Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Labor’s capitulation on tax policy may help them regain government, but what then? That’s the headline and standfirst for my latest piece in Inside Story. Key paras What can be said with more certainty is that, even if Labor wins the 2022 election, its capitulation on tax policy will make holding office for more than one term very difficult. The concession on negative gearing, while regrettable, was mainly symbolic. The lost revenue could be made up in other ways, or else with...

This paper explores the economics and political economy of financialization using Matt Taibbi’s vampire squid metaphor to characterize it. The paper makes five innovations. First, it focuses on the mechanics of the “vampire squid” process whereby financialization rotates through the economy loading sector balance sheets with debt. Second, it identifies the critical role of government […]

That’s the headline from an article I published in Independent Australia last week. Apparently, rather than offer a serious response to the unfolding disaster, Berejklian and Morrison intend to send in more troops. Opening para The incapacity of NSW Premier Gladys Berejklian’s “gold standard” Government to contain the latest outbreak of COVID-19 has become a political liability for Prime Minister Scott Morrison. So, as has become standard in such situations, Morrison called in...

In my previous post, I laid out some issues with the methodology being used to explore the relationship between inflation and asset prices. One issue that I raised was with respect to the observation that inflation below 1% seemed to lead to lower stock market earnings. In the previous post I pointed out that this was likely misleading: it was unlikely that the low price growth itself was giving rise to such poor earnings; it was far more likely that this was mainly being driven...

from Jamie Morgan and current issue of RWER If climate emergency indicates anything, it is that we are urgently in need of an economics that is “fit for purpose”. Consider what “fit for purpose” now means. An adequate economics now has to be one that helps us understand the difficult decisions that are likely to confront us in the coming years. On a global scale we are going to have to leave fossil fuels in the ground, restore aquifers and water systems, reinvigorate ecosystems, greatly...

Many today are examining the impact that inflation has on asset prices. One of the best papers on the topic is by Harvey et al and it is well worth a look. What I am going to write here does not refute these sorts of analyses, but I think it raises issues that at least serve to lower our confidence in the findings. The issues that I want to explore are as much methodological as they are empirical, but these two aspects can be approached simultaneously. When analysing equity...

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from Lars Syll To be ‘analytical’ and ‘logical’ is something most people find recommendable. These words have a positive connotation. Scientists think deeper than most other people because they use ‘logical’ and ‘analytical’ methods. In dictionaries, logic is often defined as “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity” and ‘analysis’ as having to do with “breaking something down.” But that’s not the whole picture. As used in science, analysis usually means...

from Lukas Bäuerle and current issue of RWER Pressing arguments for a paradigm shift in economics – based on an assessment of mainstream economics and its shortcomings – are out there for quite a while now. The emperor has been declared long dead in intellectual terms (Keen, 2001), but it is still firmly alive institutionally. This is the only reason why we still have to talk about it at all. Having said this, it goes without saying that the “intellectual monoculture” (Graupe, 2015) in...

from John Komlos and current issue of RWER We are at the cusp of a new era. The 21st century did not begin in earnest until 2008, signifying a seismic break with the past in ways far too numerous to mention. To be sure, the Dot-Com bubble could have served as a lesson for the vulnerability of Wall Street and that it desperately needed vigilant oversight, but the economy emerged from that short recession relatively unscathed, and the warning sign was misunderstood. Sure, myriad of astute...