A note reconsidering a post-Keynesian model of growth and distribution in the globalization context

We treat an extension of the Metcalfe and Steedman model of growth and distribution in a small open economy with government activity. We show, simultaneously, that certain kinds of taxation and government expenditures will not affect the essential nature of the “Cambridge Equation.” This is important due to the increasing process of Financial Globalization which can be responsible for changing the profit distribution between capitalists and workers. The present note aims at integrating the public sector and the foreign trade together into the model, based on previous literature that, with few exceptions, treats them separately. To do so, a new framework is proposed. Our contribution shows that workers’ income grows when the Current Account in the balance of payments is in surplus, a result not studied by Teixeira and Araújo. The discussion includes recent literature concerning with limits of applicability of such analytical model, dealing with more realistic economies including the process of globalization.