Intermediate macroeconomics: The importance of being post Keynesian

Post Keynesians should not be afraid to teach what they believe represents the best explanation of macroeconomic fluctuations. Our colleagues in the mainstream certainly are not and, realistically speaking, it is hard to imagine that any student would be handicapped by not having had a full dose of IS-LM, the accelerationist hypothesis, Phillips Curves, and so on. Furthermore, there may not be a more opportune time to introduce post Keynesianism to undergraduate students with Neoclassicals still recovering from their inability to explain the financial crisis. This article argues for a post Keynesian-focused intermediate macroeconomics and offers a sample plan. It reviews the state of post-financial crisis mainstream macro teaching and references pedagogical literature in showing how a post Keynesian transformation and reorganization can be made most effective.     

Post Keynesian endogenous money theory: A theoretical and empirical investigation of the credit demand schedule

The article investigates the relationship between interest rates and loan amounts provided by commercial banks from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Theoretically, some scholars belonging to the post Keynesian endogenous money tradition advocate that a decrease (increase) in interest rates leads to a positive (negative) effect on the amount of loans demanded by households and firms. On the other hand, some heterodox economists maintain that interest rates do not stimulate firms’ credit demand but that a certain degree of influence is allowed for loans provided to households. By applying a vector autoregression (VAR) and vector error-correction model (VECM) methodology to European Central Bank and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data for the eurozone, this article proposes an empirical validation of such theoretical premises by analysing the relationship between the different types of credit provided by commercial banks and the corresponding interest rates. The main results show a negative relationship between the interest rates and the credit provided for the purchase of houses. Conversely, no significant relationship is found between loans granted to enterprises and loans for the purchase of consumption goods and the corresponding interest rates.     

Backhouse and Boianovsky on “disequilibrium theory”. A review article of transforming modern macroeconomics. Exploring disequilibrium microfoundations, 1956–2003

Abstract

This article is an in-depth analysis of Backhouse and Boianovsky's book, Transforming Modern Macroeconomics: Exploring Disequilibrium Microfoundations, 1956–2003. I start with questioning Backhouse and Boianovsky's too broad understanding of the disequilibrium approach. Thereby they bring together theories that should be kept separate, those by Patinkin, Clower and Leijonhuvud on the one hand, and those by Barro and Grossman, Drèze and Benassy, on the other. I also substantiate my disagreement with their claim that an inner link exists between fixed price equilibrium theories and imperfect competition modelling. Finally, I put forward a few conjectures about the reason why fixed price modelling petered out.     

The state spends first: Logic,facts, fictions,open questions

Keynesian (or Kaleckian) logic leads post Keynesian economists to presume that a variation of state revenues from taxes and sales of Treasury bonds are the result of a variation in state spending and not the other way around. In the past two decades, the exponents of modern monetary theory (MMT) have been at the forefront in asserting the Keynesian (or Kaleckian) logic of this proposition, filling a theoretical vacuum in post Keynesian thinking. The question is that MMT consolidates the Treasury and Central Bank (CB) so that the latter automatically creates purchasing power in favor of decisions of the former to spend. Critics, however, point out that most institutional arrangements forbid CBs to finance the Treasury directly. After Lavoie (2013 ———. “The Monetary and Fiscal Nexus of Neo-Chartalism: A Friendly Critical Look.” Journal of Economic Issues, 2013, 42, 1–32. Working paper version, 2013 (available at www.boeckler.de/pdf/v_2011_10_27_lavoie.pdf) [Google Scholar]), the debate has moved forward and seen some convergence. The present paper critically reviews for unfamiliar readers an otherwise almost esoteric but fundamental discussion.     

A monetary economy with counterfeiting

We apply a search-theoretic model of fiat money to study the equilibria in which counterfeit money is accepted. Circulation of counterfeit money presupposes that the agents are impatient and that the punishment for holding it is not too severe. When the stock of genuine money is small counterfeit money may improve the efficiency of the economy. We establish that a monetary economy can be created with private provision of (counterfeit) money as long as the ruler has control over punishments. Totally noncooperative provision will fail as the economy will become flooded with money.     

A monetary mechanism for sharing capital: Diamond and Dybvig meet Kiyotaki and Wright

Summary. A model is presented in which banks update public records, accept deposits of fiat money and intermediate capital. I show that inside money is more liquid than outside money, increasing the turnover rates of idle capital. The model offers a simple explanation for the dual role of financial institutions: Banks are monitored and can issue nominal assets upon request, which helps them to transfer capital in sufficiently high rates and to also become intermediaries. The model shares some features with those of Diamond and Dybvig [5], and Kiyotaki and Wright [7].Received: 18 February 2003, Revised: 16 February 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: E51, G21, G24.Ricardo de O. Cavalcanti: I thank two anonymous referees, Susumu Imai, B. Ravikumar and Neil Wallace, as well as participants at the Economic Theory symposium Recents Developments in Money and Finance, and seminar participants at the Richmond Fed, Queens University, and Sabanci University for comments on an early draft. The hospitality and financial support of the Cleveland Fed Central Bank Institute and CNPq are greatfully appreciated. The authors opinions are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Federal Reserve System.     

Brunner and Leijonhufvud: friends or foes?

Karl Brunner and Axel Leijonhufvud constantly pointed out the prominence of imperfect information in macroeconomic analysis. This paper argues that, despite strong oppositions related to their rival schools of thought, this emphasis on informational problems led them to adopt similar views on many theoretical and methodological issues. These issues encompass the perception of the economic agent in society, the theory of price inflexibility and unemployment, the role of relative prices, the importance of signal-extraction problems and the position within the Marshall-Walras divide.     

The Doctoral Origins of Economics Faculty and the Education of New Economics Doctorates

For the open economy, the workhorse model in intermediate textbooks still is the Mundell-Fleming model, which basically extends the investment and savings, liquidity preference and money supply (IS-LM) model to open economy problems. The authors present a simple New Keynesian model of the open economy that introduces open economy considerations into the closed economy consensus version and that still allows for a simple and comprehensible analytical and graphical treatment. Above all, their model provides an efficient tool kit for the discussion of the costs and benefits of fixed and flexible exchange rates, which also was at the core of the Mundell-Fleming model.     

Market Structure and Interfirm Integration in the Petroleum Industry

Since March 2008 we have witnessed a flurry of government "bailouts," directed to assist financial institutions. What has made these more or less acceptable to the public is the hope that they are temporary, implemented in a state of emergency, and that they offer market solutions and won't structurally change capitalist relations. However, no temporary stimulus and bailouts can address the systemic instability in financial capitalism identified by Post Keynesians and Institutionalists.     

内生货币体系下房价波动对货币供求的冲击

在内生货币体系下,房价上涨导致我国内生货币扩张的途径主要有两条:一是基于房地产抵押信贷需求膨胀引致的商业银行内生货币供给的扩张;二是被房价持续上涨及人民币升值预期所吸引的外汇流入导致央行大量基础货币的被动投放。这样会对货币供应量目标有效性带来影响。因此应将房地产市场监测数据列入当前货币供应量调控的参照指标。     

Why does the velocity of money move pro‐cyclically?

The velocity of money usually rises in expansions and falls in recessions This paper explains this pro‐cyclical movement of velocity using two ideas: (i) during business cycles the movement of investment and consumption of durable goods has a larger amplitude than consumption of non‐durable goods and services; (ii) the velocity associated with expenditure on investment and durable goods is much higher than the velocity associated with consumption of non‐durable goods and services, because the former expenditures are synchronized with the attainment of money by economic agents whereas the latter are not. In this setting, the rise in the weight of expenditure in durable goods relative to the weight of non‐durable goods and services, which occurs during expansions, generates an increase in the average velocity of circulation. The opposite happens during recessions and thus velocity moves pro‐cyclically.     

The Holy Grail of Crypto Currencies: Ready to Replace Fiat Money?

Abstract:

This article suggests that current forms of crypto currencies will fail to complement or replace fiat money. We show that fixed-supply coins like bitcoin suffer from an inherently speculative and deflationary design and are not backed by a “We Owe You”. Stablecoins, i.e. coins that rely on flexible supply designs, are also not backed by a “We Owe You” and cannot achieve price stability because they build on outdated monetarist theories. Moreover, the algorithmically planned allocation of new coins, which is characteristic of stablecoins, is not market-based. As such, it is inferior to contemporary ways of money creation. Regarding price stability, we suggest that (crypto) monetary policy needs to overcome the illusionary dichotomy between the real and the financial circuit by accounting for systematic coordinated wage bargaining mechanisms to reflect that firms set prices according to cost-based pricing rules.     

累进性劳动所得税、失业波动与内生稳定器——一个动态新凯恩斯主义的视角

将累进性劳动所得税引入NKMP—DSGE模型中考察失业波动与累进性税收的宏观效应。贝叶斯脉冲响应函数表明,外生冲击对于就业与失业具有不同的冲击效应,因而忽略失业可能引起结论的偏误;失业的贝叶斯冲击分解结果表明,货币政策冲击是推动我国失业波动最重要的力量,并且我国劳动力市场存在显在的“失业回滞”。进一步,通过模型比较发现,累进性劳动所得税具有内生稳定器的作用。在失业问题日益严峻的背景下,采用对劳动力市场做出反应的货币政策机制以降低失业,并使用内生稳定器缓和经济波动,将可能实现降低失业与缓和经济波动的双重效果。     

On Closed Systems and the Language of Economic Discourse

This article addresses a few of the major points identified by Tony Lawson in his book Reality and Economics(Routledge 1997). Traditional economic models are profoundly closed, emanating from reasoning processes that are both deductivist and positivist by nature. Here, individuals are prescribed to behave according to mechanical, socially abstracted fashions that, in fact, belie any semblance of real human choice. Moreover, as Lawson observes, relationality in these models is strictly external, in that the natures of individuals are not affected by their participation in market activity. Under these conditions, models can be easily constructed by which markets yield unique equilibrium outcomes, whereby the constancy of the conjunctions of events yield law-like economic assertions.

Instead, Lawson embraces a critical realist perspective that posits human behavior to be both structured and internallyrelational, i.e., where interactions with others can affect the very natures of those individuals. As such, human relations can be temporally situated in the context of structured social contracts, while still embodying the organic elements from which those agents and structures can be reproduced and transformed.

From these principles, this essay explores some recent work in Keynesian and Post Keynesian thought. In addition, this critical realist framework considers some developments in New Keynesian Economics and Endogenous Growth Theory.