Naked Keynesianism

Economists for Peace and Security will conduct its 9th annual policy symposium at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington DC today to discuss the economic dimensions of the most pressing global security issues and those facing the domestic economy. Following one of the most unusual presidential and congressional elections in US history, panelists will present ideas for improving prospects for peace, and growth with fairness for all Americans. Program starts at 9am. Watch the...

The Rust Party Belt The High Price of the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- Dean Baker on the role of free trade deals in the electionIs globalization to blame? -- Chris Dillow on, well, whether it was globalizationThe long haul -- Paul Krugman, right that is going to be a disaster, but not very perceptive on how (it's not about the bad things that will happen and Drumpf will be unprepared to deal with; it's all about the predatory behavior of the GOP and the president elect cronies, that...

The working class elephant in the room Upton Sinclair famously said that "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Not understanding the results of this election is what the Democratic establishment is trying very hard to do. Many will continues to say that at the heart of the loss are the misogyny, racism and xenophobia of Trump and his supporters, which is real and problematic, but deny the truth that it was the...

In light of increased unemployment, the absence of strong economic growth and the threat of deflation in many countries, the recent financial crisis led many to expect a shift in monetary policy. Central banks were at the forefront of these changes, by shunning ‘conventional’ policies in favor of so-called unconventional ones. After experimenting with Quantitative Easing, a number of countries have recently officially adopted negative interest rates in the hope of reviving their moribund...

It's Manufacturing Stupid! There will be a lot to say about the election from all kinds of pundits. On the left, many will blame the coverage of emailgate, Comey, the FBI, third party candidates, Bernie and Bernie bros, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, the electoral college and God knows what else. And certainly all of these things did play a role. But it was minor. The election was lost in the old Rust Belt, the decadent manufacturing center that has been hit hard by trade deals (as...

"The facts are looking you in the face. What more do you need? This is Nixon. Vote McGovern." Andy Warhol

New paper by Carlos Medeiros, with Nicholas Trebat, at the Centro Sraffa (h/t Alejandro Fiorito, and Revista Circus). From the abstract: This paper discusses the connections established in recent non–neoclassical literature between growth, structural change and income distribution in large developing economies. We argue that though many analyses have the merit of reintroducing income distribution as a factor in economic growth, they rely almost exclusively on macroeconomic theory, and thus...

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I missed this. CEPR blog posted on Thomas Edsall's column and quoted this nugget from Daron Acemoglu (and this guy might get a "Nobel"): As long as the Democratic Party shakes off its hard-core anti-market, pro-union stance, there is a huge constituency of well-educated, socially conscious Americans that will join in. I don't agree with all of the CEPR proposals. I always found the free trade on professionals a peculiar idea. At any rate, that would alienate a constituency of the Democratic...

New paper by Nate Cline and Perry. From the abstract: Several explanations of the ‘great inflation moderation’ (1982–2006) have been put forth, the most popular being that inflation was tamed due to good monetary policy, good luck (exogenous shocks such as oil prices), or structural changes such as inventory management techniques. Drawing from post-Keynesian and structuralist theories of inflation, this paper uses a vector autoregression with a post-Keynesian identification strategy to show...