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

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

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

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

price movements and price discovery in futures and cash markets r isk transfer and price discovery are two of the major contributions of futures markets to the organization of economic activity working 1962 evans 1978 p 80 and silber 1981 risk transfer refers to hedgers using futures contracts to shift price risk to others price discovery refers to the use of futures prices for pricing cash market transactions working 1948 wiese 1978 p 87 and lake 1978 p 161 the significance of both contributions depends upon a close relationship between the prices of futures contracts and cash commodities this paper examines the characteristics of price movements in cash or spot markets and futures markets for storable commodities section ii presents an analytical model of simultaneous price dynamics which suggests that over short intervals of time the correlation of price changes is a function of the elasticity of arbitrage between the physical commodity and its counterpart futures contract greater elasticity fosters more highly correlated price changes and thereby facilitates the risk transfer function the elasticity of supply of arbitrage services is constrained by among other things storage and transaction costs thus futures contracts will not in general provide perfect risk transfer facilities over short time horizons the essence of the price discovery function of futures markets hinges on whether new information is reflected first in changed futures prices or in changed cash prices hoffman 1932 pp 258259 the model in section ii provides a framework for analyzing whether one market is dominant in terms of information flows and price discovery in section iii we develop a model based on section ii which is appropriate for estimating the lead lag relationship between cash prices and futures prices section iv presents empirical estimates of the parameters of the model for seven different storable commodities wheat corn oats frozen orange juice concentrates copper gold and silver the cost of arbitrage between cash and futures differs across these commodities for this reason we are not surprised to find inter commodity differences in the correlation of short run price changes and in the substitutability of futures contracts for cash market positions with respect to the price discovery function of futures markets we find that while futures markets dominate cash markets cash prices do not merely echo futures prices there are reverse information flows from cash markets to futures markets as well

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

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

a transactions data test of stock index futures market efficiency and index arbitrage profitability this paper investigates the efficiency of the market for stock index futures and the profitability of index arbitrage for the chicago board of trade s major market index contracts the spot value of the index is computed with transactions prices for the component shares of the index obtained from the fitch database the tests account for transaction costs execution lags and the uptick rule for short sales of stocks results indicate that the size and frequency of boundary violations are substantially smaller than those reported by earlier studies and have declined sharply with time index arbitrage is a strategy whereby institutions brokerage houses or other large investors seek to profit from the spread between prices in the spot and futures markets for stock indices for example an investor might purchase predetermined baskets of stocks on the floor of the new york stock exchange and simultaneously sell a related index futures contract on the floor of the chicago board of trade hoping to profit from the price differences on the two exchanges computer programs constantly monitor stock and futures prices and automatically execute buy and sell orders when it appears that a profit is possible stock index futures can be priced by a simple arbitrage argument if the dividends paid by the underlying basket of shares and interest rates are nonstochastic markets are perfect and there are no taxes the pricing equation is

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

sets arbitrage activity and stock price dynamics this paper provides an empirical description of the relationship between the trading system operated by a stock exchange and the trading behaviour of heterogeneous investors who use the exchange the recent introduction of sets in the london stock exchange provides an excellent opportunity to study the impact of an electronic trading system upon traders who use the exchange using the cost of carry model of futures prices we estimate non linearly the transaction costs and trade speeds faced by arbitragers who take advantage of mispricing of ftse100 futures contracts relative to the spot prices of the stocks that make up the ftse100 stock index we divide the sample period into pre sets and post sets sample periods and conduct a comparative study of arbitrager behaviour under different trading systems the results indicate that there has been a significant reduction in the level of transaction costs faced by arbitragers and in the degree of transaction cost heterogeneity finally generalised impulse response functions show that both spot and futures prices adjust more quickly in the post sets period these results suggest that both spot and futures markets have become more efficient under sets

distributive shares in the us economy 1964 2001 specifying the labour theory of value in a way that distinguishes both productive from unproductive labour and production workers from supervisory workers this paper considers distributive shares in the us economy between 1964 and 2001 trends in productive and unproductive labour are explored in full time equivalents hours and money after 1979 there was a large shift of money value not matched by a shift in either hours or employment from the wages paid to productive labour to those paid to supervisory labour since the wage share in money value added of non supervisory labour in unproductive sectors was approximately constant the 1980s and 1990s also saw the profits share squeezed by the rising wage share of supervisory workers some implications of this are explored in the construction of a class rather than a factor approach to distributive shares

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

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

the dynamics of stock index and stock index futures returns in rational efficiently functioning markets the returns on stock index and stock index futures contracts should be perfectly contemporaneously correlated this study investigates the time series properties of 5 minute intraday returns of stock index and stock index futures contracts and finds that sp however the effect is not completely unidirectional with lagged stock index returns having a mild positive predictive impact on futures returns

the dynamics of a nonlinear relationship between crude oil spot and futures prices a multivariate threshold regression approach abstract this paper segments daily data from january of 1986 to april of 2007 into three periods based on certain important events both periods i and ii indicate that the spot prices in general are higher than futures prices as was well known in the literature only period iii 2001 9 11 2007 4 30 displays a reverse phenomenon futures prices in general exceed spot prices when the absolute value of a basis futures spot is greater than the threshold value in the arbitrage area regime 1 and 3 at least one of the error correction coefficients representing adjustment towards equilibrium is statistically significant that is there exists a tendency in the oil market in which prices move toward equilibrium with respect to the short run dynamic interaction between spot price change st and futures price change ft our results indicate that when the spot price is higher than futures price and the basis is less than certain threshold value regime 3 there exists at least one causal relationship between st and ft conversely when the futures price is higher than spot price and the basis is higher than certain threshold value regime 1 there exists at least one causal relationship between st and ft finally we use the method suggested by diebold and mariano diebold francis x mariano roberto s 1995 comparing predictive accuracy journal of business and economic statistics 13 3 253 263 to compare the predictive power between the linear and nonlinear models our empirical results indicate that the in sample prediction of the nonlinear model is clearly superior to that of the linear model

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

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

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

the temporal price relationship between s p 500 futures and the s p 500 index this paper empirically examines the intraday price relationship between s p 500 futures and the s p 500 index using minute to minute data three stage least squares regression is used to estimate lead and lag relationships with estimates for expiration days of the s p 500 futures compared with estimates for days prior to expiration the results suggest that futures price movements consistently lead index movements by twenty to forty five minutes while movements in the index rarely affect futures beyond one minute

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

a further analysis of the lead lag relationship between the cash market and stock index futures market the intraday lead lag relation between returns of the major market cash index and returns of the major market index futures and s p 500 futures is investigated empirical results show strong evidence that the futures leads the cash index and weak evidence that the cash index leads the futures the asymmetric lead lag relation holds between the futures and all component stocks including those that trade in almost every five minute interval evidence indicates that when more stocks move together market wide information the futures leads the cash index to a greater degree this suggests that the futures market is the main source of market wide information article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

index arbitrage and dynamics between reit index futures and spot prices abstractthis article contributes to the real estate literature by investigating the pricing relationship between reit index futures and spot based on the cost of carry model we first show that there exist three arbitrage regimes in australia s reit spot futures price dynamics further analysis indicates that the two thresholds which separate the regimes are largely consistent with the level dictated by transaction costs we then estimate a threshold vector error correction model tvecm the results show that mean reversion of the mispricing error only takes place in the two outer regimes furthermore we find evidence that reit spot market is more informationally efficient than the futures market given its short history it will take time for reit index futures market to mature finally we find that we can enhance hedging performance by accommodating the feature of threshold cointegration displayed by the data as the futures spot relationship differs across regimes we can develop a hedging strate

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

on measuring the wealth of nations the us economy 1964 2001 this paper examines the methodology of shaikh and tonak measuring the wealth of nations 1994 underlying their calculation of estimates of productive labour in the us economy from 1964 to 2001 the focus is not on the results but on the methods that generate them the paper finds that the compromises made by shaikh and tonak because of data unavailability are unreliable and that better approximations are possible on this latter basis the shaikh and tonak methodology can be used to provide the labour and wage estimates needed for empirical investigations in the surplus based tradition copyright 2005 oxford university press

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

index arbitrage with heterogeneous investors a smooth transition error correction analysis abstract the traditional index arbitrage model assumes a constant threshold mispricing between the futures and cash prices for all investors allowing for heterogeneity in investors transaction costs objectives and capital constraints we model the intraday mispricing of djia futures as a smooth transition autoregressive star process with the speed of adjustment toward equilibrium varying directly with the mispricing we show that the observed mean reversion in mispricing changes is induced by heterogeneous arbitrageurs instead of a statistical illusion infrequent trading of index portfolio stocks we further use a star error correction model to describe the nonlinear dynamics between the djia futures and index this model describes not only which market is more informationally efficient than the other but also the legging process the nonsimultaneous establishing of cash and futures positions

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

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

index arbitrage and nonlinear dynamics between the s p 500 futures and cash we use a cost of carry model with nonzero transaction costs to motivate estimation of a nonlinear dynamic relationship between the s p 500 futures and cash indexes discontinuous arbitrage suggests that a threshold error correction mechanism may characterize many aspects of the relationship between the futures and cash indexes we use minute by minute data on the s p 500 futures and cash indexes the results indicate that nonlinear dynamics are important and related to arbitrage and suggest that arbitrage is associated with more rapid convergence of the basis to the cost of carry than would be indicated by a linear model article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

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

arbitrage in stock index futures the textbook description of arbitrage suggests that it is a straightforward matter of taking offsetting positions in different securities and realizing the arbitrage profit such descriptions however typically ignore the transaction costs that give rise to the arbitrage opportunity in the first place taking proper account of these transactions costs may considerably complicate the problem particularly when as is usually the case the arbitrage potential is restricted this article is concerned withoptimal arbitrage strategies with transaction costs when the arbitrage potential is restricted by position limits the particular case we shall analyze is the standard and poor s sp the corresponding figure for the s p 500 portfolio for the same period was

profit growth in boom and bust the great recession and the great depression in comparative perspective the great recession of 2007 2009 and the great depression of the 1930s were triggered by the collapse of asset price bubbles however preexisting structural imbalances in the us economy were the reason why the burst of speculative bubbles induced a general economic collapse this article argues that the imbalance created by the combination of stagnant labor earnings and surging corporate profits not only played a leading role in the run up to the downturns but also was chiefly responsible for the slow recoveries on the one hand the relative stagnation of labor income represented a key factor behind rising income inequality and a potential drag on consumption which was temporarily alleviated by credit expansion hence the rising household debt levels eventually became unsustainable on the other hand rising corporate profits created an overhang of idle money eager to lend itself to speculative ventures which played a key role in fueling the stock market bubble of the 1920s and the housing bubble of the 2000s the article further argues that despite various superficial and deeper similarities between the circumstances surrounding the great recession and the great depression some fundamental differences in the structure of the us economy then and now suggest vastly different future prospects for american capitalism

hedging performance and basis risk in stock index futures in early 1982 trading began at three different exchanges in futures contracts based on stock indexes stock index futures were an immediate success and quickly led to a proliferation of new futures and options markets tied to various indexes one reason for this success was that index futures greatly extended the range of investment and risk management strategies available to investors by offering them for the first time the possibility of unbundling the market and nonmarket components of risk and return in their portfolios many portfolio management and other hedging applications in investment banking and security trading have been described elsewhere1 ranging from use by a passive fund manager to reduce risk over a long time horizon to use by an underwriter to hedge the market risk exposure in a stock offering for one or two days in considering the potential applications of index futures it is clear that in nearly every case a cross hedge is involved that is the stock position that is being hedged is different from the underlying portfolio for the index contract 2 this means that return and risk for an index futures hedge will depend upon the behavior of the basis i e the difference between the futures price and the cash price hedging a position in stock will necessarily expose it to some measure of basis risk risk that the change in the futures price over time will not track exactly the value of the cash position basis risk can arise from a number of different sources and is a more significant problem for stock index contracts than for other financial futures like treasury bills and bonds 3 the most apparent cause of basis risk is the nonmarket component of return on the cash stock position since the index contract is tied to the behavior of an underlying stock market index nonmarket risk cannot be hedged this is the essential problem of a cross hedge however basis risk can be present even when the hedge involves a position in the index portfolio itself and there is no nonmarket risk for one thing returns to the index portfolio include dividends while the index and the index future only track the capital value of the portfolio any risk associated with dividends on the portfolio will become basis risk in a hedged position still dividends are fairly low and also quite stable so this may not be a terribly important shortcoming

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

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

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

some recent developments in futures hedging the use of futures contracts as a hedging instrument has been the focus of much research at the theoretical level an optimal hedge strategy is traditionally based on the expected utility maximization paradigm a simplification of this paradigm leads to the minimum variance criterion although this paradigm is quite well accepted alternative approaches have been sought at the empirical level research on futures hedging has benefited from the recent developments in the econometrics literature much research has been done on improving the estimation of the optimal hedge ratio as more is known about the statistical properties of financial time series more sophisticated estimation methods are proposed in this survey we review some recent developments in futures hedging we delineate the theoretical underpinning of various methods and discuss the econometric implementation of the methods

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

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

index futures arbitrage and the behavior of stock index futures prices this article examines intraday transaction datafor s p 500 stock indexfutures prices and the intraday quotes for the underlying index the data indicate that thefutures price changes are uncorrelated and that the variability of these price changes exceeds the variability ofprice changes in the s p 500 index this excess variability of the futures over the index remains even after controlling for the nonsynchronous prices in the index quotes which induces autocorrelation in the index changes we advance and examine empirically two hypotheses regarding the difference between the futures price and its theoretical value that this mispricing increases on average with maturity and that it is path dependent evidence supporting these hypotheses is presented

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

meat meets meta a quantitative review of the price elasticity of meat the price elasticity of meat has been estimated in numerous studies that utilize a variety of disparate modeling procedures in light of differences in the literature a meta analysis is performed to assess the sensitivity of the meat price elasticity to a number of characteristics including the type of meat specification of demand nature of data estimation method characteristics of the publication outlet and location of demand the results from estimating linear and box cox meta regressions coupled with different panel data treatments reveal that these characteristics have differing influence on the reported price elasticity

smooth transition models and arbitrage consistency slow adjustment of real exchange rate towards equilibrium in linear models has long puzzled researchers stimulating the adoption of nonlinear models the exponential smooth transition model has been particularly successful providing faster adjustment speeds this paper discusses some of its theoretical limitations for example that expectations are adaptive we propose a new nonlinear model conceptually superior to the estar model since it is consistent with rational expectations one of its advantages is that it can be solved and estimated by nonlinear least squares using monthly post 1973 real exchange rate data we show that the model implies even faster speeds of adjustment

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

what s behind the rise in profitability in the us in the 1980s and 1990s profitability in the us has been rising since the early 1980s and by 1997 was at its highest level since its post world war ii peak in the mid 1960s and the profit share by one definition at its highest point in this paper i examine the role of the change in the profit share and capital intensity as well as structural change on movements in the rate of profit between 1947 and 1997 its recent recovery is traced to a rise in the profit share in national income a slowdown in capital labour growth at the industry level and employment shifts to relatively labour intensive industries copyright 2003 oxford university press

aggregate capital productivity in the us economy 1964 2001 in the decomposition of the us macroeconomic pre tax rate of profit as the product of profit share and capital productivity this paper considers the role of capital productivity over the period 1964 2001 the primary finding is that prior to 1982 capital productivity fell because capital deepening proceeded faster than labour productivity growth whereas from 1982 to 1997 the opposite occured if prior to 1982 the us economy was characterised by marx biased technical progress what requires explanation is why labour productivity continued to grow after 1982 in the absence of sufficient capital deepening the paper explores various hypotheses contrasts neoclassical and classical notions of technical change and investigates the robustness of its results to the productive unproductive distinction and to accounting for changes in capacity utilisation

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

financialisation and the dynamics of offshoring in the usa imports are linked to higher cost mark ups and firm profits and the gains from such non competitive imports the result of offshoring are increasingly associated with the reinvestment of these higher profits our regression analysis of 35 us manufacturing and service industries over the period 1998 2006 supports aggregate and firm level studies showing that offshoring is associated with a higher share of corporate profit in total value added but the dynamic gains from offshoring have not been fully realised because firms have purchased financial assets especially share buybacks and higher dividend payments to raise shareholder value rather than investing in productive assets that raise productivity growth employment and income despite the corporate sector s contribution to national savings over the past decade the offshoring financialisation linkage reduces the capacity of non financial corporations to act as a driver of the recovery from the economic crisis that emerged in 2008

demand for food in myanmar burma abstract aggregate quarterly time series data from 1975 to 1987 on government procurement prices and open black market prices were used in estimating an almost ideal demand system aids and double log models for consumption of foodstuffs in myanmar the results from the aids model were superior to those from the double log models the estimated income elasticity of demand for non meat foodstuffs was high even for low quality rice which has been shown to be an inferior good in other asian countries the income elasticities for the non cereals groundnut oil sesame oil pulses potato and onion are positive and less than one contrary to expectation the income elasticities for all meat items are low own price elasticities for most foodstuffs were less than one the estimated cross price elasticities indicate the complementary nature of the basic food items to rice a brief analysis of the effects of taxing myanmarese rice exports and subsidising consumers indicated that there are net costs to government unevenly distributed welfare gains to consumers and welfare losses to farmers

testing for threshold cointegration and error correction evidence in the petroleum futures market this article examines the existence of threshold cointegration between futures and spot prices for the brent petroleum market we then estimate the asymmetric error correction specification utilizing the momentum threshold autoregressive consistent m tar c approach particularly proposed by enders and siklos 2001 we find that for the daily data over 2 january 2001 through 15 october 2006 the petroleum futures prices are cointegrated with the spot prices this effectively confirms the expectations hypothesis and that asymmetric adjustments for the futures basis towards the long run value display a negative basis from the long run equilibrium level more persistently than a positive basis from that level the empirical result suggests that short run arbitrages manipulating buy long sell short futures contracts be profitable when a positive basis is weakening a negative basis is strengthening

mean reversion of standard poor s 500 index basis changes arbitrage induced or statistical illusion mean reversion in stock index basis changes has been presumed to be driven by the trading activity of stock index arbitragers we propose here instead that the observed negative autocorrelation in basis changes is mainly a statistical illusion arising because many stocks in the index portfolio trade infrequently even without formal arbitrage reported basis changes would appear negatively autocorrelated as lagging stocks eventually trade and get updated the implications of this study go beyond index arbitrage however our analysis suggests that spurious elements may creep in whenever the price change or return series of two securities or portfolios of securities are differenced mean reversion in stock index basis changes has been amply documented mackinlay and ramaswamy 1988 find significant negative first order autocorrelation in normalized intraday basis changes of the s p 500 index futures traded on the chicago mercantile exchange cme yadav and pope 1990 find similar behavior using financial times stock exchange ftse 100 index futures data from the london international financial futures exchange liffe as does lim 1990 using nikkei 225 index futures from the singapore international monetary exchange simex the trading activity of stock index arbitragers has been presumed to be driving this elastic realignment of stock index and index futures prices when the basis widens beyond its theoretical level arbitragers simultaneously sell index futures and buy the index portfolio pulling the difference between the futures and index

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

financialisation and the slowdown of accumulation over the past decades financial investment of non financial businesses has been rising and accumulation of capital goods has been declining the first part of the paper offers a novel theory to explain this phenomenon financialization the shareholder revolution and the development of a market for corporate control have shifted power to shareholders and thus changed management priorities leading to a reduction in the desired growth rate in the second part the link between accumulation and financialization is tested econometrically by means of a time series analysis of aggregate business investment for usa uk france and germany extensive test of robustness are performed for the first three countries evidence that confirms the negative effect of financialization on accumulation is found author s abstract

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

rising household debt its causes and macroeconomic implications a long period analysis the article analyses the rise in household indebtedness from the point of view of its causes and long run macroeconomic implications the analysis is focussed on the us case differently from life cycle interpretations of the phenomenon and from interpretations in terms of erratic deviations of current income flows from their long run trend the rising household debt is viewed as the outcome of persistent changes in income distribution and growing income inequalities through household debt low wages appear to have been brought to coexist with relatively high levels of aggregate demand thus providing the solution to the contradiction between the necessity of high and rising consumption levels for the growth of the system s actual output and a framework of antagonistic conditions of distribution which keeps within limits the real income of the vast majority of society the question of the long run sustainability of this substitution of loans for wages is finally discussed copyright the author 2008 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

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