is minsky s financial instability hypothesis valid in this article i reassess the validity of minsky s financial instability hypothesis and the main criticism about its internal coherence starting from this fundamental objection i study minsky s contribution within the scope of a highly simplified macro model it is shown that the financial instability hypothesis increasing debt ratios during economic expansion remains valid in numerous cases it appears amongst other things that a sufficient fall in the retention rate reinforces minsky s conclusions emphasising the destabilising role of shareholders in the distribution of net profits

effects of indirect taxation in a mixed oligopoly abstract in a mixed oligopoly an increase in tax ad valorem or specific does not change total output but increases the output of the public firm and the tax revenue also privatization may increase both tax revenue and welfare

trade policy and mixed enterprises this paper demonstrates that the degree of state ownership affects neither the level of socially optimal activities nor welfare if the government chooses optimal trade policy instruments in the case of rivalry in the home market the optimal import tariff is independent of the degree of state ownership and the optimal production subsidy decreases with state ownership if the optimal tariff is positive for the case of cournot rivalry in a third market the optimal export subsidy increases with state ownership while in the case of bertrand rivalry with differentiated products the optimal export tax increases

reform of the coal sector in an open economy the case of china cheap abundant and easy to transport and store coal has been produced and consumed to meet people s energy needs the last decade s growth in global coal use has been driven mainly by developing economies like china whose phenomenal economic growth has been powered by coal fired electricity and promoted by the export of manufactured goods a recent reform focus in china s coal sector is on coal taxation the paper develops a game theoretic model tailored to the context of china where coal taxation reform takes place against the background of privatisation of coal firms and an open economy it finds that the adoption of special coal taxes is optimal for social welfare under most circumstances but may induce coal firms to commit opportunistic behaviour in the process of privatisation the paper also cautions about potential resistance to the reform from consumers coal firms and government officials

do state trading exporters distort trade abstract in this paper we analyse the trade distorting effects of state trading enterprises stes which exist in some exporting countries because of these potential effects several countries have raised the issue of state enterprises in the doha round negotiations in the wto the belief is that stes in certain developed countries have trade effects which are equivalent to an export subsidy stes also exist in developing countries though since the aim of government policy may differ from the developed country case the trade distortion may be equivalent to an export tax we present a theoretical model that is sufficiently general to allow us to consider the case of exporting stes in developed and developing economies the model is calibrated with data on two examples of stes one typical of an ste in a developed country the other typical of an ste in a developing economy in each case we allow for differences in the nature of the ste s pay off function the overall conclusion is that stes do distort trade and the trade distortion effect is potentially significant

mixed oligopoly privatization subsidization and the order of firms moves several types of objectives abstract we show the robustness of results in earlier works for a subsidy in mixed oligopoly these results do not depend upon the fact that each private firm maximizes its own profits

mixed oligopoly subsidization and the order of firm s moves the relevance of privatization abstract a series of previous papers demonstrate that there are no consequences from privatization in a mixed oligopoly when the government uses a subsidy to ensure first best this conclusion depends upon the assumption that privatization results in a simultaneous move oligopoly if instead privatization results in a public leader becoming a private leader the optimal subsidy output and welfare are all reduced

cash flow investment and keynes minsky cycles this paper analyzes a dynamic model with 1 an investment function that emphasizes cash flow 2 a keynesian macroeconomic framework that determines cash flow endogenously 3 a dynamic labor market model that drives wage and price adjustments and 4 boundedly rational expectations simulations from the calibrated model generate endogenous cycles with characteristics described in hyman minsky s research the cycle arises from the link between investment interest rates debt service and cash flow the amplitude and frequency of the cycle are related to the importance of cash flow for investment the dynamics of inflation and the distribution of income

firms leverage ratio and the financial instability hypothesis an empirical investigation for the us economy 1970 2014 there are many minskian interpretations of how financial fragility builds up reflecting the unsolved tensions regarding the transition from micro to macro results in minsky s financial instability hypothesis fih using firm level and macroeconomic data to comply with the variety of fih s interpretations we empirically assess the relations between leverage and financial fragility in the us economy 1970 2014 to evaluate firms financial fragility we deploy minsky s scale from the financially sounder to the more fragile firms hedge speculative and ponzi the main findings are the following i the evolution of the aggregate leverage ratio does not account for the systemic financial fragility measured by the frequency of speculative and ponzi firms and ii within the biggest firms the leverage has increased along with the incidence of hedge financing and for the smallest firms group the opposite has happened we conclude that a positive relation between leverage and financial fragility cannot be deemed to be a general outcome

debt cycles instability and fiscal rules a godley minsky synthesis wynne godley and hyman minsky were two macroeconomists who saw the crisis coming this paper develops a simple macrodynamic model that synthesises some key perspectives of their analytical frameworks the model incorporates godley s financial balances approach and postulates that private sector s propensity to spend is driven by a stock flow norm the target net private debt to income ratio that changes endogenously via a minsky mechanism it also includes two fiscal rules a maastricht type fiscal rule according to which the fiscal authorities adjust the government expenditures based on a target net government debt ratio and a godley minsky fiscal rule which links government expenditures with private indebtedness following a counter cyclical logic the analysis shows that i the interaction between the propensity to spend and net private indebtedness can generate cycles and instability ii instability is more likely when the propensity to spend responds strongly to deviations from the stock flow norm and when the expectations that determine the stock flow norm are highly sensitive to the economic cycle iii the maastricht type fiscal rule is destabilising while the godley minsky fiscal rule is stabilising iv the paradox of debt can apply both to the private sector and the government sector

r d versus output subsidies in mixed markets we analyse the relative welfare effects of an r d and an output subsidy in a mixed duopoly we show that an r d subsidy is beneficial for society as a whole and socially superior to an output subsidy when spillovers are sufficiently high otherwise an output subsidy is socially superior

mixed duopoly privatization and subsidization with excess burden of taxation we investigate optimal tax subsidy policies in mixed and private oligopolies with excess burden of taxation we compare the optimal subsidies and the resulting welfare levels among four regimes mixed and private cournot duopolies and stackelberg competition with public and private leaderships we show that in contrast to the existing works on the privatization neutrality theorem privatization affects resulting welfare duopole mixte privatisation et subsidisation en presence de fardeau fiscal excedentaire on examine les politiques optimales de taxes et de subventions dans le cas d oligopoles mixtes et prives en presence de fardeau fiscal excedentaire on compare les subsides optimaux et les effets sur le niveau de bien etre dans quatre regimes les duopoles de cournot mixte et prive et la concurrence a la stackelberg avec leadership public et prive on montre que contrairement a ce que suggeraient les travaux anterieurs sur le theoreme de la neutralite de la privatisation la privatisation affecte les niveaux de bien etre

mixed oligopoly cost reducing research and development and privatisation abstract we develop a mixed oligopoly model to examine the role of r d subsidies and evaluate the welfare effects of privatisation in solving the oligopoly model we propose a novel use of aggregative games techniques our analysis reveals that privatisation reduces the optimal r d subsidy furthermore privatisation improves social welfare but only when the number of firms is sufficiently large implementing solely a subsidy to r d does not lead to a privatisation neutrality theorem or irrelevance result

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

welfare consequence of an asymmetric regulation in a mixed bertrand duopoly abstract i investigate an asymmetric duopoly where a public enterprise must supply the demand it faces while a private enterprise has no such obligation i show that such an asymmetric regulation yields the first best outcome walrasian equilibrium

minsky models a structured survey minsky s ideas have recently gained prominence in the mainstream as well as in the heterodox literature however there exists no agreement upon the formal presentation of minsky s insights the aim of this paper is to survey the literature and identify differences and similarities in the ways through which minskyan ideas have been formalised we distinguish between the models that focus on the dynamics of debt or interest with no or a secondary role for asset prices and the models in which asset prices play a key role in the dynamic behaviour of the economy within the first category of models we make a classification between i the kalecki minsky models ii the kaldor minsky models iii the goodwin minsky models iv the credit rationing minsky models v the endogenous target debt ratio models and vi the minsky veblen models within the second category of models we distinguish between i the equity price minsky models and ii the real estate price minsky models key limitations of the models and directions for future research are outlined

classroom games a market for lemons abstract the incentives that arise in markets with asymmetric information are illustrated in the classroom exercise presented here student sellers choose both a quality grade and a price for their products initially both prices and grades for all sellers are posted and buyers select from these offerings in this full information setup the market prices and grades quickly reach efficient levels that maximize total surplus next although sellers continue to choose grades and prices only prices not grades are posted for buyers to see when they shop the grades and prices then fall to inefficiently low levels the observed market outcomes in this exercise can stimulate useful discussion of asymmetric information market failure and remedies such as quality standards and warranties

minsky s induced investment and business cycles this paper reviews the recently published phd thesis of hyman p minsky summarising its main contributions to methodology and microeconomics these are aspects of economics with which minsky is not usually associated but which lie at the foundation of his later work they include critical remarks on cambridge economics the paper then draws out some antecedents of minsky s ideas in the work of henry simons and highlights the marshallian monetary analysis that he adopted it is argued that this analysis is incompatible with the kaleckian theory of profits that minsky was later to adopt

game theoretic models of mixed oligopoly abstract in this paper we review various models that have been proposed for the study of mixed oligopoly that is markets in which private and public firm compete on equal basis using only market instruments

mixed oligopoly privatization and strategic trade policy this paper investigates the effects of privatization in the presence of strategic trade policies within an international mixed oligopoly serving a single market if the government uses a domestic production subsidy then welfare is always increased with privatization while the optimal subsidy falls if the government uses an import tariff privatization increases welfare over much of the parameter space the optimal tariff however may rise or fall in recent years many countries around the world are privatizing their state owned industries at the same time many of these countries are also showing remarkable changes in their economic policies toward international trade on many occasions tariffs are significantly altered and domestic production subsidies are substantially reduced for example russia has privatized its aircraft industry and doubled its tariff on imported aircraft colombia has privatized its stateowned automobile maker colombia automotriz and reduced the import tariffs on foreign made cars in argentina the government is pursuing a policy of selective privatization and subsequent reduction of subsidies in western europe countries such as germany and spain have privatized their major airlines lufthansa and iberia respectively and significantly reduced subsidies what is the connection between privatization and strategic trade policies does privatization require a welfare maximizing government to alter trade barriers the objective of this paper is to answer these questions by investigating the interaction between privatization and strategic trade policies the effects of privatization are typically analyzed in the context of mixed oligopoly models where state owned welfare maximizing public firms interact with profit maximizing private firms 1 we investigate the interaction between privatization and strategic trade policies by incorporating strategic trade instruments in an international mixed oligopoly model specifically we consider two strategic trade instruments an import tariff and a domestic production subsidy the government chooses the optimal level of tariff or subsidy to maximize domestic welfare for each trade instrument we primarily focus on two questions first does privatization increase

flexible vs dedicated technology adoption in the presence of a public firm author affiliation maria jose gil molto department of economics university of leicester university road leicester le1 7rh england united kingdom m j gil molto le ac uk corresponding authorjoanna poyago theotoky dagger department of economics loughborough university sir richard morris building loughborough le11 3tu england united kingdom j poyago theotoky lboro ac uk acknowledgment we thank john beath nikolaos georgantzis rafael moner colonques vicente octs and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments all remaining errors are our own we also thank for financial support the spanish ministry sej2005 08764 econ and the british academy joint activities scheme 1 introductionin the recent past many firms all over the world have substituted their traditional production processes with more flexible systems some of these flexible technologies allow for greater capacity process flexibility which can increase the ability of firms to adapt to fluctuations in demand boyer and moreaux 1997 boyer jacques and moreaux 2002 in other cases the advantage of a flexible manufacturing system fms over dedicated equipment de is that the former allows a firm to supply several products and consequently to participate in different markets in other words to become a multiproduct or multimarket firm1 without having to invest in separated manufacturing processes this is called product flexibility and is the main focus of our paper apart from benefits flexible technologies also report higher set up costs mainly in the form of development or adjustment costs jaikumar 1986 the study of the adoption of fms by private firms was first introduced by roller and tombak 1990 and kim roller and tombak 1992 in the context of oligopolistic competition their findings indicate that the adoption of flexible technologies requires a sufficiently low adoption cost sufficiently high product differentiation and large enough markets while consumers benefit from the use of fms due to the increase in competition 2 in addition roller and tombak 1993 validate these results with an empirical study dixon 1994 evaluates the welfare effects of using fms when the marginal cost of production is increasing in the number of goods produced and when the markets are unrelated as a result adopting fms might lead to welfare losses due to the inefficiency in production on the other hand eaton and schmitt 1994 point out that the adoption of fms may correspond to preemptive strategies leading to higher levels of concentration in the context of horizontal product differentiation to the best of our knowledge the issue of technology choice as exemplified by the adoption of fms versus de technologies has not been studied in the context of a mixed market where private profit maximizing firms coexist with public not for profit ones such mixed markets are quite prevalent in transition economies but not exclusively so telecommunications health services and the postal sector in many countries are organized as mixed markets although many public firms have been privatized in recent years it is worth pointing out that the behavior of these recently privatized firms remains subject to public regulation our analysis is motivated by a large number of industries in which multiproduct and single product firms coexist and the presence of public or newly privatized but still regulated firms is common this is the case for industries such as energy supply transport telecommunications or health care first consider the case of telecommunications traditionally the provision of internet access telephone and tv services required the use of different technologies and separate production processes for each one of them at present however cable technology can be used by firms to provide these three different services using the same production process thereby enabling firms to be present in all three markets and to exploit economies of scope

imported inputs and privatization in downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership this paper examines welfare implications of privatization in a mixed oligopoly with vertically related markets where an upstream foreign monopolist sells an essential input to public and private firms located downstream in the domestic country the impact on domestic welfare of privatizing the downstream public firm is shown to contain three effects the first is an output distortion effect which negatively affects welfare since privatization decreases the production of final good for consumption the second is an input price lowering effect resulting from a decrease in derived demand for the input when the level of privatization increases a decrease in final good production lowers input demand causing input price to decline and domestic welfare to increase the third is a rent leaking effect associated with foreign ownership in the downstream private firm the rival domestic firm strategically increases its final good production causing profits accrued to foreign investors to increase and domestic welfare to decline without foreign ownership in the downstream private firm the optimal policy toward the public firm is complete privatization as the output distortion effect is dominated by the input price lowering effect with foreign ownership however complete privatization can never be socially optimal due to the additional negative impact on domestic welfare of the rent leaking effect we further discuss implications for domestic welfare under different privatization schemes e g selling the privatization shares to the upstream foreign monopolist or to the rival domestic firm

a simplified stock flow consistent dynamic model of the systemic financial fragility in the new capitalism in the last few years many financial analysts and heterodox economists but even some dissenters among orthodox economists have referred to the contribution of hyman p minsky as fundamental to understanding the current crisis however it is well known that the traditional formulation of minsky s financial instability hypothesis shows serious internal logical problems furthermore minsky s analysis of capitalism must be updated on the basis of the deep changes which during the last three decades have concerned the world economy in order to overcome these theoretical and empirical troubles this paper first introduces the reader to the mechanics of the financial instability theory according to the formulation of the traditional minskian literature section 2 second it shows why minsky s theory cannot be regarded as a general theory of the business cycle section 3 third the paper attempts to supply a simplified but consistent re formulation of minsky s theory by inter breeding it with inputs coming from the new cambridge theories and the current formal minskian literature the aim of this is to analyze the impact of both capital asset inflation and consumer credit on the financial soundness of the non financial business sector sections 4 7 some concluding remarks are provided in the last part of the paper section 8

mixed oligopoly privatization and subsidization abstract this paper demonstrates three effects of domestic production subsidies in a mixed oligopoly industry regarding privatization and efficiency first if subsidies are used before and after privatization welfare is unchanged by privatization second if subsidies are used only before privatization then privatization always lowers welfare regardless of the number of private firms in the industry third the subsidy contributes to overall efficiency in a mixed oligopoly due to cost distribution effects

endogenous timing in a mixed oligopoly abstract endogenous order of moves is analyzed in a mixed oligopoly where the firms first choose the timing for choosing their quantities the results are strikingly different from those obtained in a corresponding oligopoly with all profit maximizing firms

mixed oligopoly public firm behavior and free private entry we analyze a mixed oligopoly with free entry by private firms assuming that a public firm maximizes an increasing function of output subject to a break even constraint we establish an irrelevance result whenever a mixed oligopoly is viable then aggregate output aggregate costs and welfare are the same with and without the public firm however replacing a viable mixed oligopoly with a public monopoly yields higher net welfare implications for privatization policy are suggested

short and medium term financial real cycles an empirical assessment 2019 elsevier ltd theories such as minsky s financial instability hypothesis or new keynesian financial accelerator models assign a key role to financial factors in business cycle dynamics we propose a simple var based estimation framework to examine some of the financial real interaction mechanisms that are at the core of these theories we examine cycle frequencies in seven oecd countries over the period 1970 2015 and find that output contains short and medium business cycle frequencies while interest rates business debt and household debt exhibit short medium and long cycles respectively we find robust evidence for financial real interaction mechanisms i at high frequencies between interest rates and gdp in australia and the usa and ii at medium frequencies between business debt and gdp in canada and great britain the effect of interest rates and debt seems to operate via investment rather than consumption we find no evidence for an interaction mechanism between household debt and gdp our results provide support for minskyan and financial accelerator models in which output interacts with interest rates or corporate debt