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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Clavin, P.; Corsetti, G.; Obstfeld, M.; Tooze, A. |
| Abstract: | Just over a century old, John Maynard Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) remains a seminal document of the twentieth century. At the time, the book was a prescient analysis of political events to come. In the decades that followed, this still controversial text became an essential ingredient in the unfolding of history. In this essay, we review the arc of experience since 1919 from the perspective of Keynes’s influence and his changing understanding of economics, politics, and geopolitics. We identify how he, his ideas, and this text became key reference points during times of turbulence as actors sought to manage a range of shocks. Near the end of his life, Keynes would play a central role in planning the world economy’s reconstruction after World War II. We argue that the “global order†that evolved since then, marked by increasingly polarized societies, leaves the community of nations ill prepared to provide key global public goods or to counter critical collective threats. |
| Keywords: | Keynes, World War I, Versailles, interwar period, League of Nations, World War II, Bretton Woods, Cold War, multilateralism, global order |
| JEL: | B30 E10 E30 F30 F40 N10 N20 |
| Date: | 2021–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2169&r= |
| By: | Alexandre Chirat |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a reconstruction of the intellectual cross-fertilization between Adolf Berle and John Kenneth Galbraith to account for their institutionalist challenge against “conventional economics” so as to bring political economy back to life. To do so, I go back to the genesis of Modern Corporation and Private Property before analyzing Berle and Galbraith’s answers to a set of fundamentals questions. What is the nature of modern competition ? What is the nature of the modern corporation ? What is the role of the State ? Lastly, how should American liberalism be reinvented to cope with the social issues of an affluent society ? Their answers to these questions reveal the deep affinities between the theoretical and political dimensions of their works, so that this work lies at the crossroads of the history of economic thought and the history of American liberalism in the postwar period. |
| Keywords: | institutionalism - managerialism - liberalism - political economy. |
| JEL: | B25 B52 D23 M14 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2021-27&r= |
| By: | Sébastien Charles (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis); Eduardo Bastian; Jonathan Marie (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - UP13 - Université Paris 13) |
| Abstract: | The article proposes a typology of inflation regimes that can be applied to any kind of economy based on the Post-Keynesian and structuralist literature. We identify three separate regimes: the low, moderate, and high inflation regimes. Hyperinflation is also defined and described. Each regime presents different characteristics. We identify the key role played by the distributive conflict between workers and capitalists in all the regimes, the role played by the indexation of wages on domestic prices in the moderate and high inflation regimes, and the specific roles played by the widespread indexation on a short term basis in the high inflation regime. Hyperinflation is explained by selffulfilling prophecies about exchange rate variations and by the rejection of the domestic currency. Our analysis underlines the fact that the current fear of inflation is largely groundless. |
| Keywords: | Inflation,Hyperinflation,Post-Keynesian analysis,Structuralist analysis |
| Date: | 2021–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-03363240&r= |
| By: | Dögüs, Ilhan |
| Abstract: | This paper explains the emergence of financialisation of nonfinancial corporations (NFCs) in the USA by way of the increased pension fund savings of white-collar workers which can be considered by Monetary Circuit Theory (MCT) as 'leakages' causing equity issuances to be replenished. The indirect causal nexus can briefly be explained that pension fund savings of white-collar workers have been facilitated by the increasing wage differential between white-collar and blue-collar workers which is driven by the increased market concentration. Since pension funds savings are channelled to financial markets instead of being spent for consumption goods, liquidity deficits of firms being replenished throughout stock markets and because of excess inflows into financial markets, profit expectations of NFCs from liquid financial assets have come to exceed the quasi-rent expectations from illiquid capital assets due to depressed demand for consumption goods. This paper stands as a reconstructive summary of findings of three published articles on each arguments of causal nexus and a contribution to MCT which has not yet considered market concentration. |
| Keywords: | financialisation,market concentration,white-collar workers,wage differential,Monetary Circuit Theory |
| JEL: | E44 J31 L1 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cessdp:87&r= |
| By: | Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | In 2012, we published a paper in the Journal of Critical Globalization Studies titled 'Imperialism and Financialism: The Story of a Nexus'. Our topic was the chameleon-like Marxist notion of imperialism and how its different theories related to finance. Here is the article's summary: Over the past century, the nexus of imperialism and financialism has become a major axis of Marxist theory and praxis. Many Marxists consider this nexus to be a prime cause of our worldly ills, but the historical role they ascribe to it has changed dramatically over time. The key change concerns the nature and direction of surplus and liquidity flows. The first incarnation of the nexus, articulated at the turn of the twentieth century, explained the imperialist scramble for colonies to which finance capital could export its excessive surplus. The next version posited a neo-imperial world of monopoly capitalism where the core's surplus is absorbed domestically, sucked into a black hole of military spending and financial intermediation. The third script postulated a World System where surplus is imported from the dependent periphery into the financial core. And the most recent edition explains the hollowing out of the U.S. core, a red giant that has already burned much of its own productive fuel and is now trying to financialize the rest of the world in order to use the system's external liquidity. The paper outlines this chameleon-like transformation, assesses what is left of the nexus and asks whether it is worth keeping. (p. 42) In the second part of the paper, we looked a little closer at the red-giant argument. Specifically, we wanted to gauge the degree to which U.S. capital had declined and examine whether this decline indeed forced the rest of the world to financialize. And what we found surprised us: the 'financial sector' did seem to become more important everywhere, but its rise was led not by the United States, but by the rest of the world! Our article was published almost a decade ago, so we though it would be interesting to update our figures and see what has changed, if anything. |
| Keywords: | globalization,imperialism,financialization,United States |
| JEL: | P16 P26 P48 G3 F5 G1 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:243122&r= |
| By: | Andrea Coveri; Claudio Cozza; Dario Guarascio |
| Abstract: | The paper applies the radical view of Monopoly Capitalism to the digital platform economy. Based on the seminal ideas of Hymer and Zeitlin that led Cowling and Sugden to define the large monopolistic firm as a means to plan production from a unique centre of strategic decision-making, we attempt to develop a framework where digital platforms are conceived as an evolution of large transnational corporations. Power and control in our Monopoly Capitalism view are then meant not only in terms of market relations, but rather as levers for coordinating global production and influencing world societies. Applying this framework to the Amazon case, we highlight the key analytical dimensions to be considered: not only Amazon dominates other firms and suppliers through its diversification and a direct control of data and technology; its power is also linked to global labour fragmentation and uneven bargaining power vis-à-vis world governments, as in the Hymer and Cowling's tradition. |
| Keywords: | Monopoly Capital; Monopoly Power; Digital Platforms; Amazon; Multinational corporation. |
| Date: | 2021–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2021/33&r= |