Tag Archives: Economics

from Lars Syll One way that inequality precipitates debt bubbles begins with “relative deprivation.” This concept concerns the discontent people feel when they compare their socio-economic status, measured by income, wealth, consumption, or other indicators of perceived economic welfare, with that of their richer counterparts. Economists have suggested several ways that this discontent may translate into indebtedness. One theory holds that people of a given income level may try to...

Andreas Cervenka och den svenska bostadsbubblan Andreas Cervenka har i sin senaste bok försökt beskriva den svenska bostadsbubblan och vad som ytterst skapat den. Några av de orsaker han lyfter fram är: ♦ Riksbankens långvariga låg-räntepolitik som gjort det billigare för hushåll att låna pengar och därigenom också drivit upp efterfråga och pris på bostäder. ♦ De snabbt ökande bostadspriserna har lett till att svenska hushåll har bland de högsta...

Debunking the balanced budget superstition .[embedded content] The balanced budget paradox is probably one of the most devastating phenomena haunting our economies. The harder politicians — usually on the advice of establishment economists — try to achieve balanced budgets for the public sector, the less likely they are to succeed in their endeavour. And the more the citizens have to pay for the concomitant austerity policies these wrong-headed politicians...

How inequality causes financial crises One way that inequality precipitates debt bubbles begins with “relative deprivation.” This concept concerns the discontent people feel when they compare their socio-economic status, measured by income, wealth, consumption, or other indicators of perceived economic welfare, with that of their richer counterparts. Economists have suggested several ways that this discontent may translate into indebtedness. One theory...

Income inequality and the saving glut of the rich .[embedded content]

Svensk penningpolitik — en intellektuell hönsgård Om man i en demokrati skall överlåta viktiga beslut till experter bör detta bygga på att det faktiskt existerar en någorlunda säkerställd kunskap hos den kår av experter som skall fatta besluten. När det gäller penningpolitiken visar den omfattande debatten inom ekonomkåren att så inte är fallet. Man kan jämföra det rådande kunskapsläget inom penningpolitiken med en situation där man som förälder kommer med...

Economics — a pseudo-analogy with physics I also want to emphasise strongly the point about economics being a moral science. I mentioned before that it deals with introspection and with values. I might have added that it deals with motives, expectations, psychological uncertainties. One has to be constantly on guard against treating the material as constant and homogeneous in the same way that the material of the other sciences, in spite of its complexity,...

Panelsamtal om svensk finanspolitik Clarté Lund bjuder in till en samtalsserie i tre delar om visionär ekonomi. Det första panelsamtalet berör ekonomisk politik och det nya omtalade balansmålet i det finanspolitiska ramverket. Varför fick vi inte ett underskottsmål och vad för konsekvenser får detta för ett Sverige med enorma investeringsbehov? Med hjälp av sakkunniga panelister kommer vi att fördjupa oss i ämnet och reda ut vad som står på spel....

Pretending that the distribution of income and wealth that results from a long set of policy decisions is somehow the natural workings of the market is not a serious position … Pretending that distributional outcomes are just the workings of the market is convenient for any beneficiaries of this inequality, even those who consider themselves liberal … But we should not structure our understanding of the economy around political convenience. There is no way of escaping the fact...

A PLOG is a ´Persistent Large Output Gap´. Read: a long period of high unemployment. Literature about PLOGs tries to mitigate one of the ideas of economic orthodoxy, especially the unsubstantiated idea that lowering high post-economic crisis unemployment will fuel inflation. According to this literature, which is quite empirical, it doesn´t. However, this somewhat older literature does not yet consider the post-2009 Euro Area experience. Here, I will propose an updated definition of...