nep-pke New Economics Papers
on Post Keynesian Economics
Issue of 2005‒11‒19
three papers chosen by
Karl Petrick
Leeds Metropolitan University

  1. Keynesian Dynamics and the Wage-Price Spiral:Estimating and Analyzing a Baseline Disequilibrium Approach By W. Semmler; P. Chen; C. Chiarella
  2. Institutional Economics at the Micro Level? What Transaction Costs Theory Could Listen From Original Institutionalism (In the Spirit of Building Bridges) By Huascar Pessali; Ramon Fernandez
  3. Inside the Economist's Mind: The History of Modern Economic Thought, as Explained by Those Who Produced It By William A. Barnett; Paul A. Samuelson; E. Roy Weintraub

  1. By: W. Semmler; P. Chen; C. Chiarella
    Abstract: In this paper, we reformulate the theoretical baseline DAS-AD model of Asada, Chen, Chiarella and Flaschel (2004) to allow for its somewhat simplified empirical estimation. The model now exhibits a Taylor interest rate rule in the place of an LM curve and a dynamic IS curve and dynamic employment adjustment. It is based on sticky wages and prices, perfect foresight of current inflation rates and adaptive expectations concerning the inflation climate in which the economy is operating. The implied nonlinear 6D model of real markets disequilibrium dynamics avoids striking anomalies of the old Neoclassical synthesis and can be usefully compared with the model of the new Neoclassical Synthesis when the latter is based on both staggered prices and wages. It exhibits typical Keynesian feedback structures with asymptotic stability of its steady state for low adjustment speeds and with cyclical loss of stability -- by way of Hopf bifurcations -- when certain adjustment speeds are made sufficiently large. In the second part we provide system estimates of the equations of the model in order to study its stability features based on empirical parameter estimates with respect to its various feedback channels. Based on these estimates we find that the dynamics is strongly convergent around the steady state, but will loose this feature if the inflationary climate variable adjusts sufficiently fast. We also study to which extent more active interest rate feedback rules or downward wage rigidity can stabilize the dynamics in the large when the steady state is made locally repelling by a faster adjustment of inflationary expectations. We find support for the orthodox view that (somewhat restricted) money wage flexibility is the most important stabilizer in this framework, while monetary policy should allow for sufficient steady state inflation in order to avoid stability problems in areas of the phase space where wages are still not very flexible in a downward direction
    Keywords: DAS-DAD growth, wage and price Phillips curves, nonlinear estimation, stability, economic breakdown, persistent cycles, monetary policy.
    JEL: E24 E31 E32
    Date: 2005–11–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sce:scecf5:211&r=pke
  2. By: Huascar Pessali (Universidade Federal do Parana); Ramon Fernandez (Universidade Federal do Parana)
    Abstract: Inertia in academia sometimes obstructs the development of important insights. That is one reason for the specially long gap separating Coase's seminal paper [1937] that laid the foundations of current Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the efforts of scholars to develop his ideas. But as TCE evolved and merged with the name of Oliver Williamson, it has absorbed a tension 'between an intuitive commitment to realism...and his commitment to some core presumptions of mainstream economics' [Hodgson 1998]. Most TCE scholars seem to rely on the latter commitment, and this could mean losing a chance of enriching economics in its methodological and theoretical foundations. This paper regroups and comments criticisms from 'Original' Institutional Economics (OIE) to TCE in the spirit of building bridges on: i) discrepancies among TCE’s and Commons’ concepts of transaction; ii) TCE’s use of efficiency as a status quo rationalization; iii) the static analysis that ignores institutional feed-backs; iv) the assumption of opportunism; and v) the incompatibility of bounded rationality and optimizing behavior.
    Keywords: Transaction cost economics, institutional economics, Oliver Williamson, new institutional economics, institutionalism, transaction costs, theories of the firm, economic organisation
    JEL: L
    Date: 2005–11–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0511006&r=pke
  3. By: William A. Barnett (University of Kansas); Paul A. Samuelson (MIT); E. Roy Weintraub (Duke University)
    Abstract: This is the front matter from a book of interviews to be published by Blackwell. The book is coedited by W. A. Barnett and P. A. Samuelson. The front matter includes the Table of Contents, Coeditor Preface by W. A. Barnett, Coeditor Foreword by Paul A. Samuelson, and History of Thought Introduction by E. Roy Weintraub. The front matter highlights some of the more startling and controversial statements contained in the interviews and puts the interviews into context relative to the history of modern economic thought. The interviews reprinted in this book include: (1) Wassily Leontief interviewed by Duncan Foley. (2) David Cass interviewed jointly by Steven Spear and Randall Wright. (3) Robert E. Lucas interviewed by Bennett T. McCallum. (4) Janos Kornai interviewed by Olivier Blanchard. (5) Franco Modigliani interviewed by William Barnett and Robert Solow. (6) Milton Friedman interviewed by John Taylor. (7) Paul A. Samuelson interviewed by William A. Barnett. (8) Paul Volcker interviewed by Perry Mehrling. (9) Martin Feldstein interviewed by James Poterba. (10) Christopher Sims interviewed by Lars Peter Hansen. (11) Robert Shiller interviewed by John Campbell. (12) Stanley Fischer interviewed by Olivier Blanchard. (13) Jacques Drèze interviewed by Pierre Dehez and Omar Licandro. (14) Tom Sargent interviewed by George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja. (15) Robert Aumann interviewed by Sergiu Hart. (16) James Tobin and Robert Shiller interviewed by David Colander.
    Keywords: history of economic thought, Samuelson, macroeconomics, microeconomics, policy, interviews
    JEL: B
    Date: 2005–11–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpmh:0511002&r=pke

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