Naked Keynesianism

For his work on "consumption, poverty and welfare" according to the press release. It wasn't Atkinson, for inequality, as I suggested it was possible, but given the other possibilities cited this is quite good. Deaton had received last year the Leontief prize, which usually goes to heterodox economists (the other Nobel to win the Leontief was Sen), together with Jamie Galbraith.I should say, I recently read his The Great Escape. An interesting book, full of relevant data. But it does...

By Franklin SerranoA sharp slowdown in the Brazilian economy presents a critical challenge for the Workers’ Party (PT) government led by Dilma Rousseff. Between 2011 and 2014, economic growth averaged only 2.1 percent annually, compared with 4.4 percent in the 2004-2010 period.The recent downturn can be squarely blamed on economic policies implemented by Rousseff’s first administration (2010-14). This policy change sought to reduce the state’s role of directly promoting the expansion of...

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So, a bit busy this week, but as promised here is a more specific, if short, discussion of the Trans Pacific Partnership. The agreement was reached this week, and now approval must be obtained in Congress, and my guess is that there is a decent chance that it will pass with bi-partisan support (after all fast track was approved and that is why the Obama administration could reach an agreement). My guess is that several people that seem less than supportive right now, will come around, like,...

Prize will be awarded soon (next Monday). Thomson-Reuters prediction, based on citations, below. ECONOMIC SCIENCES Sir Richard Blundell, CBE FBA Ricardo Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University College London and Research Director at Institute for Fiscal Studies, London UK For microeconometric research on labor markets and consumer behavior John A. List Homer J. Livingston Professor of Economics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL USA For advancing field experiments in...

The final agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership was reached yesterday. Now it must be approved in Congress. I had noticed before (here, here and here) the bi-partisan support for TPP (not all bipartisanship is good after all) and the limitations of the agreement itself. Will write something later this week on the specifics revealed by the agreement (no big surprise, btw).If you need a crash course on the limitations of 'free' trade based on Ricardian or Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS)...

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Labor market still weak. New BLS report says that: "total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1 percent." Also: "average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees were unchanged" and revisions meant that "employment gains in July and August combined were 59,000 less than previously reported." Not enough job creation, labor participation falling, and wages stagnant. Secretary of Labor said,...

By Sergio Cesaratto (Guest Blogger)In this short note I will not add anything of substantial to the debate with Marc Lavoie on the nature of the Eurozone (EZ) crisis in view of Target 2 (T2). Readers have numerous papers to look at (including Lavoie 2015a/b, Cesaratto 2013, 2015a/b) and posts (Vernengo 2015, Ramanan, 2015). However, although most of relevance has already been said, there is perhaps still some space for few qualifications.1. Subject of the dispute is on whether the EZ crisis...

[embedded content] Ilan Ziv's documentary. I appear in chapter 3 on Ricardo. But other than that, there is an impressive list of names, including Robert Boyer, Ha-Joon Chang, Noam Chomsky, David Harvey, James Galbraith, David Graeber, David Harvey, Kari Polanyi Levitt, Eric Mielants, Thomas Piketty, Robert Skidelsky and Yanis Varoufakis among others. It should be good for courses on history of ideas, history and about the crisis.