Naked Keynesianism

[embedded content] My interview with INET from January 2017 at the ASSA meetings in Chicago. From the INET link:After the Great Depression, global capitalism underwent serious reform. Why didn’t that happen after 2008?Matias Vernengo, Professor of Economics at Bucknell University, explains how a crisis can reveal that the dominant neoliberal orthodoxy is in fact based on a shaky theoretical foundation. But for new economic thinkers to capitalize on that requires a clearly articulated...

Casa di San Giorgio, an early central bank? Paper presented twice is now published in the RRPE. It tries to bring the surplus approach tradition ideas to discuss the historical origins and the definition of what a central bank is and should do.From the abstract: The paper analyzes briefly the changing ideas on the role of money and banks from William Petty to Thomas Tooke, including the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. It analyzes the role of ideas in shaping the...

[embedded content]I suggested my posts on Free Trade during the show. Here a series of posts that might be helpful.

So now that we are to the round of 16, I think my reply to Sanjay Reddy's question can be evaluated. Note that from the 16, 5 are from Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay), one from Asia (Japan) and 10 from Europe (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, France, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland). Of those 6 have already won a World Cup (Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Spain and Uruguay) and 1 played at least a final (Sweden, lost against Brazil...

I've been reading in the spare time (not as much as I would like, and worse with the World Cup) Louis Uchitelle's Making It: Why Manufacturing Still Matters. I tend to agree with the general idea of the book and with many of the policy conclusions, even though I have some problems with minor points (for another post). As a result of this I went to check manufacturing output. There are many different statistics to check in the FRED database. Below a measure of industrial output. And yes, it...

Our book is out (in Spanish). You can buy it here. We have written a few papers in English if you are interested available here, and here, for example. my review of Dosman's biography is available here.

Not The Economist's field of expertise The World Cup is about to start. The Economist has run a piece suggesting that "the World Cup [is] the fulfillment of some of our most cherished values." And yes the cherished values are essentially free trade, the raison d'être for the creation of the magazine (that has a problem of self-image and refers to itself as a newspaper), and more generally laissez-faire capitalism, of which the publication is one of the most important cheerleaders.There...

New book edited by Martín Abeles, Esteban Pérez Caldentey and Sebastían Valdecantos. From the description: The chapters in the book analyze the logic and effects of financialization in developing economies, peripheral financialization so to speak, in particular in Latin America. The first chapters look at the topic from a historical and conceptual angles, and then the latter chapters concentrate on specific manifestations like the influence of financialization on productive investment,...

A leftist candidate won a close election in a South American country, threatening US interests in the region. The US president asked the CIA to "make the economy scream" to undermine governance and bring regime change, even if by violent means.I am referring, of course, to Salvador Allende's election in Chile, and Richard Nixon's reaction, which eventually led to Augusto Pinochet's coup, one of the most bloody in the troubled history of the region. The reelection of Nicolas Maduro last...

Three hundred academics and public intellectuals joined to launch a manifesto denouncing the detention of the former Brazilian president and current Presidential candidate Lula da Silva. The petition discusses in detail the arbitrary nature of the trial conducted by Judge Sergio Moro against Lula da Silva, stating that he is nothing less than a political prisoner. The document asserts that the international community should treat him as such and demands his immediate release. Read...