Tag Archives: Economics

Stimulus opponents — people having high IQ but no clue The stimulus opponents’ argument boils down to this striking claim: When the government spends borrowed funds now, consumers will realize that the resulting debt spells higher taxes in the future, which will lead them to curtail their current spending. Those cutbacks will offset the increased government spending dollar for dollar, leaving no net stimulus … There may be people who would actually spend...

‘New Keynesianism’ — neither New, nor Keynesian Mainstream macroeconomics is stuck with crazy models. That goes for ‘New Keynesian’ macroeconomics and DSGE models too. Let me just give one example. A lot of mainstream economists out there still think that price and wage rigidities are the prime movers behind unemployment. What is even worse — I’m totally gobsmacked every time I come across this utterly ridiculous misapprehension — is that some of them even...

On deficits and obfuscatory financial rectitude We are not going to get out of the economic doldrums as long as we continue to be obsessed with the unreasoned ideological goal of reducing the so-called deficit. The ‘deficit’ is not an economic sin but an economic necessity […] The administration is trying to bring the Titanic into harbor with a canoe paddle, while Congress is arguing over whether to use an oar or a paddle, and the Perot’s and budget...

Finanspolitiska ramverket — en kritisk utvärdering I den pågående debatten och översynen av det finanspolitiska ramverket hörs ofta som ett mantra att det skulle ha “tjänat oss väl”. Men har det verkligen det? Yours truly var igår inbjuden av Föreningen Dialog-Bildning i Västervik för att presentera min syn på ramverket och om det verkligen tjänat oss väl. För den intresserade går min presentation att ta del av här:  FPR Västervik...

Few issues in politics and economics are nowadays more discussed — and less understood — than public debt. Many raise their voices to urge for reducing the debt, but few explain why and in what way reducing the debt would be conducive to a better economy or a fairer society. And there are no limits to all the — especially macroeconomic — calamities and evils a large public debt is supposed to result in — unemployment, inflation, higher interest rates, lower productivity...

According to Keynes, financial crises are a recurring feature of our economy and are linked to its fundamental financial instability: It is of the nature of organised investment markets, under the influence of purchasers largely ignorant of what they are buying and of speculators who are more concerned with forecasting the next shift of market sentiment than with a reasonable estimate of the future yield of capital-assets, that, when disillusion falls upon an over-optimistic...

Any fool can reduce debt in the short-term by selling their house, paying off the mortgage and renting a place. Whether you should do that depends upon whether the cost of renting is cheaper than that of borrowing, all things considered. That’s a tricky calculation. But it’s one that households wouldn’t make if they were tied by that “non-negotiable” fiscal rule; they would just cut their mortgage and not worry about the fact that they’ll have to pay the rent after five...

Anything we can actually do, we can afford Let us not submit to the vile doctrine of the nineteenth century that every enterprise must justify itself in pounds, shillings and pence of cash income … Why should we not add in every substantial city the dignity of an ancient university or a European capital … an ample theater, a concert hall, a dance hall, a gallery, cafes, and so forth. Assuredly we can afford this and so much more. Anything we can...

The methods economists bring to their research There are other sleights of hand that cause economists problems. In their quest for statistical “identification” of a causal effect, economists often have to resort to techniques that answer either a narrower or a somewhat different version of the question that motivated the research. Results from randomized social experiments carried out in particular regions of, say, India or Kenya may not apply to other...

.[embedded content] Einer der grundlegenden Denkfehler in der heutigen Diskussion über Staatsverschuldung und Haushaltsdefizite ist, dass man nicht zwischen verschiedenen Arten von Schulden unterscheidet. Auch wenn es auf makroökonomischer Ebene zwangsläufig so ist, dass Schulden und Vermögen einander ausgleichen, ist es keineswegs unerheblich, wer die Vermögen besitzt und wer die Schulden trägt. Lange Zeit war man zurückhaltend, die öffentlichen Schulden zu...