nep-pke New Economics Papers
on Post Keynesian Economics
Issue of 2014‒05‒04
three papers chosen by
Karl Petrick
Western New England University

  1. Continental Visions: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green, and the Economics of African Unity in 1960s Ghana By Gerardo Serra
  2. James Tobin and Modern Monetary Theory By Robert W. Dimand
  3. Pollard's Pacific reflections By Steve Pollard

  1. By: Gerardo Serra
    Abstract: The paper presents the history of the contribution of two American economists to a radical cause: the establishment of a socialist and politically united Africa. The setting is 1960s Ghana which under Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led the country to independence from British colonial rule, emerged as the epicentre of this Pan-African vision. Ann Seidman and Reginald H. Green became, as members of the research team on ‘The Economics of African Unity’ established at the University of Ghana in 1963, the most sophisticated and systematic advocates of Nkrumah’s economic argument for continental planning and political union. The paper argues that Green and Seidman’s support for Pan- Africanism was rooted in an attempt to question radically the applicability of mainstream economic theory to African conditions, and find an alternative framework to conceptualise African trade, institutions and economic integration. Ultimately the vision associated with Nkrumah and economists like Green and Seidman failed to gain any significant political legitimacy and ended in 1966 with Nkrumah’s overthrow. Yet, it is argued that the story of the ‘economics of African unity’ is a useful departure point to deepen our understanding of the relationship between economics and political imagination in postcolonial Africa.
    Keywords: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green, Ghan a, Pan-Africanism, Kwame Nkrumahn
    JEL: B24 B29 B31 P41
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2014-8&r=pke
  2. By: Robert W. Dimand
    Abstract: This paper examines the relationship of the monetary economics of James Tobin to modern monetary theory, which has diverged in many ways from the directions taken by Tobin and his associates (for example, moving away from multi-asset models of financial market equilibrium and from monetary models of long-run economic growth) but which has also built upon aspects of his work (e.g., the use of simulation and calibration in his work on inter-termporal consumption decisions). Particular attention will be paid to Tobin's unpublished series of three Gaston Eyskens Lectures at Leuven on Neo-Keynesian Monetary Theory: A Restatement and Defense, and the paper draws on my forthcoming volume of Tobin for Palgrave Macmillan's series on Great Thinkers in Economics.
    Keywords: James Tobin, modern monetary theory, microeconomic foundations, Keynesian economics, corridor of stability
    JEL: B22 B31 E12
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2014-5&r=pke
  3. By: Steve Pollard
    Abstract: Steve Pollard, known in the Pacific as a government employee, researcher, consultant, and donor staffer, recently retired from the ADB. He has almost 30 years' experience working toward the interests of better policy for better livelihoods in the Pacific, almost 40 years' experience in development. In a series of Devpolicy blogs, collected in this Discussion Paper, Steve shares some of his personal development policy sojourns in the continuing interest of adopting better policies for a better future in the islands.
    JEL: I30 O10
    Date: 2013–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:devpol:1230&r=pke

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