Naked Keynesianism

Downhill I have not written on the problems in the region for a while now (last stuff that is more comprehensive here in the talk at Keene, for example), in part, because the whole theme is a bit depressing (more recently the Honduras crisis, and the return of the right in Chile). As I have noted before, there is no doubt that the collapse of commodity prices has played a significant role in the downturn in the region, but it is also true that a lot of the problems are political in...

Looking up to Galbraith The ASSA Meeting was this last weekend in Philadelphia. It was the bomb... cyclone (Nate Cline's joke; I'm sure many others too came up with that one). I don't have much to report actually. I did participate in one section, and will post a link to a preliminary version of my paper soon. I was at the Economists for Peace and Security (EPS) dinner, that honored Jamie Galbraith. This blog was named Naked Keynesianism, as you may know, because years ago Fox News...

This is a topic I discussed several times here (for example, here, here, here, here or here). Now there is a paper by Marc Lavoie (with co-author) in Intervention, on the same topic. The paper notes that: "There is a paper by Vernengo/Ford (2014) that covers some of the same ground. Their conclusion is that the 2008 crisis prompted only some cautious change in the views being entertained at the IMF" (my paper with Kirsten is here). Just to clarify, that's not exactly our point. The point...

woof, woof I haven't posted in a while. As I noted before, it's harder to post new things after almost 7 years. Also, I've been both busy and not particularly fond of talking about economics (a certain degree of pessimism about the economy and the profession, I guess). But not yet ready to shut the blog down.Anwar Shaikh was here at Bucknell and gave a lecture on his new book (Capitalism). Here a review by Susan K. Schroder, who was my micro TA back in graduate school a little more than...

I'm still reading The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, which is fun, well-written and in my view less controversial than what most reviews have suggested. Yes, inequality tends to fall mostly by violent means during periods of crisis. Note, also, that Walter Scheidel uses in this book the concept of surplus, and as noted earlier here (or here and here) before is part of this broader group of social scientists that still...

Brief summary of the content of the book published in the newsletter of the World Economics Association.Institutions are central to explaining the way in which, nations grow and develop. Traditionally the study of institutional economics focused on a very broad range of interests and made contributions in several different areas, including the structure of power relations, the beliefs systems, and also social norms of conduct. Contrarily the New Institutionalist turn in mainstream...

New paper by Esteban Pérez. From the abstract: Flow-of-funds accounting permit to monitor the financial sector in terms of flows and stocks and to analyze its relationship with the real sector. These show inter-sectoral financial flows, capture balance sheet positions and all financial transactions by instrument, type and economic sector. The construction of flow-of-funds accounts has been traditionally spearheaded by the central banks of developed nations including the Federal Reserve,...

New paper by Tom Palley. From the abstract: This paper reflects on the history and enduring relevance of Keynes’ economics. Keynes unleashed a devastating critique of classical macroeconomics and introduced a new replacement schema that defines macroeconomics. The success of the Keynesian revolution triggered a counter-revolution that restored the classical tradition and now enforces a renewed classical monopoly. That monopoly has provided the intellectual foundations for...

Book has finally been published. I just got my copies. And yes it is a critique of New Institutionalist views and the title a play with the Acemoglu and Robinson's book title. From the back cover."The question of development is a major topic in courses across the social sciences and history, particularly those focused on Latin America. Many scholars and instructors have tried to pinpoint, explain, and define the problem of underdevelopment in the region. With new ideas have come new...

New paper by Fabio Petri published in Œconomia. From the abstract: With the shift from traditional analyses where capital is a single value factor of variable ‘form’ to the neo-Walrasian versions, general equilibrium theory has encountered new problems pointed out by P. Garegnani (1976, 1990): impermanence problem, price-change problem, substitutability problem radically question the right to consider neo-Walrasian equilibria as approximating the actual path of real economies. The...