Post-Keynesian

Readers are probably aware that there is quite a lot of discussion of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the potential for fiscal experimentation batting around at the moment. Others have weighed in on this already, and I have little to add. It is striking, however, that most of the push-back — where there is push-back — is not focused on trying to discredit the idea that we should engage in fiscal experimentation. Indeed, the notion that we should engage in fiscal experimentation seems...

Many years ago, I used to argue, on Usenet, about the Cambridge Capital Controversy. Many mainstream economists used to ignorantly assert, when pretending to respond, that an application of the CCC to labor economics was my idea alone. So I used to demonstrate that this was false by quoting from the literature. As far as I can see, mainstream economists are still mostly trained into ignorance. P. Garegnani: "The idea that demand and supply for factors of production determine...

Fact: If you use the word "carceral" instead of "prison" your argument immediately becomes more persuasive. Good praxis is to use words like "praxis" that nobody understands. -- Matthew Yglesias (5 April 2019, on Twitter) A large academic literature exists around Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. Topics discussed include the relationship of civil society to the state, hegemony, the contrast between consent and coercion, class alliances in political parties, Fordism, the contrast...

1.0 Introduction This post is on current events. The plane crashes of the Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane is arguably about more than a software bug. I point out in this post that you can read about how the United States' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is supposed to certify software and electronic hardware in airplanes yourself. In some sense, this post is not about software bugs, but rather about software engineering certification processes that fit into a larger systems engineering...

Arindrajit Dube writes an obituary for Alan Krueger, in Slate. Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, at INET, highlights Krishna Bharadwaj's contributions to economics. Longtime commentator Emil Bakkum's web page, collecting a variety of resources, is here. An advocate of Modern Monetary Theory, Brian Romanchuk is apparently writing a book about models supposedly of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium. Some recent posts include: Questions about time scales in DSGE models. Anticipations have a time...

1.0 Introduction By "libertarianism", I mean propertarianism, a right-wing doctrine. In this post, I want to outline some ways of arguing against this set of ideas. (On this topic, Mike Huben has much more extensive resources than I can allude to.) 2.0 On Individual Details I like to use certain policy ideas as a springboard for arguments that they have no coherent justification in economic theory. Unsurprisingly, the outdated nonsense market fundamentalists push does not have empirical...

This is current events, and but post is about current events in Britain in 1920. Lenin comments on reports of a dispute between Lloyd George and H. H. Asquith, both leaders of the Liberal party: [In] the speech delivered by Prime Minister Lloyd George on March 18, 1920... Lloyd George entered into a polemic with Asquith (who had been especially invited to this meeting but declined to attend) and with those Liberals who want, not a coalition with the Conservatives, but closer relations...

I have come across two academic reviews of my book which can be found here and here. There is also a nice popular review in the Irish Times that can be found here. Advertisements

The literature on neoliberalism is large. Here are some scholarly books on this subject or on related matters: The power of market fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's critique, by Fred Block & Margaret R. Somers (2016). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution, by Wendy Brown (2015). The great persuasion: Reinventing free markets since the Depression, by Angus Burgin (2015). The strange non-death of neoliberalism, by Colin Crouch (2013). The birth of biopolitics: lectures at...

Figure 1: A Production Network I here comment on Baqaee and Farhi (2018). I am still trying to absorb it. I suppose that it is nice that an economist at Harvard is revisiting the Cambridge Capital Controversy (CCC). (Where is Michael Mandler these days?) My major criticism is they do not do what their title claims. That is, their supposed microeconomic foundations are still up in the air. In many CCC examples, technology is specified in terms of fixed-coefficient production processes....