profit maximising goes global the race to the bottom we explore four decades of cyclical and long run dynamics in income distribution and economic activity for a panel of 13 oecd countries as measured by the wage share and output gap when modeled as predator prey dynamics economic activity in oecd countries is weakly profit led convergence to a long run equilibrium is relatively slow delaying the profit squeeze stage for many years our race to the bottom model suggests that the oecd countries have been engaged in undercutting each other s real unit labour costs an extension of the model shows that the long run equilibrium has been shifting south west towards a lower wage share it may even be that this race has the undesirable consequence of decreasing economic activity

wage vs profit led growth the role of the distribution of wages in determining regime character the wage versus profit led distinction is a cornerstone of post keynesian growth theory however the existing theoretical literature focuses on the functional distribution of income and ignores the distribution of wages this paper shows how the distribution of wages affects whether an economy is wage or profit led since the distribution of wages impacts personal income distribution that explains why income inequality can also impact regime character increases in workers wage share always increase growth and capacity utilization regardless of the economy s character furthermore an increase in workers wage share can flip an economy from being profit led to wage led

finance inflation and employment a post keynesian kaleckian analysis the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the post keynesian kaleckian macroeconomic literature we develop a macroeconomic model that explicitly integrates the role of borrowing and cash payment commitments on outstanding debt interest plus principal repayment into the consumption and investment expenditures as well as into the inflation generating process we explore the way that finance influences the distribution effects of inflation in the demand side of a money credit using economy we suggest a new phillips curve that encapsulates the impact of financial commitments on wage and profit claims we argue that high debt and cash payment commitments are likely to be associated with a positive demand side effect of inflation on the rate of employment and that they might be conducive to a negative supply side effect of employment on the inflation rate the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved

some empirical evidence on the effects of shocks to monetary policy on exchange rates this paper investigates the effects of shocks to u s monetary policy on exchange rates we consider three measures of these shocks orthogonalized shocks to the federal funds rate orthogonalized shocks to the ratio of nonborrowed to total reserves and changes in the romer and romer index of monetary policy in sharp contrast to the literature we find substantial evidence of a link between monetary policy and exchange rates specifically according to our results a contractionary shock to u s monetary policy leads to i persistent significant appreciations in u s nominal and real exchange rates and ii significant persistent deviations from uncovered interest rate parity in favor of u s interest rates

real and money wages output and inflation in the semi industrialized world recent structuralist ideas about real and money wage changes are reviewed addressing six questions 1 in an economy closed to trade do real wage increases cause output to rise or fall 2 if output is at an upper bound what are the roles of real wage and wealth movements in macro adjustment 3 taking effective demand into account do money wage cuts stimulate employment 4 in an open economy does money wage reduction or devaluation make output rise 5 at an output bound what are the respective roles of wage reduction and monetary restraint in slowing inflation 6 if inflation is driven by cost with output below capacity how do wage dynamics affect stabilization programmes based on de indexation and price freezes institutional factors suggest that wage cutting may be a counterproductive answer to all these policy questions in semi industrialized economies

financialisation income distribution and aggregate demand in the usa this paper investigates the effects of financialisation and functional income distribution on aggregate demand in the usa by estimating the effects of the increase in rentier income dividends and interest payments and housing and financial wealth on consumption and investment the redistribution of income in favour of profits suppresses consumption whereas the increase in the rentier income and wealth has positive effects a higher rentier income decreases investment without the wealth effects the overall effect of the changes in distribution on aggregate demand would have been negative thus a pro capital income distribution leads to a slightly negative effect on growth i e the usa economy is moderately wage led

modelling real interest rates abstract in this paper we model real interest rates as a generalised mean reverting ornstein uhlenbeck process empirical tests of the model using us and uk data for the period 1870 1975 shows that there exists significant mean reversion in both the us and uk for real interest rates inflation rates and nominal interest rates we present evidence for some stylised empirical facts which might be incorporated in models linking real interest rates inflation and nominal interest rates

interest rates and inflation a continuous time stochastic approach abstract this paper investigates the theoretical foundations of fisher s equation which expresses the nominal interest rate as the sum of the real interest rate and the expected rate of inflation to emphasize fisher s 1930 original formulation and sargent s 1973 recent suggestion that nominal interest rates and inflation are simultaneously determined rather than having the causation go from inflation to interest rates we develop a two equation continuous time stochastic model to build a more solid theoretical foundation of fisher s equation assuming that the nominal interest rate and the rate of inflation follow ito processes we derive an ito equation that allows us to express and compute the expected real interest rate and its volatility these two equations generalize the traditional fisher equation and an illustration using us long data from 1865 1972 shows the usefulness of our results

the role of aggregate demand in classical marxian models of economic growth this paper argues that classical marxian models of economic growth are similar to neoclassical models in neglecting the role of aggregate demand either by omitting aggregate demand issues altogether or by relegating the role of aggregate demand to the short run by reviewing the writings of classical marxian authors and by examining recent contributions to the classical marxian literature it discusses the implicit assumptions that allow these theories to neglect the role of aggregate demand by examining alternative growth theories in which aggregate demand has a major role to play it also assesses to what extent classical marxian economists are justified in neglecting aggregate demand as a determinant of long run growth copyright the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

on the utilisation controversy a theoretical and empirical discussion of the kaleckian model of growth and distribution this paper examines the utilisation controversy around the kaleckian model of growth and distribution we show that the federal reserve data on capacity utilisation which have been used by both sides of this debate are the wrong kind of data for the issue under examination instead a more appropriate measurement can be derived from the data on the average workweek of capital we argue that the long run dynamic adjustment proposed by kaleckian scholars lacks a coherent economic rationale we provide an alternative path towards the endogeneity of the desired utilisation at the micro and macro levels finally we examine the proposed adjustment mechanism econometrically our results verify the endogeneity of the normal utilisation rate

income distribution and current account imbalances we develop a three country stock flow consistent macroeconomic model to study the effects of changes in both personal and functional income distribution on national current account balances each country has a household sector and a non household corporate sector the household sector is divided into income deciles and consumer demand is characterized by upward looking status comparisons following the relative income hypothesis of consumption the strength of consumption emulation depends on country specific institutions the model is calibrated for the united states germany and china simulations suggest that a substantial part of the increase in household debt and the decrease in the current account in the united states since the early 1980s can be explained by the interplay of rising top end household income inequality and institutions on the other hand the weak domestic demand and increasing current account balances of germany and china since the mid 1990s are strongly related to shifts in the functional income distribution at the expense of the household sector

fisher s relationship in a volatile world a note on malliaris and malliaris abstract this paper characterises the particular circumstances in which a model consisting of diffusion processes for a nominal asset and the price level yields fisher s relationship for the real rate of interest

international competition income distribution and economic growth this paper shows that the neo keynesian case for wage led growth does not generally hold in an open economy model wage increases cause a loss of competitiveness that reduces the trade balance if the economy is relatively open to trade and price elasticities satisfy certain restrictions the worsening of the trade balance more than outweighs the increase in workers consumption thus reducing the growth rate the main theoretical innovation is a flexible markup pricing rule that allows changes in unit labor costs and exchange rates to affect profit margins implications for international relations and class conflict are discussed copyright 1989 by oxford university press

unions wages and labour markets in indian industry 1960 86 the purpose of this article is to explain the movement of wages in the manufacturing sector in india for the period 1960 86 a structuralist macroeconomic model is advanced where the changing strength structure and activities of unions are considered explicitly the objective is to disentangle the effects of factors specific to the bargaining process from the effects of overall economic development we consider two available wage series and we make a priori assumptions regarding the nature of both the labour and product markets associated with these series our econometric results support our characterisations and we show that the effects of both union related variables and overall macroeconomic variables differ across the two wage series

macroeconomic issues for latin america abstract recent macroeconomic issues in latin america are reviewed with an emphasis on theory topics covered include multiple equilibria from hysteresis or increasing returns exchange rate management and the output and asset market effects of devaluation speculation interest rate management and financial reform government behavior income distribution and growth inertial inflation and heterodox policy shocks and disequilibrium theories

does an employment protection law lead to unemployment a panel data analysis of oecd countries 1990 2008 this paper analysed the oecd data on employment protection for 23 oecd countries over the time span 1990 2008 on the basis of alternative dynamic panel data models and panel causality tests and examines the validity of the neo liberal argument that strictness of employment protection hurts labour through increased long term and youth unemployment rates while it finds no empirical basis for this orthodox standpoint it observes that long term unemployment dampens aggregate production which in turn aggravates unemployment problem

on prices and economic power explaining recent changes in intersectoral relations in the indian economy two contrasting views about the relationship between agriculture and industry and in particular about the optimal level of the terms of trade between these two sectors are identified and first set in the context of the political economy of contemporary india methodological issues relating to the correct measurement of intersectoral price shifts are taken up and it is shown that these have considerable bearing on current controversies it is argued in particular that single factor explanations of the behaviour of the terms of trade lack credibility and that these have to be analysed in the context of wider issues of growth and imbalance in developing economies

progressive supply side economics an explanation and update of the rehn meidner model the swedish rehn meidner model is a unique economic and wage policy program for the simultaneous achievement of full employment price stability growth and equality this article presents specif

demand and distribution in integrated economies aggregate demand is influenced by the functional income distribution of an economy and that of its trading partners this relationship between income distribution and output is analyzed in a short run two country neo kaleckian model the effects of devaluation and redistribution are discussed in detail trade and redistribution within one country interact and output increases or decreases with changes in either depending on the specific distributional and exchange rate movements the marshall lerner condition is shown to be equivalent to the assumption of expansionary devaluation if devaluation increases output national redistribution policy toward wage earners is also more likely to be expansionary author s abstract

the relation between the corporate bond yield spread and the real economy stable or time varying abstract in this paper we assess whether the relation between the corporate bond yield spread and the real economy has been stable over time using quarterly us data from 1953q1 to 2018q2 we estimate bayesian var models which allow for drifting parameters and or stochastic volatility and conduct formal model selection in a bayesian setting our results indicate that the relation between the variables has been stable we do however find strong support for stochastic volatility we conclude that the corporate bond yield spread s usefulness for predicting real economic activity has not changed to a relevant extent after the great recession

the middle class in macroeconomics and growth theory a three class neo kaleckian goodwin model this paper presents a three class growth model with labor market conflict the classes are workers a middle management middle class and a top management capitalist class the model introduces personal income distribution that supplements conventional concerns with functional income distribution within such a model endogenously generated changes in personal income distribution can generate endogenous shifts from profit led to wage led regimes and vice versa a model of an economy with three classes enables us to consider richer patterns of class conflict because the middle class has shared interests and conflicts with both capitalists and workers changes that benefit the middle class do not necessarily increase growth or employment or benefit workers

demographic growth harrodian in stability and the supermultiplier a basic kaleckian model is enriched by three simple intuitive assumptions first there is a redistributive system of the wage bill between employed and unemployed workers the latter receiving subsistence income second only individuals with an income above the subsistence level build savings the combination of these two assumptions gives rise to an autonomous consumption component whose rate of growth depends on population growth consequently the rate of capital accumulation spontaneously converges towards the rate of population growth the supermultiplier effect a dynamic that offers a solution to one of the two harrodian instability problems the third assumption corresponds to entrepreneurs attempts to adjust investments to restore the normal rate of capacity utilisation although this assumption usually generates knife edge instability we show here that the stabilising properties of the supermultiplier provided that the accelerator effect is not overly strong help overcome this instability and realise the normal rate of capacity utilisation therefore the model may offer a simple simultaneous solution to the two harrodian instability problems

the policy environment and relative price efficiency of egyptian private sector manufacturing 1987 88 1995 96 we study the impact of policy and institutional constraints and reforms undertaken to remedy them on relative price efficiency and cost of the private manufacturing sector of egypt we undertake this study using a generalized cost function which subsumes the standard neoclassical cost function as a special case this approach allows us to assess the impact of such constraints which include labor market energy and financial sector ones on relative prices and the structure of production including factor demands shares and cost our findings indicate the presence of substantial distortions in relative prices and hence on cost due to the policy environment we also find improvements in relative price efficiency and cost performance as a result of policy reforms initiated to remove the constraints copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

heterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution a partial survey heterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution are surveyed focusing on major theories and recent contributions first a general framework for examining growth and distribution is discussed in terms of which classical marxian and post keynesian kaleckian and other theories are presented since this framework examines how variables are determined in equilibrium second dynamics behind equilibria are examined focusing on goods market and labor market changes third the framework is extended in a variety of ways to examine additional models addressing productivity growth and technical change money and inflation finance and debt additional distributional considerations multisector issues open economy questions and the environment it is concluded that the literature on heterodox theories of growth and distribution is vibrant large and growing and addresses many issues that are ignored or neglected in orthodox theories including power unemployment and aggregate demand

plant closings and the value of the firm negative product market shocks reduce wage growth and increase the probability of plant closing there is a u shaped relation between th is probability and job tenure that proxies the specific human capital that raises a firm s value estimates based on panel study of income dynamics data for 1977 81 generally support the model they show that wages grow less rapidly among workers who will subsequently be displaced and imply that large wage concessions reduce the risk of pl ant closing only slightly copyright 1988 by mit press

oil and the euro area economy we examine the macroeconomic effects of different types of oil shocks and the oil transmission mechanism in the euro area a comparison is made with the us and across individual member countries first we find that the underlying source of the oil price shift is crucial to determine the repercussions on the economy and the appropriate monetary policy reaction second the transmission mechanism is considerably different compared to the us in particular inflationary effects in the us are mainly driven by a strong direct pass through of rising energy prices and indirect effects of higher production costs in contrast euro area inflation reacts sluggishly and is much more driven by second round effects of increasing wages the monetary policy reaction of the ecb to oil shocks is also strikingly different compared to the fed the inflation objective relative to the output stabilization objective appears more important for euro area monetary authorities than for the fed third there are substantial asymmetries across member countries these differences are due to different labour market dynamics which are further aggravated by a common monetary policy stance which does not fit all gert peersman and ine van robays

demand drives growth all the way goodwin kaldor pasinetti and the steady state a demand driven alternative to the conventional solow swan growth model is analysed its medium run is built around marx goodwin cycles of demand and distribution long run income and wealth distributions follow rules of accumulation stated by pasinetti in combination with a technical progress function for labour productivity growth incorporating a kaldor effect and induced innovation an explicit steady state solution is presented along with analysis of dynamics when wage income of capitalist households is introduced the samuelson modigliani steady state dual to pasinetti s cannot be stable numerical simulation loosely based on us data suggests that the long run growth rate is around 2 per year and that the capitalist share of wealth may rise from about 40 to 70 due to positive medium term feedback of higher wealth inequality into its own growth

towards post keynesian ecological macroeconomics the paper starts with a brief criticism of macroeconomic analyses of different schools of thought for their focus on economic growth and maximisation of output this applies to the traditional keynesian approach which has focused on the achievement of sufficient aggregate demand to underpin full employment and full capacity utilisation down playing aggregate supply constraints this also applies to the neoclassical approach including the current new consensus macroeconomics approach which asserts the dominant role of aggregate supply in the long run and where growth is set by the so called natural rate of growth with no concerns over environmental and ecological issues the paper then proposes a different approach to macroeconomic analysis it explicitly acknowledges that economic growth is a double edged sword growth can help to alleviate persistent levels of high unemployment but it can also lead to potentially catastrophic environmental problems building on the monetary circuit theory and the demand led growth theory the paper offers an analysis of the interconnections and interdependence of the economic biophysical and social worlds and by doing it hopes to provide the building blocks for the establishment of post keynesian ecological macroeconomics

stagnation income distribution and monopoly power the deceleration in the rate of industrial growth in the indian economy since the middlesixties initially interpreted by some as a temporary downward deviation from trend hasnow come to be generally accepted as reflecting long run tendencies towards stagnation several explanations for these tendencies have been offered bhagwati and desai 1970 and bhagwati and srinivasan 1975 have focused on inefficiencies and the misallocationof resources arising from industrial policies pursued by the government others chakravarty 1974 raj 1976 and vaidyanathan 1974 among them have emphasisedthe sluggishness of agricultural growth which is alleged to have retarded industrial growthby limiting markets and the supply of wage goods and raw materials a third view reflectedin srinivasan and narayana 1977 for example has put the blame on a slackening of invest ment demand due to lower public investment but does not explain why public investmentfell or why its fall restrained industrial growth finally there is the explanation put forthin bagchi 1970 1975 1982 in nayyar 1978 and in parts of mitra 1977 that inequali ties in income distribution have resulted in a limited demand for industrial goods reducedincentives for investment and therefore reduced growth this view seems to suggest apositive relation between growth and income equality which is opposed to the generallyaccepted idea derived from cambridge growth models that higher growth requires greaterinequality the purpose of this paper is to examine the last explanation by considering the inter action between growth and income distribution in an underdeveloped economy with thehelp of a simple macroeconomic model the model is a stylisation of the indian economy so that we will be able to use the model to assess the argument that a deceleration in therate of growth of the indian industrial economy could have been caused by an unequaldistribution of income the argument will not be made that this income distributional con straint is the binding constraint on industrial growth the model will merely examine theinternal consistency of the argument that a bad income distribution could explain stagnation in the sense of reduced growth and show that in the indian context as in other similarcontexts this argument can be put forward in explaining stagnation our argument is first presented with a highly simplified schematisation of the indianeconomy which we shall call the basic model the economy modelled produces only one

finance dominated capitalism and re distribution of income a kaleckian perspective in this article a major channel through which financialisation or finance dominated capitalism affects macroeconomic performance is examined the distribution channel empirical data for the following dimensions of re distribution in the period of finance dominated capitalism since the early 1980s is provided for 15 advanced capitalist economies functional distribution personal household distribution and the share and the composition of top incomes based on the kaleckian approach to the determination of income shares the effects of financialisation on functional income distribution are studied in more detail some stylised facts of financialisation are integrated into the kaleckian approach and by means of reviewing empirical and econometric literature it is found that financialisation and neoliberalism have contributed to the falling labour income share since the early 1980s through three main kaleckian channels 1 a shift in the sectoral composition of the economy 2 an increase in management salaries and rising profit claims of the rentiers and thus in overheads and 3 weakened trade union bargaining power

growth and income distribution with the dynamics of power in labour and goods markets the interaction between economic growth and income distribution is examined using kaleckian post keynesian models in which there are lags in investment and in which the dynamics of income distribution between wages and profits depends on changes in power relations in both the labour market and goods market by examining these two influences on distributional dynamics simultaneously the relative strength of which can change over the growth process it is shown that the growth distributional dynamics can involve non linearities multiple equilibria and instability the implications of policy induced changes including those in macroeconomic policy and labour market and antitrust policies on aggregate demand and distribution are examined for both wage led and profit led growth regimes copyright oxford university press

income distribution and growth in east asia it is widely believed that the east asian economies performed exceptionally well not only in generating growth but also in keeping inequality low this study tries to answer the questions raised by the claims of exceptionality of income distribution in east asia central findings are that only japan korea and taiwan have legitimate claims to low inequality that the east asian economies distinguished themselves by their ability to translate high profit shares into high savings and investment rates and that low inequality and high profit shares coexisted primarily due to the unusually even distribution of wealth

stagnation income distribution and the agrarian constraint a note through an accelerator effect a problem with the model is that it ignores completely a very important feature of less developed economies like india namely the agricultural sector the model considered production under oligopolistic conditions with firms holding an excess capacity of capital while this may be an accurate depiction of the industrial sector it is totally inaccurate for an agricultural sector with many peasant farms and where output seems to be constrained by factors other than effective demand it is therefore necessary to re examine the issue of the relation between distribution and growth by making explicit allowance for a separate agricultural sector in the model it may be argued that the existence of the agricultural sector invalidates the positive relation between income equality and growth kumar 1989 for example has claimed that the slow growth of the agricultural sector rather than the problem of effective demand caused by the high degree of monopoly power is the constraint on indian growth this can be taken to mean that since growth in agriculture achieved by the relaxation of

gender inequality and economic growth a cross country analysis abstract this paper investigates empirically the determinants of economic growth for a set of semi industrialized export oriented economies in which women provide the bulk of labor in the export sector the primary hypothesis tested is that gender inequality which contributes to women s relatively lower wages was a stimulus to growth via the effect on exports during 1975 95 empirical analysis shows that gdp growth is positively related to gender wage inequality in contrast to recent work which suggests that income inequality slows growth evidence also indicates that part of the impact of gender wage inequality on growth is transmitted through its positive effect on investment as a share of gdp

agrarian structures urbanization and inequality summary this study examines the impact of agrarian structures on income inequality over the long run first it exhibits the relationship between land and income distribution by developing a theoretical model based on harris and todaro 1970 and lewis 1954 high land inequality increases income gini coefficients in the urban sector as well as the rural sector not only by creating congestion in the urban subsistence sector but also by feeding the growth of the urban reserve army of labor which pulls down the wages in the urban capitalist sector next the study investigates the empirical relationship between land inequality level of urbanization and income inequality using cross country datasets the estimation results support the theoretical model and indicate that the level of land inequality has a significant impact on determining the level of urbanization and urban and overall income inequalities moreover the analysis finds that overurbanization increases income inequality the empirical analysis controls for institutional factors like education inequality and the level of democracy the results present a stronger evidence on the land inequality s influence through urbanization than through education and democracy these results suggest that policymakers should have a broader view as to the importance of agrarian policies a progressive land reform or and subsidies protecting small peasantry can also reduce urban income inequality and poverty over the long run

inflation deflation expectations and economic stability in a kaleckian system abstract in this paper we analyze the impact of inflation deflation expectations and the effect of the monetary authority s inflation targeting policy in a kaleckian system on the basis of macro foundation approaches for this purpose we build a dynamical system composed of four variables the rate of utilization the wage share the nominal rate of interest and the expected rate of inflation and examine the properties especially stability of this dynamical system we then find that the existence of adaptive inflation deflation expectations always destabilizes our kaleckian system irrespective of the revision speed of expectations while that the monetary authority s intensive inflation targeting policy can make the system stable but the effect of this policy depends heavily upon the public credibility of it we also perform numerical simulations to check that our analysis is valid

a neo kaleckian goodwin model of capitalist economic growth monopoly power managerial pay and labour market conflict this paper presents a neo kaleckian goodwin model of growth and distribution the key innovation is the introduction of managerial pay kaleckian monopoly power determines the functional distribution of income and goodwin labour bargaining power determines the wage bill division the model helps explain slower us growth over the past 30 years for much of that period the functional distribution of income was relatively constant but growth slowed because income inequality increased owing to a wage bill shift from workers to managers the wage bill division effect explains why economies can display wage led and profit led characteristics economies can be profit led regarding functional income distribution and wage led regarding wage bill distribution

macroeconomic implications of financialisation a growing literature suggests that financialisation may weaken the performance of non financial corporations and constrain the growth of aggregate demand this paper uses two alternative approaches one derived from skott and one from lavoie and godley and two different settings a labour constrained setting and a dual economy setting to evaluate some of the claims that have been made our analysis which pays explicit attention to financial stock flow relations suggests that the qualitative effects of financialisation are insensitive to the precise specification of household saving behaviour but depend critically on the labour market assumptions labour constrained versus dual and the specification of the investment function harrodian versus kaleckian

labor market institutions and income inequality an empirical exploration this paper presents evidence on the impact of labor regulations on income inequality using a recently published database on labor institutions and outcomes as well as different panel data analysis techniques for a large sample of countries for 1970 2000 when applying our preferred technique we find that both de jure and de facto regulations improve the distribution of income although the former appear to be non robustly associated with improving income inequality this result partly reflects the fact that regulations are endogenous and more interestingly that different regulation yield distinct effects

distribution aggregate demand and unemployment in oecd countries the primary aim of this paper is to investigate the role of income distribution in the determination of unemployment to this end the author develops a post keynesian model that shows that unemployment is effectively determined by income distribution aggregate demand and the inadequacy of capital equipment the deriv ed unemployment equation is applied to ten large industrial countries o ver the period 1976 89 the empirical findings provide strong support fo r the hypothesis that shifts in income distribution and inadequacy of capital equipment are major sources of unemployment copyright 1993 by royal economic society

a supermultiplier stock flow consistent model the return of the paradoxes of thrift and costs in the long run supermultiplier models have been recently brought to the post keynesian debate yet these models still rely on quite simple economic assumptions being mostly ow models which omit the nancial determinants of autonomous expenditures since the output growth rate converges in the long run to the exogenously given growth rate of non capacity creating autonomous expenditure and the utilization rate moves towards the normal utilization rate the paradoxes of thrift and costs remain valid only as level e ects average growth rates this paper investigates whether the core conclusions of supermultiplier models hold in a more complex economic framework described by means of a supermultiplier sfc model in which private business investment is assumed to be completely induced by income while the autonomous expenditure component in this case consumption out of wealth becomes endogenous the results of the numerical simulation experiments suggest that the paradox of thrift can remain valid in terms of growth e ects and that a lower pro t share can also be associated to a higher accumulation rate though with a lower pro t rate

cross country differences in the effects of oil shocks abstract we compare the macroeconomic consequences of several types of oil shocks across a set of industrialized countries that are structurally very diverse with respect to the role of oil and other forms of energy in the economy the results crucially depend on the underlying source of the oil price shift when a rise in oil prices is caused by increased global economic activity or a rise in oil specific demand almost all countries experience respectively a temporary increase and transitory decline of real gdp the role of oil and other forms of energy cannot explain the differences in the effects of both shocks across countries in contrast this role is very important to explain asymmetries in the effects of exogenous oil supply shocks whereas net oil and energy importing countries typically face a permanent fall in economic activity the impact is insignificant or even positive in net energy exporting countries in addition countries that improved their net energy position the most over time became less vulnerable to oil supply shocks relative to other countries

growth distribution trade offs the role of capacity utilisation previous empirical studies of the impact of economic growth on income distribution have consistently found statistically insignificant impact this paper empirically reexamines this impact for a cross section of thirty nine advanced and developing countries focusing on a new critical factor i e the presence or absence of economic slack with this factor included growth becomes significantly unequalizing in a capital taut economy while the presence of slack capacity plays a significantly equalizing role this suggests that the insignificant finding of previous studies stems from an averaging out of these two opposite impacts when this factor is omitted copyright 1988 by oxford university press

macrodynamics of debt regimes financial instability and growth this paper develops a post keynesian dynamic model of capacity utilisation and growth in which the supply of credit money is endogenous and firms debt position and thus the financial fragility of the economy a la hyman minsky is explicitly modelled the interest rate is set by banks as a markup over a base rate exogenously determined by the monetary authority the banking markup varies with changes in capacity utilisation while the debt ratio varies with changes in the rates of interest capital accumulation and growth regarding dynamics it is shown the possibility of relating the stability properties of a system with the interest rate and the debt ratio as state variables to the prevailing minskyan regime hedge speculative or ponzi

the great moderation in the united kingdom we use a bayesian time varying parameters structural var with stochastic volatility for gdp deflator inflation real gdp growth a 3 month nominal rate and the rate of growth of m4 to investigate the underlying causes of the great moderation in the united kingdom our evidence points toward a dominant role played by good luck in fostering the more stable macroeconomic environment of the last two decades results from counterfactual simulations in particular show that i bringing the monetary policy committee back in time would only have had a limited impact on the great inflation episode at the cost of lower output growth ii imposing the 1970s monetary rule over the entire sample period would have made almost no difference in terms of inflation and output growth outcomes and iii the great inflation was due to a dominant extent to large demand non policy shocks and to a lesser extent especially in 1973 and 1979 to supply shocks

too bright for comfort a kaleckian view of profit realisation in the usa 1964 2009 this paper uses modern gross national product accounting conventions to chart the various expenditures responsible for profit realisation from 1964 to 2009 in the usa revealed are significant changes in the main drivers of profit realisation after 1982 specifically the shifting distribution of income away from median workers and the use of debt are increasingly responsible for profit realisation after 1982 this represents a significant aspect of the economy that set the environment for the recent crisis and has implications for a post crisis economy as well

oil price drivers geopolitical uncertainty and oil exporters currencies abstract empirical relationships between crude oil prices and exchange rates of oil exporting countries tend to vary over time i use econometric models of the norwegian and canadian nominal exchange rates to investigate whether such time variation could reflect shifts in the key drivers of oil prices over time results suggest that demand and supply driven oil price increases strengthen these currencies to different extents in contrast heightened geopolitical uncertainty and associated oil price increases go together with a weakening of oil exporters currencies the latter result may explain coincidences of higher oil prices and a weakening of oil exporters currencies

distribution and growth reconsidered empirical results for six oecd countries we analyse the relationship between functional income distribution and economic growth in austria france germany the netherlands the uk and the usa from 1960 until 2005 the analysis is based on a demand driven distribution and growth model for an open economy inspired by bhaduri and marglin which allows for either profit or wage led growth we find that growth in france germany the uk and the usa has been wage led whereas austria and the netherlands have been profit led in the case of austria a domestically wage led economy changes to profit led when including the effect of distribution on external trade the netherlands however are already profit led without external trade our results so far only partially confirm bhaduri and marglin s theoretical conclusion that wage led growth becomes less feasible when the effects of distribution on foreign trade are taken into account

the wage goods constraint on a developing economy theory and evidence abstract in a dual economy the traditional or agricultural sector generally has a relatively low supply response to prices if in addition the real wages of the modern or industrial sector are denominated at least partly in terms of the product of agriculture then agricultural output sets an upper bound on employment in industry such a constraint may be binding in the short run whenever the level of food production is low this is called the wage goods constraint this paper examines the analytics of a wage goods constraint in the framework of a two commodity model of a dual economy with surplus labor where unconstrained industrial output is demand determined the effects of either expansionary or redistributive policy may be quite different and sometimes perverse in a situation where the wage goods constraint is binding next data for the indian economy is used to test the hypothesis that the wage goods constraint was binding in the indian industrial sector between the years 1955 to 1980 the results indicate that this was the case for most of the period

a global model of recovery and rebalancing this paper presents an investigation of global recovery from the great recession and the rebalancing of global external imbalances using a global model of 16 countries and composite regions the model applies to the short term and only to the real side key features are demand driven output determination pro cyclical aggregate labour productivity imperfect competition in product markets and simple bargaining in non clearing labour markets which together determine the functional distribution of income trade is modelled in a bilateral import matrix particular attention is paid to international adjustment simulation results suggest that early exit from fiscal support threatens a fragile recovery further domestic demand expansion and revaluation in real terms in surplus countries are necessary for rebalancing and a variety of measures can be employed to achieve these goals copyright oxford university press

growth distribution and sectoral heterogeneity reading the kaleckians in latin america abstract the aim of this paper is to explore a parallelism between two episodes in the history of economic thought in order to suggest that the interaction between them can contribute to the research on kaleckian growth and distribution models first a brief summary of the theoretical development from steindl s stagnationist claims to the debate about demand regimes is offered then a more detailed account is provided of the latin american debate that began with furtado s stagnationist claims and resulted in the formulation of models of social articulation and disarticulation finally an analytical classification of kaleckian and latin american growth and distribution models is provided indicating the way in which sectoral heterogeneity and demand composition can act as a plausible link between growth and distribution

bargaining power effective demand and technical progress a kaleckian model of growth following the kaleckian tradition this paper presents a demand led growth model in which the distribution of income is fully endogenised this is done by introducing claims on income by workers and firms the bargaining power of these two groups affects through distribution the patterns of accumulation and inflation in turn the bargaining power of workers is affected by the rate of change of employment the paper discusses the model s static and dynamic implications including the effects of exogenous and induced technical progress the model confirms all the typical kaleckian results including the fact that increases in real wages may lead to accelerating accumulation as well as inflation it also produces a new result it is possible that an increase in the rate of change of labour productivity may not lead to an increase in the rate of change of employment

personal income inequality and aggregate demand this paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of how changes in the size distribution of income can aect aggregate demand and the demand regime of an economy after presenting empirical evidence for the us economy that the propensity to save increases signicantly from the bottom to the top quintile of wage earners we demonstrate that more equal distributions always lead to higher output in the traditional neo kaleckian macroeconomic model we also present conditions under which a reduction of income inequality among workers turns demand more wage led this view is supported by the results of an econometric study for the united states 1967 2010 which show that the rise after 1980 in income inequality has made the us economy more prot led

time varying dynamics of the norwegian economy we use tvp var models to investigate possible changes in the time series properties of key norwegian macroeconomic variables since the 1980s notably we find that inflation persistence falls during the inflation targeting period while the volatility of inflation and nominal exchange rates increases observed time variation in correlations between interest rates and the macro variables largely reflect prevailing monetary policy regimes an increase in the correlations between oil prices and other macro variables over time is also documented a counterfactual analysis discusses the observed time varying dynamics of the norwegian economy in the light of monetary policy and oil price shocks this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

jobless growth in india an investigation this paper investigates the relationship between output growth and employment growth in india for the period 1978 2010 at the aggregate and sectoral levels using a kaldorian framework of endogenous productivity growth we find that kaldor verdoorn effects in the economy have become more predominant over time especially in the post reform 1994 2010 period our estimated kaldor verdoorn coefficients measured as the employment elasticity of output growth for both formal sector and total employment have dropped dramatically over time suggesting that india has leapfrogged into a high productivity regime without the broad based expansion of labour intensive production that has been characteristic of fast growing economies in east asia we examine some explanations for why these kaldor verdoorn effects have become pronounced over time and are not convinced that wage pressure has been one of the reasons a shift in the composition of demand towards higher productivity sectors however does appear to be an important part of the explanation we also find mixed evidence that forces of international competition have generated pressures to adopt more capital intensive techniques of production

market power firm performance and real wage growth in zimbabwean manufacturing abstract this paper uses a two year panel of data on 600 zimbabwean manufacturing workers and the employers to examine several aspects of the labor market response to the reforms introduced in the 1991 structural adjustment program the analysis then uses this evidence to explore a number of hypotheses about the functioning of formal urban labor markets in zimbabwe with particular attention to the issue of rent sharing first as one would expect liberalization of trade did indeed act to shift employment from import competing sectors to export sectors although total manufacturing employment was basically unchanged second real wages in manufacturing fell for most workers third the pattern of wage changes across sectors and firms is consistent with a view of labor markets as noncompetitive the evidence provides support for the idea that a rent sharing process of wage determination rather than one based on efficiency wages or government intervention is an appropriate characterization of this labor market

monopoly power and uneven development baran revisited baran examined the implications of the rise in monopoly power in advanced economies for the underdevelopment in poor countries and the process of uneven development on a world scale this article examines his work critically and then presents a north south model which defines uneven development in a precise manner and analyses the mechanism by which the rise in monopoly power leads to such uneven development it is shown that the process can work even without reference to imperialism which is a central but controversial element in baran s analysis

distribution aggregate demand and productivity growth theory and empirical results for six oecd countries based on a post kaleckian model empirical research based on the bhaduri marglin variant of the kaleckian model has recently shown that aggregate demand in many medium sized and large open economies tends to be wage led in the medium to long run even in a period of increasing globalisation in this paper we extend this type of analysis and integrate the effects on productivity growth theoretically and empirically productivity growth is introduced into the theoretical model making use of the verdoorn effect or of kaldor s technical progress function and hence of a positive relationship between gdp or capital stock growth and productivity growth further on a cost push or marx hicks effect and hence a positive impact of real wage growth or the wage share on productivity growth is taken into account in the empirical part we estimate productivity growth equations for six countries introducing these two effects finally economic policy conclusions are drawn

the effects of income distribution and fiscal policy on aggregate demand investment and the budget balance the case of europe this paper develops a multi country post kaleckian model that incorporates the role of the government one key novelty of the model is that it integrates cross country effects of both changes in income distribution and fiscal policy the model is used to estimate econometrically the effects of income distribution and fiscal policy on the components of aggregate demand and the budget balance in eu15 countries the results show that a simultaneous increase in the wage share in all eu15 countries would increase demand and the primary budget balance in all countries a simultaneous increase in government spending turns out to boost economic activity in all the eu15 countries indicating the positive economic effects of expansionary fiscal policy moreover a progressive tax policy that would be implemented simultaneously at the eu level would lead to an increase in output in all countries

the impact of changes in job security regulations in india and zimbabwe employment laws in india and zimbabwe require employers to obtain permission from the government to retrench or lay off workers the effect of these laws on the demand for employees in 64 manufacturing industries is examined using time series data little evidence is found indicating slower adjustments in employment levels and hence retardation in any structural adjustment following the new laws however in both countries a substantial decline in the demand for employees other things equal followed the new legislation in zimbabwe it is difficult to be precise about a causal connection between the drop in the demand for labor allowing for concurrent increased wages and the new legislation because enactment occurred simultaneously with independence however the current economic climate induced high levels of investment in capital but not investments in long term commitments to employees but in india further evidence supports a causal connection larger establishments covered by the job security regulations tended to experience a decline in the demand for labor while smaller uncovered enterprises in the same industries did not moreover the decline in demand for employees across industries in india was larger where the private sector predominates where larger establishments covered by the new laws are important and where a smaller proportion of employees are union members thus in both countries the policy implemented to protect jobs may bave resulted infarfewerjobs upon achieving independence in 1980 the government of zimbabwe passed a new employment act requiring employers to obtain permission from the ministry of labor to fire or lay off workers comparable regulations were imposed in india by the industrial disputes amendment act of 1976 requiring that written permission be obtained normally from the relevant state government either to close a plant or to retrench workers the immediate goal of these items of legislation was to protect the livelihood of workers and to maintain jobs any addition to economic security in the lives of workers is clearly a laudable goal in its own right but the question addressed in this article is whether these particular job security regulations have had undesirable side effects which may even have thwarted the original goals of the legislation india and zimbabwe are

the case for forecast targeting as a monetary policy strategy at central banks around the world forecasts have come to play an increasingly important role both in policy deliberations and in communications with the public the most striking examples are the bank of england sweden s riksbank norway s norges bank and the reserve bank of new zealand all of which conduct policy on the basis of a procedure sometimes referred to as inflation forecast targeting svensson 1997 1999 under this approach the central bank constructs quantitative projections of the economy s expected future evolution based on the way in which it intends to control short term interest rates and public discussion of those projections is a critical part of the way in which the bank justifies the conduct of policy to the public what accounts for the appeal of a forecast targeting approach and should it be adopted more widely or more explicitly i begin by reviewing the long running debate between the proponents of monetary rules intended to ensure confidence in the value of money over time and the proponents of discretionary monetary policy aimed at stabilizing the real economy i will argue that inflation forecast targeting represents a powerful synthesis of the two approaches in particular it is an improvement both over simpler rules such as targeting a monetary aggregate and over weaker versions of inflation targeting i shall also argue that a much more extensive communication policy is crucial to escaping from the limitations of the traditional alternatives of rigid rules or rudderless discretion i will then explore some common questions that arise about inflation forecast targeting should only the inflation forecast matter and if not in what way should forecasts of other economic variables affect policy decisions what assumptions about the course of future policy should be used in constructing the quantitative projections that are presented to the public finally given that economic forecasts

mark up pricing sectoral dynamics and the traverse process in a two sector kaleckian economy kaleckian models which study the relation between functional income distribution and demand formation have focused on how macro level distribution affects macro level performance in the real economy however labour management negotiations are held at the industry level and thus the relation between sectoral distribution and sectoral macroeconomic performance should be considered this study presents a two sector kaleckian model with intermediate inputs and investigates how a distributive change in one sector affects sectoral macroeconomic capacity utilization and capital accumulation the results of the presented comparative static analysis and traverse analysis demonstrate that one sector s change in the mark up rate shifts each sector s rate of capacity utilization in the opposite direction while the impact of one sector s change in the mark up rate on performance differs by sector the analyses also demonstrate that the effect of a change in the mark up rate on capital accumulation depends on the firm s animal spirits

sectoral balance in development a survey abstract this paper surveys the literature on sectoral balance to see how sectoral imbalances can retard economic development it examines definitions of sectors and balance provides background facts theories and planning tools reviews the debate on balanced growth and surveys two sector models of agriculture industry consumption investment and luxury basics interaction the open economy and the role of service nonmarket and unproductive sectors it argues that the examination of important development issues requires multisectoral analysis incorporating the insights of several of these models and that alternative models with different structural characteristics deserve attention

some instability puzzles in kaleckian models of growth and distribution a critical survey we tackle the issue of the possible instability of the kaleckian distribution and growth model distinguishing between keynesian and harrodian instability we review various mechanisms that have been proposed by critics of the kaleckian model to tame harrodian instability while bringing back the rate of utilisation to its normal rate we find that the mechanisms that have been suggested are far from convincing therefore we conclude that it may be premature for the critics of the kaleckian model to dismiss the endogeneity of the rate of capacity utilisation in long run growth equilibrium copyright the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

stock flow consistent macroeconomic models a survey the stock flow consistent sfc modelling approach grounded in the pioneering work of wynne godley and james tobin in the 1970s has been adopted by a growing number of researchers in macroeconomics especially after the publication of monetary economics by godley and lavoie which provided a general framework for the analysis of whole economic systems and the recognition that macroeconomic models integrating real markets with flow of funds analysis had been particularly successful in predicting the great recession of 2007 2009 we introduce the general features of the sfc approach for a closed economy showing how the core model has been extended to address issues such as financialization and income distribution we next discuss the implications of the approach for models of open economies and compare the methodologies adopted in developing sfc empirical models for whole countries we review the contributions where the sfc approach is being adopted as the macroeconomic closure of microeconomic agent based models and how the sfc approach is at the core of new research in ecological macroeconomics finally we discuss the appropriateness of the name sfc for the class of models we survey

the dynamics of leverage in a demand driven model with heterogeneous firms abstract this paper introduces heterogeneous microeconomic behavior into a demand driven macroeconomic model in order to study the joint dynamics of leverage and capital accumulation by identifying the links between firm level variables and aggregate quantities the paper contributes toward a reformulation of the minskyan formal analysis that explicitly considers the role of microeconomic factors in generating macroeconomic instability the aggregation of heterogeneous agents is not only performed numerically as in traditional agent based models but also by means of an innovative analytical methodology originally developed in statistical mechanics and recently imported into macroeconomics the distinctive feature is in that the joint analysis of the numerical and analytical solutions of the model sheds light on the effects of financial fragility at the firm level on the dynamics of the macroeconomy in particular the analysis of steady state and stability properties of the system provide additional insights on the role of behavioral and size heterogeneity of firms for the stocks of aggregate debt and capital

uncertainties in macroeconomic assessments of low carbon transition pathways the case of the european iron and steel industry abstract the climate targets agreed in paris 2015 render deep decarbonization of energy and emission intensive industries crucial policy makers are interested in the macroeconomic consequences of such decarbonization pathways and often rely on integrated modelling studies however the underlying modelling assumptions and uncertainties often remain unquestioned or invisible although they may govern the models results for the case of a zero process emission pathway of the european iron and steel industry we demonstrate how different assumptions on different layers of uncertainty influence results we show that effects strongly depend on technology choice prevailing macroeconomic states as well as regional characteristics the underlying socio economic development and the climate policy trajectory seem to play a less important role particularly we find that the choice of model i e which macroeconomic theory strand it arises from influences the sign and magnitude of macroeconomic effects and thus should be well understood in terms of appropriate interpretations by both modelers and policy makers we emphasize that model assumptions should be transparent results sought as to be robust across a range of possible contexts and presented together with the conditions under which they are valid to that end co design and co production in research would support its relevance and applicability

monetary policy and macroeconomic stability under alternative demand regimes in this paper we analyse the interaction of macroeconomic activity and the dynamics of real wages from a theoretical perspective by means of a system dynamic approach we investigate the economic viability of wage and profit led demand regimes by analysing not only the effect of real wages on output but also the feedback mechanisms of macroeconomic activity on the real wages furthermore in this context we focus on the role of monetary policy as a macroeconomic stabilisation mechanism in the two mentioned demand regimes