Tag Archives: Serrano

ROKE sponsored event soon. It will be live-streamed too.

The theory of value and distribution is at the heart of economics. To be clear, when I say that it is at the center, it means that discussions of almost any topic in economics, in one way or another, depend on a certain theoretical position about the theory of value and distribution. However, most economists have no clue about it, about the centrality of value. Not only they don't understand the original and now infamous labor theory of value (LTV), that dominated between Petty and Ricardo...

I can't watch this either For those interested in the Brazilian situation I highly recommend the recently published paper by Franklin Serrano and Ricardo Summa (Review of Radical Political Economics page here). From the abstract: In this paper, we analyze Brazilian inflation under the inflation-targeting system from a conflict inflation perspective and show how the inflation target system only worked well when there was a trend of exchange rate appreciation. Later, the strengthening of...

New paper by Lucas (not that one) and Serrano. From the abstract: This paper explains the “positive profits with negative surplus-value” example of Steedman (1975) and shows that while in joint production systems individual labour values can be negative, the claim that the total labour embodied in the surplus product of the economy (surplus-value) can also be negative is based on assumptions that have no economic meaning (such as negative activity levels). The paper also provides a way to...

After my post I got an email and post below by Franklin. Mind you, I still would refer to supermultiplier models as Kaldorian, and the models with autonomous investment as neo-Kaleckian. As Franklin notes Bortis, a Kaldorian and Sraffian, makes the transition to exogenous distribution, even if Kaldor himself didn't. Below the email and the post.Dear Matias:Great Post.Your use of the phrase “no independent investment function” to refer to induced investment models is unfortunately quite...

This is a post for those interested in demand-led theories of growth. Not long ago I wrote a post on misconceptions about Sraffian economics. Marc Lavoie sent me a nice email about it, and a recent paper he published in Metroeconomica (subscription required), which comments on a paper I wrote with Esteban Pérez (working paper available here). In his discussion of supermultiplier models, which put the multiplier and the accelerator together to explain -- not fluctuations of the level of...

I had discussed before the meaning of heterodox economics. I suggested a definition based on positive contributions (rather than as a critique of the mainstream) and based on concepts rather than schools of thought. In my view the two principles that were central for defining heterodoxy were the Principle of Effective Demand (PED), based on Keynes and Kalecki's ideas, and the idea that distribution is the result of class conflict, which in my view is best expressed in Sraffa's recovery of...

Franklin Serrano will deliver the Pierangelo Garegnani Lecture 2015 titled "Notes on Garegnani, Kalecki and effective demand." Paper not yet available. Also, Christian Gehrke will deliver three lectures in the Phd programme in Economics of Roma Tre University. For those not in Rome, the papers on which the lectures are based are available here.

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...

So in the last couple of weeks the Chinese problems have been in the news. And many suggest that the troubles in the US are not unrelated. For example, the New York Times tells us that according to Larry Summers: “The risks of a deflationary, secular stagnation in the US would be increased by a large devaluation of the renminbi.” And Krugman resuscitates Bernanke's global savings glut as the explanation for everything, from China's slowdown, depreciation and stock troubles to the recent...