomes.     

The dichotomy once again

Patinkin's contribution to monetary theory is discussed with particular attention given to his ‘dichotomy argument’. It is shown that he is perfectly correct, but there is a confusion in the literature between the ‘neutrality proposition’ and the independence of equilibrium of the quantity of money. I then turn to homogeneity and its importance, and stress that the homogeneity applies to current as well as expected prices. I am rather unkind to mathematizing the double coincidence of wants argument, since it seems very obvious and the mathematics is exceptionally ugly. The paper concludes with remarks on monetary policy and the connection between the theory of money and that of information.     

James Steuart and the making of Karl Marx’s monetary thought

Abstract

This paper analyses the influence of James Steuart on Karl Marx’s monetary thought. It deals more specifically with Marx’s rejection of an automatic mechanism that links variations in the quantity of money to their direct impact on prices. Steuart’s pioneering discoveries in economics inaugurate an anti-quantity theory tradition that Marx supported and which fed his own conception of money and credit. Here, we deal with the criticism of the assumptions of the quantity theory of money (QTM), the specifically social character of labour which creates exchange value, the distinction between the functions of money, the difference between income spending and capital advances, and the difference between simple circulation and reflux of money credit.     

Depoliticisation,the Management of Money and the Renewal of Social Democracy: New Labour's Keynesianism and the Political Economy of ‘Discretionary Constraint’

Pointing to its radical underpinnings in so-called ‘Open Marxism’ and its theory of the state (one that subsumes the state in the capital relation), this article critically scrutinises Peter Burnham's thesis of ‘depoliticisation’ as a dominant accumulation strategy and regime. The article identifies ambiguities around Burnham's depiction of New Labour in power as committed to depoliticisation. It addresses these by drawing a distinction between regime of accumulation and mode of regulation, characterising New Labour's political economy in terms of the latter as a form of depoliticised Keynesianism framed by ‘discretionary constraint’. Contra-Burnham, the article points to the continued efficacy of Keynesian and social democratic political agency in the context of a dialectic of depoliticisation and repoliticisation focused on the role and power of the state. This dialectic is symptomatic of the contested regulation of capitalism around the defence of the value of money, on the one hand, and its broader management and redistribution, on the other.     

Immanuel Kant and Endogenous Growth Theory

Despite the modern origins of endogenous growth theory, we argue that the ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim’ written by Immanuel Kant in 1784 provides an early and coherent example of such a theory. Kant's endogenous growth mechanism is driven by the inherent rivalry that exists between agents which increases effort and strengthens the accumulation of knowledge, which in turn is carried through generations. In an exercise in ‘rational reconstruction’, we present a mathematical model of Kant's mechanism. We use the model to contribute to the contemporary policy debate as to whether ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ leads to excessive effort.     

The monetary economics of Jules Dupuit

This paper analyses Dupuit's views on money, bimetallism, free banking and credit. By means of textual and contextual analysis, I argue that Dupuit endorsed the quantity theory based on the neutrality of money. For him, the value of money was determined by supply and demand. The only exception concerned the redistributive effects of gold between trading nations. Dupuit's approach to credit and his views on the issuance of banknotes were distinct from those of most French liberals. He did not consider credit to be capital, and he warned against the overissue of banknotes.     

货币供给内生外生辨析

货币供给究竟是内生的还是外生的,这是货币金融领域始终争论不休的问题。货币数量论从货币数量与物价变动的关系得出货币具有外生性;凯恩斯的货币供给观由于经济环境的改变经历了由内生向外生的转变;后凯恩斯主义者则从信贷货币的产生过程得出货币内生的观点.综观货币发展史,内生与外生之争还有标准的混乱和概念不同等原因。     

Neglected Implications of Neoclassical Capital-Labour Substitution for Investment Theory: Another Criticism of Say's Law

Abstract

Recent mainstream macroeconomic models take Say's Law for granted. This paper argues that the justification for this assumption is not found in general equilibrium theory but in the ‘neoclassical-synthesis’ (and then monetarist) criticism of Keynes, which relies in a fundamental way on a treatment of investment that turns out to depend not only on neoclassical capital-labour substitution (called into questioned by the Cambridge controversies) but also on an assumption of full labour employment that on the contrary should be a result of the analysis. This paper first criticizes the attempt to justify a negative interest-elastic investment function through adjustment costs, that is, without relying on traditional neoclassical capital-labour substitution, with special attention on the treatment in Romer's advanced textbook. Then it proceeds to its new contribution, the demonstration that an endogenous determination of labour employment raises questions about the capacity of decreases in the real wage to raise employment even accepting neoclassical capital-labour substitution, because when the latter is correctly understood the rate of interest does not suffice to determine investment; hence, there is an inevitable role for the accelerator (and Say's Law is thereby undermined). This was perceived by Dornbusch and Fischer but they did not realize that then reductions of real wages will reduce investment instead of raising it. Thus, the ‘neoclassical synthesis’ reply to Keynes is undermined even apart from the inconsistencies of neoclassical capital theory. So the paper exposes a deficiency of the neoclassical arguments in support of a tendency toward full employment, additional to the inconsistencies revealed by the capital critique.     

Jacques Le Bourva's theory of endogenous credit-money ∗

About 30 years ago, Jacques Le Bourva published two little-known articles that clearly set out the present post-Keynesian theory of endogenous money developed by Kaldor and Moore. The main features of these two articles are presented, in particular Le Bourva's belief that reverse causation, rather than the instability of the velocity function, is the key objection to the quantity theory of money and the mainstream theory of inflation. Other features include a graphical and an algebraic pedagogical representation of the theory of endogenous money, the use of the Banking school's efflux/reflux mechanism, the dismissal of the money multiplier, and the impossibility of an excess supply of money. Le Bourva's theory of inflation also resembles that adopted by many post-Keynesians, in which price increases due to excessive wage demands and attempts by firms to raise their profit margins to finance investment.