Redistribution in a Neo‐Kaleckian Two‐country Model

We investigate the interaction between demand‐driven growth and income distribution in open economies, by combining expenditure‐switching and demand spillover effects in a neo‐Kaleckian two country model. First, we specify elasticities of wage share and real exchange rate to the money wage relative to labor productivity, in order to precisely describe the distributive pass‐through from money wages to the labor share and the real exchange rate. Second, we analyze the demand effects of an increase in the money wage for given labor productivity (a redistribution towards labor) in both Home and Foreign country, as well as globally. We derive closed form results for two identical countries. These results indicate that redistribution towards labor at Home: (i) always increases growth globally if Home is wage‐led, but can lead to lower growth at Home relative to Foreign; and (ii) will always imply lower growth at Home relative to Foreign if Home is profit‐led, but can still be growth‐enhancing at Home. Thus, to the extent that countries are concerned with their relative economic performance, a fallacy of composition can emerge. Numerical simulations suggest that these fallacies could indeed occur. As a consequence, ‘returns to coordination’ over international labor policies might be substantial.     

Book reviews

This paper analyzes how fiscal policies and credit constraints can affect the impact of macroeconomic volatility on long-run growth. The model by Aghion et al. (2005) is extended by allowing for governmental fiscal policy over the business cycle. The analysis shows that in an economy facing credit constraints, an increase in volatility will result in lower mean growth, and all the more the less financially developed and the more procyclical the fiscal policy is. The main implication is that in countries with lower degrees of financial development, countercyclical fiscal policies are particularly important in reducing the negative consequences of adverse aggregate shocks on firms' long-run investments. An empirical analysis is finally conducted using different groups of countries that confirm the theoretical predictions.     

Cyclical dynamics in a Kaleckian model with demand and distribution regimes and endogenous natural output

We analyse the interaction of demand and income distribution in a dynamic Kaleckian model with endogenous natural output. Endogenous changes of the natural output level to changes in the demand-determined actual output level have featured prominently in discussions of hysteresis after the crisis of 2008. We consider wage-led and profit-led demand (PLD) regimes and goods market-led and labour market-led income distribution regimes. The stability of the steady state is related to the endogeneity of natural output level in certain regimes. Limit cycles arise when the strong flexibility of prices or wages to the output gap is combined with moderate natural output hysteresis. A Kaleckian model with a wage-led demand regime and anticyclical profit share is less unstable and pseudo-Goodwin cycles can arise in the PLD regime with a procyclical profit share.     

The Limits to Wage‐Led Growth in A Low‐Income Economy

Neo‐Kaleckian literature has actively debated whether growth is wage‐ or profit‐led in capitalist economies. However, existing studies tend to ignore the non‐tradable sector and heterogeneity within the tradable sector. This article shows that incorporating these features renders wage‐led growth in an open developing economy unfeasible in the traditional (Kaleckian) sense of the term. This result—which follows even if one sets aside the competitiveness considerations generally seen as impeding such growth—occurs due to the presence of a homogeneous goods‐producing tradable sector that sets the ceiling to steady‐state growth. A corollary, in light of findings from the ‘new new trade theory’ literature, is that increasing South‐South trade may tend to narrow room for wage‐led growth regardless of the other desirable effects of higher wages.     

财政政策的顺周期实施效应特征与基本成因

改革开放以来,为抵御外部风险、稳定经济增长,我国持续实施积极财政政策,政策设计愈发重视反周期相机调控理念.但政策的实施效果存在争议,不完全满足反周期特征,导致调控结果与初衷存在背离难题.为厘清我国财政政策效应的周期特征,本文引入多频谱分析,以极大似然小波分解(MODWT)剔除序列趋势成分的扩张效应干扰,利用带有时变参数的结构向量回归模型(TVP-SVAR)分析我国预算收支和经济波动的关系.结果显示,我国预算收支变化与经济周期趋同,财政政策的实施结果具有顺周期性.具体来看,我国经济增速变化一个单位将导致预算收支分别同方向变化0.7及 0.05个单位以上,预算收入变化一个单位将导致预算支出变化0.9个单位以上.本文还证明,预算收入的顺周期属性是导致支出与经济波动顺同的主要影响因素.     

MODELS OF COMPETITION BETWEEN FIRMS: ENDOGENOUS MARKET STRUCTURE IN THE KALECKIAN MODEL

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate free entry into the Kaleckian model. To this end, we consider a model with monopolistic competition, mark‐up pricing and a free‐entry condition. Using this model, the Kaleckian model is unstable under a wage‐led growth regime, and it is stable under a profit‐led growth regime, when the interest rate is supposed to be constant. Stability under a wage‐led growth can be achieved if the interest rate is allowed to respond positively to capacity utilization. We also find that a goods market policy, but not an income distribution policy, is then effective from an economic growth perspective.     

Advertising and Economic Development

In this article it is argued that West Germany has developed into the largest advertising market with the highest productivity per employee in Western Europe. We observe a continuous increase of net advertising turnover during the 1970s. Some extraordinary characteristics of the German advertising market (such as the structure of the TV advertising market and the printed media industry), which set it into sharp contrast to other European advertising markets, are discussed. Furthermore, we analyse the relationship between advertising and the business cycle movement (procyclical v. anticyclical advertising strategies) and we find that the majority of German business firms still pursue a procyclical advertising strategy although evidence seems to prove that an anticyclical advertising policy adopted during recessions will result in higher market shares and strengthened market positions of advertised brands.     

Effort Elicitation,Wage Differentials and Income Distribution in A Wage‐Led Growth Regime

Motivated by the empirical evidence on endogenous labor effort and wage differentials, this paper explores implications for distribution and growth of firms using different strategies to elicit effort from workers. The frequency distribution of effort‐elicitation strategies across firms is governed by a replicator dynamic that generates wage differential as a long‐run equilibrium. Although firms willing to elicit more effort have to compensate workers with a higher wage rate, a larger proportion of firms adopting such strategy will not necessarily produce a higher wage share and thereby a higher growth rate. The intuition is that, depending on the accompanying rise in labor productivity, the wage share may not vary positively with the proportion of firms paying higher wages.     

WAGE POLICY IN AN OPEN‐ECONOMY KALECKI–KALDOR MODEL: A SIMULATION STUDY

This paper discusses a Post‐Keynesian model of income, production and trade. The one‐country, one‐sector model features Kaleckian investment demand, Kaldorian productivity and a labor market module based on a wage–price spiral. The model is first presented for a closed economy with exogenous real wages; second, for a closed economy with endogenous real wages; third, for an economy open to trade with endogenous real wages. Simulations with different calibrations show key characteristics of the model. Monte Carlo simulations over reasonable parameter ranges shed some light on the effectiveness of wage policies in open economies.     

Identifying the Factors that Affect Interest‐Rate Swap Spreads: Some Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom

We assess the ability of the factors proposed in previous research to account for the stochastic evolution of the term structure of the U.S. and U.K. swap spreads. Using as factor proxies the level, volatility, and slope of the zero‐coupon government yield curve as well as the Treasury‐bill—London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) spread and the corporate bond spread, we identify a procyclical behavior for the short‐maturity U.S. swap spreads and a countercyclical behavior for longer maturity U.S. swap spreads. Liquidity and corporate bond spreads are also significant, but their importance varies with maturity. The liquidity premium is more important for short‐maturity swap spreads, although the corporate bond spread affects long‐maturity swap spreads. For the United Kingdom, swap spreads are countercyclical across maturities. In addition, we find that shocks to the liquidity premium are more significant for long‐maturity swaps and that the links between corporate bond markets and swap markets are much stronger than in the United States. When we look at the links between U.S. and U.K. swap markets, we identify a significant influence of the U.S. factors on the U.K. swap spreads across maturities. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:737–768, 2001     

The emergence of co‐existing debt cycle regimes in an economic growth model

This paper aims to provide a modeling framework that keeps track of the interdependency between firms’ external financing structure and the state of the economy. Accordingly, it is based on the well‐known Kaleckian model which is combined with a modeling strategy of a sentiment index that was proposed by Franke (2012, 2014). The sentiment influences firms’ subjective sales expectations and thus their planned level of investment. As it turns out, the non‐linear model set‐up appears to be flexible in the sense that it is able to generate different interesting dynamic scenarios. It is shown that it may produce (a) sentiment‐driven business cycle fluctuations, including endogenously determined Minsky‐Koo‐kind recessions, and, more interestingly, (b) two distinct economic environments that exist contemporaneously: a ‘low‐’ and ‘high‐indebted’ regime.     

Sovereign risk and procyclical fiscal policy in emerging market economies

This study develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to account for the differences in fiscal policy stance over the business cycle between developed and emerging market countries, and, in particular, for the volatile and procyclical government consumption and transfer payment in emerging market countries. Two models with and without default option in sovereign borrowings replicate the contrasting cyclical behaviors indicating that the default option is responsible for procyclical fiscal policy. Further, augmented model with third-party bailouts, together with the stochastic trend income process, successfully predicts high volatilities of fiscal expenditures. These imply that procyclical fiscal policy, entailed by default option, may exacerbate the business cycle in emerging market countries.     

A Kaldor–Hicks–Goodwin–Tobin–Kalecki model of growth and distribution

This paper presents a Kaldorian model of growth that incorporates both Kaldor's theory of income distribution and his endogenous technical progress function. Growth is driven by demand‐side forces that induce supply‐side accommodation. The model incorporates Hicksian induced innovation; Goodwin Marxist style labor conflict that affects wage bill division between workers and managers; Tobin inflation effects; and Kalecki monopoly power effects. Unlike the neo‐Kaleckian model, a Kaldorian economy operates at normal capacity utilization. Monopoly power plays a role as a barrier to entry rather than determining the functional distribution of income.     

Demand‐led growth with endogenous innovation

This paper contributes to the recent macro‐dynamics literature on demand‐led growth, drawing upon the seminal idea that the implications of Harrodian instability may be tamed by a source of autonomous expenditure in the economy. Contrary to the other contributions in this literature, real autonomous expenditure is not growing at an exogenously given rate, and partly consists of a flow of profit‐seeking R&D and innovation expenditures raising labour productivity through time. If the state of distribution, hence the wage share, is exogenously fixed and constant, the model gives rise to dynamics in a two dimensional state space, that may converge to, or give rise to a limit cycle around, an endogenous growth path. An exogenous rise of the profit share exerts negative effects on long‐run growth and employment, showing that growth is wage led.     

Net exports, consumption volatility and international business cycle models

Conventional two-country RBC models interpret countercyclical net exports as reflecting primarily the dynamics of capital. I show that, quantitatively, theoretical economies rely on counterfactual terms of trade effects: trade fluctuations, on the contrary, are driven by consumption smoothing, thus generating procyclical net trade in goods. I then consider a class of preferences that embeds home production in a reduced form: consumption volatility increases so that countercyclical net exports reflect primarily a strong relation between consumption and imports, as in the data. The major discrepancy between theory and data concerns the variability of international prices.     

ENDOGENOUS TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION,CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND DISTRIBUTIONAL DYNAMICS

This paper develops a post‐Keynesian dynamic model of accumulation, growth and distribution in which endogenous technological innovation plays a significant role. Firms’ rate of labour‐saving technological innovation is made to depend non‐linearly on the distributive (wage and profit) shares, with the latter determining both the incentives to innovate and the availability of funding to carry it out. As it turns out, the direction and the intensity of the effect of a change in distribution on the rates of accumulation and growth depend on the prevailing distribution, with a similar dependence applying—alongside the relative bargaining power of capitalists and workers—to the dynamic stability properties of the system. Hence, the model does not rely on full capacity utilization being reached for a change in the accumulation and growth regime to take place.     

POST‐KEYNESIAN EFFECTIVE DEMAND AND CAPITAL–LABOUR SUBSTITUTION

This paper analyses the relationship between the real wage rate and employment when we induce capital–labour substitution within a Post‐Keynesian Kaleckian model. To avoid the over‐determinacy problem, we consider a non‐homogeneous production function and cost minimization, in contrast to recent work that assumed a homogeneous production function and profit maximization. As a result, we find not only that increasing returns to scale are important in sustaining the long‐run stability condition, but also that if the increasing returns to scale are small, then it is more likely that employment will increase.     

Cost share‐induced technological change and Kaldor’s stylized facts

This paper presents a theory of induced technological change in which firms pursue a random, local, and bounded search for productivity‐enhancing innovations. Firms implement profitable innovations at fixed prices, which then spread through the economy. After diffusion, all firms adjust prices and wages. The model is consistent with a variety of price‐setting behaviors, which determine equilibrium positions characterized by constant cost shares and productivity growth rates. A fixed mark‐up can yield Marx‐biased technological change. Target‐return pricing yields Harrod‐neutral technological change with a fixed wage share as a stable equilibrium, consistent with Kaldor's stylized facts, while allowing for deviations from equilibrium, as observed in the longer historical record.     

The impact of pronoun choices on consumer engagement actions: Exploring top global brands' social media communications

To enhance the understanding of consumer engagement with brand content on social media, this study examines how pronoun choices affect different types of consumer engagement (e.g., likes, comments, shares) by simultaneously exploring five different pronoun types (first-person singular, first-person plural, second person, third-person singular, and third-person plural). Furthermore, this study explores how the effects of these linguistic (pronoun) choices vary across two brand classifications: characteristics (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and offerings (goods vs. services). The proposed multivariate Poisson regression model, analyzing 15,788 unique brand posts from Facebook over an 8-month period, reveals differences in engagement due to pronoun usage across brand classifications. These results offer a deeper understanding of how the way brands talk to consumers on social media platforms influences consumers' attitudes (likes), propensity to engage with the brand (comments), and willingness to share branded content with their social networks (shares) across different brand classifications.