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Merijn Knibbe — Thomas Sargent discovered his inner Marxist. Really. Two graphs.

Summary:
The ‘Matching functions’ mentioined in the quote explain unemployment by assuming that finding a job or a worker takes time. And this does explain unemployment – part of it (2%-point?). The rest must be explained by crises and the inability of the market system to create jobs. As is clear from comparing graph 2, short-lived crises cause lower levels of job creation and higher levels of job destruction. Basically, these swings are not even that large. But together they lead to a fast increase in unemployment which take years to overcome. Sargent and Ljundqvist did re-invent the wheel. If they had red Rodbertus, Sismondi, Marx, Owen or Mitchell they would have known. Fun fact: the neoclassical ‘DSGE’ model of Bokan e.a. distinguishes a class of bankers, a class of entrepreneurs (let’s

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The ‘Matching functions’ mentioined in the quote explain unemployment by assuming that finding a job or a worker takes time. And this does explain unemployment – part of it (2%-point?). The rest must be explained by crises and the inability of the market system to create jobs. As is clear from comparing graph 2, short-lived crises cause lower levels of job creation and higher levels of job destruction. Basically, these swings are not even that large. But together they lead to a fast increase in unemployment which take years to overcome. Sargent and Ljundqvist did re-invent the wheel. If they had red Rodbertus, Sismondi, Marx, Owen or Mitchell they would have known.
Fun fact: the neoclassical ‘DSGE’ model of Bokan e.a. distinguishes a class of bankers, a class of entrepreneurs (let’s call them ‘capitalists’, as they own all the capital) and a class of households which have nothing else to sell than their labour… The model knows a ‘positive wage mark-up’ but change this into a ‘wage mark down’ (for instance caused by ‘monpsonie’ on the labor market, i.e. by strong labor market power of employers, and it’s starting to look pretty Marxist, too.
Real-World Economics Review Blog
Thomas Sargent discovered his inner Marxist. Really. Two graphs.
Merijn Knibbe
Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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