Talk:Economic stagnation

message: Be specific as to which sections and statements this applies.Phmoreno (talk) 02:02, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Your presentation of secular stagnation theory, which has never held true historically, presents a factually inaccurate description of economic stagnation to the readers who would be far better served by the analysis of deficits in aggregate demand associated with economic inequality. EllenCT (talk) 15:44, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The first sentence of one of your above citation reads: Recent studies warn that the U.S. economy may return to a phase of secular stagnation. This is counter to your "never held true" claim.  The second part of your statement is original research /synthesis.Phmoreno (talk) 01:00, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Factual accuracy tag 

message: What is the reason for the "disputed neutrality" tag in this section?  It's hard for me to understand how a the explanation theory that originated and was written about in the 1930s by relatively contemporary sources is non neutral.  Be specific.Phmoreno (talk) 12:52, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The literature review at  clearly indicates that there is no historical support for secular stagnation theory, and says why. Your attempt to present it as a prominent explanation because you want to avoid the fact that the lack of gross private domestic investment brought about by income inequality is a far greater influence on economic growth than supply-side theories about insufficient new technologies. The skyrocketing cost of education under rampant and sustained income inequality leads to the insufficiency of the application of existing technologies. EllenCT (talk) 15:48, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: 1. that there is no historical support for secular stagnation theory Your own citations refute your claim.Phmoreno (talk) 01:14, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

text: 2  The rest of your statement is original research / synthesis.Phmoreno (talk) 01:31, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

text: The literature review at  clearly indicates that there is no historical support for secular stagnation theory, and says why. Your attempt to present it as a prominent explanation because you want to avoid the fact that the lack of gross private domestic investment brought about by income inequality is a far greater influence on economic growth than supply-side theories about insufficient new technologies. The skyrocketing cost of education under rampant and sustained income inequality leads to the insufficiency of the application of existing technologies. EllenCT (talk) 15:48, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: EllenCT can you point out specifically where this source "indicates that there is no historical support for secular stagnation theory" and also explain why that would be relevant? Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:45, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: In the third through fifth sentences of its abstract! Did you even read it? EllenCT (talk) 11:27, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I did read it. And no, that does not say "there is no historical support for secular stagnation theory". In fact the claim you're making doesn't really make sense.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secular stagnation theory "disputed neutrality" 

message: Please do not put tags in lede requesting citations for information that is clearly referenced in the article.  In the case of the number of recent books and articles on stagnation this kind of tagging is not just offensive but ignorant.Phmoreno (talk) 12:56, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no guideline or policy which agrees with your opinion. While redundant citations are not always strictly required in article introductions, there is no restriction on asking that unsourced statements be cited anywhere they appear, including in article introductions. If none are forthcoming, the uncited statements may be removed. EllenCT (talk) 16:21, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed tags in lede 

message: That section discusses recent usage of the term and is adequately referenced. I don't see anything in that section that could be considered "non-neutral".  Please explain how the recent usage of "stagnation" in the cited articles reflects non-neutrality.Phmoreno (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: See #Secular stagnation theory "disputed neutrality" above. EllenCT (talk) 15:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secular stagnation term used for recent economy "non neutrality" tag 

message: I will be revising Economic stagnation and will include a reference to the an opposing theory related to income inequality. I will be working on this over a period of several days, possibly a couple of weeks.  I will do my best to address well thought through concerns, especially ones that show knowledge of the subject matter.  
Disruptive edits will be reported to the administrators notification board.  Time-wasting comments will be ignored. By time-wasting comments I am referring to: comments that are off topic or are not expressed in a way that they can be construed to relate to the topic, asking questions that are already answered in the article, citing marginally related sources, misrepresenting sources or making an original research / synthesis from sources.Phmoreno (talk) 02:55, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Your continued attempts to try to push secular stagnation theory requires support in WP:SECONDARY sources. You have had ample time to find such support and clearly are unable to do so. EllenCT (talk) 05:05, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You've had plenty of time to read your own sources too, and some of them are full of secondary sources to support this article.  You might have noticed that some of the references in your citations were already in this article. Furthermore, if you had bothered to thoroughly read your references and take notes you might have been able to make more accurate statements about what they say.Phmoreno (talk) 02:23, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  what secondary sources do you believe are cited in this article, other than those that I've added? Per WP:PSTS we do not depend on primary sources as reliable merely because some of them cite secondary sources. EllenCT (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding secondary sources, of which there are many, you still need to be specific as to which citations you are questioning. As for primary sources, Harris (1943) for example is widely cited by secondary sources and by tertiary sources.  It's important enough to be made available online from the Federal Reserve Archive can be found cited by the St. Louis Fed. Also, it is quoted, allowing no room for analysis, opinion or interpretation.  It is in complete compliance with Wikipedia guidelines for primary sources. (Have you read them? Be sure you do!) That makes it a rock solid citation.Phmoreno (talk) 00:06, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

text: Hansen more frequently referred to “stagnation” than “secular stagnation,” though his theory became associated with the latter term, perhaps because of a famous essay by Harvard economist Alan Sweezy. In Monthly Review the terms were used interchangeably for decades, though usually, as in the stagnation theory of the 1930s–’50s, focusing on “stagnation” alone without the adjective. See: Alvin H. Hansen, Full Recovery or Stagnation(New York: W.W. Norton, 1938); Alan Sweezy, “Secular Stagnation?,” in Seymour Harris, ed.,Postwar Economic Problems(New York: McGraw Hill, 1943), 67–82; Paul M. Sweezy, “Why Stagnation?,”Monthly Review 34, no. 2 (June 1982): 1–10; John Bellamy Foster, “Is Monopoly Capitalism An Illusion?,”Monthly Review 31, no. 4 (September 1981): 36.Phmoreno (talk) 03:34, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually Harris (1943) is a secondary source of statements related to Alvin Hansen, in Alan Sweezy's "famous" essay on secular stagnation.Phmoreno (talk) 15:33, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you understand that a WP:SECONDARY reliable source is typically a literature review, not just any source commenting on another? EllenCT (talk) 11:30, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: A secondary source doesn't have to be a literature review.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:51, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision in progress 

message: How should  be characterized in this article? How should ? EllenCT (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recovery participation rate 

message: Making space for expansion of Japanese stagnation section.  Much of the United States information is now available at Economic history of the United States.Phmoreno (talk) 20:54, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: did you notice the first of the two sources on Japan you added describes, in its abstract, "the chronic lack of domestic demand since the mid-1970s caused by the long-run decline in capital formation [and slow] growth due to Japan’s low information and communications technology investment"? And the other one says, "the Japanese case is unusual is [sic] that financial problems (that we describe in detail below) seem disproportionately large relative to the macro stagnation." EllenCT (talk) 21:31, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly did notice that in one of the articles. According to the articles it's because the Japanese were saving 25% of their income.  Furthermore it's because of the life cycle spending.  The aging population of Japan (or other societies for that matter) reduce their spending as they get older.  The purpose of the needs expansion tag is to elaborate on those and other factors, such as the decline in productivity growth.Phmoreno (talk) 23:46, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

text: The article describing Japan's financial conditions is dated 2004.  The same conditions exist today in the U.S., parts of the EU (Greece, Spain....) and still do following the 2008 financial crisis, but I don't know how much it is discussed in the stagnation literature.  It doesn't seem to fit in the original stagnation theory.Phmoreno (talk) 00:56, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  De-emphasize United States except for Great Depression and recent period 

message: It looks like two different theories are being conflated. They're both posited as explanations for stagnation but they are not both "secular stagnation"
One, you've got the Summers/Krugman etc. theory that because of demographic changes, real interest rates are low, monetary policy is ineffective and the "normal" condition of aggregate demand is for it to fall short of potential output.
Two, you've got the Gordon (also Paul Romer says this) theory that as far as technological progress goes, all the low hanging fruit has been picked so we'll have a lower rate of technological progress.
These two theories ought to be separated out.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:58, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: As one of the articles stated, "stagnation means different things to different people".  The term "secular", meaning long term, was added by Alan Sweezy and was not used by Alvin Hansen. (Japan's stagnation is often described as "secular" and unfortunately discussion of Japanese stagnation seems to be left out of the U.S. and European centered debate.)  As for separating the current debate into one group who sees demographic changes and insufficient aggregate demand the other focused on the productivity slowdown, they are both part of the explanation of today's slow growth.  The other way of looking at stagnation is by separating the great depression era stagnation from today's.  A problem with either method of separation is the amount of overlap of contributing factors. A well rounded article should do its best to point out both differences and similarities between time periods and between current views and to integrate the Japanese stagnation story.Phmoreno (talk) 17:47, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  conflating two theories 

message: The New Palgrave, Economic Development, Eatwell, Milgate, Newman eds. Author is Eprime Eshag, the relevant chapter is Fiscal and monetary policies in developing countries. This chapter is relevant to this whole accusation that anyone who disagrees with EllenCT is supporting "supply side economics" (sic). And that supposedly aggregate demand is the main force behind long term growth (which is actually completely backwards). Here is the quote:
"LDCs can be seen as 'supply-determined', in that it is the productive capacity rather than demand that generally limits the level of their activity. This means that the long-run rate of growth in them is determined by the rate at which their productive capacity grows as a result of net investment in the economy. Leaving aside the question of the capital intensity of production, the larger the share of investment in GNP, the greater the rate of growth of productive capacity. An acceleration in the rate of growth of productivie capacity and GNP will require an increase in the share of investment"
I believe this explicitly address the thing that EllenCT and User:Phmoreno were fighting over (basically, Phmoreno was right).Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That monograph isn't even peer reviewed. What is an LDC? You spelled productive wrong. Are there any peer reviewed sources which agree with your and Phmoreno's opinion? I can't find any. This article is about all countries, not just developing countries. EllenCT (talk) 12:49, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the freaking New Palgrave series! This is like the most respected and established compendium of scholarly views on particular sub-disciplines in economics. Of course it's peer-reviewed. And if you don't know what LDC stands (your last sentence suggests you do, you're just being disingenuous) for and all you can do is criticize minor typos then you're just making it painfully clear that you have no idea of what you're talking about.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:30, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Least Developed Countries"? Again, this article is about all countries, not just developing countries. Why do you pretend that an excerpt about least developed countries is appropriate for this general article? EllenCT (talk) 01:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: So why did you ask if you knew the answer? And are you gonna back off the claim that The New Palgrave is not an unacceptable source? Let's get that straight first before we quibble over typos or scope.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:09, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  From New Palgrave 

message: I'm struggling with this whole concept.
As pointed out in Secular stagnation theory, the origin of the theory was the concern that stagnation might be secular, and thus (this is where it gets hand-wavy) permanent (sort-of, maybe). But it wasn't.
I see value in an article about secular stagnation theory as a historical article - it was proposed, it was much talked about and therefore deserves coverage. I sort of get that every time we have a mild downturn, some chicken little worries about the possibility of secular stagnation, so there may be value in follow up about subsequent failed predictions. But the main focus ought to be a failed economic theory.
This isn't the place to debate how that article should be written, it is just background for asking - what deserves to be covered in an article about economic stagnation that isn't covered in secular stagnation theory? Is it supposed to be stagnation that isn't secular? If so, it's a special case of the business cycle. If that article were bloated, perhaps something should be carved out for a separate article, but this wouldn't be my first choice.
Is there anything in this article that doesn't belong in either of those two articles?
In other words, what is the point of this article? What does it add that isn't or couldn't be covered in those two articles?--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:33, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: "Stagnation" and "secular stagnation" stagnation are the same thing according to sources. These two articles should be merged and perhaps re-titled Stagnation (economics).Phmoreno (talk) 20:05, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

text: The way I see it is that secular stagnation is just one of the possible stagnations. I believe someone else above outlined all the possible theories of stagnation (Malthusian, secular, low productivity growth etc.) In particular one can think of a number of developing countries which have experienced stagnation which has nothing to do with low interest rates.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:15, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

text: Specifically, the comment by the IP in this section. Yes, that needs sources but the comment is pretty aware and points to where to look.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:16, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: If Sphilbrick's comment about secular stagnation being a "failed" theory were correct economists wouldn't be having this debate today.  Developed countries are in an economic situation that has many parallels to the 1930s.  Developed countries productivity and population growth has slowed and there are few investment opportunities today that can have the effect of electrification, household water supply and motorized transportation.  But aside from that argument, we don't need separate articles on causes of stagnation.  It needs to be covered as a debate.Phmoreno (talk) 21:03, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the value of this article? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Economic stagnation. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131024041712/http://eh.net:80/encyclopedia/article/white.tractors.history.us to http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/white.tractors.history.us
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120310163302/http://www.econ.yale.edu/seminars/echist/eh04/field-041006.pdf to http://www.econ.yale.edu/seminars/echist/eh04/field-041006.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130918164238/http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/Is%20US%20Economic%20Growth%20Over.pdf to http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/is%20us%20economic%20growth%20over.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Economic stagnation. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/white.tractors.history.us
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111026075949/http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.work.hours.us to http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.work.hours.us
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:54, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified