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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Alexandre Chirat |
| Abstract: | Baumol’s impact on the development of managerial theories of the firm is investigated here through material found in Galbraith’s archives. In 1957 Galbraith published a paper claiming that the impact of macroeconomic policies varies with market structures (competitive versus oligopolistic). That publication prompted Baumol (1958b) to send Galbraith a manuscript dealing extensively with a crucial question of managerial theories of the firm, namely, the trade-off between sales and profits. I argue that Baumol’s critiques and Galbraith’s answers largely explain the way Baumol (1958a, 1959) framed his alternative model of the behavior of corporations. He reasoned in terms of maximization of sales with a profit constraint as their main objective. In return, Business Behavior, Value and Growth fostered the development of Marris’ (1964) and Galbraith’s (1967) theories of the corporation. While Tullock (1978) provides a narrative in which the sales maximization hypothesis has two main branches – Baumol for the one and Galbraith-Marris for the other – the paper demonstrates that these branches are intimately connected. |
| Keywords: | Baumol – Galbraith – Theory of the firm – Managerialism – Marginalisme |
| JEL: | B21 B22 D43 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2021-35&r= |
| By: | Tiago Cardão-Pito (ULisboa - University of Lisbon = Universidade de Lisboa) |
| Abstract: | Contemporary mainstream economics cannot be seen as disconnected from philosophical concerns. On the contrary, it should be understood as a defence for a specific philosophy, namely, crude quantitative hedonism where money would measure pleasure and pain. Disguised among a great mathematical apparatus involving utility functions, supply, and demand, lies a specific hedonist philosophy that every year is lectured to thousands of economic and business students around the world. This hedonist philosophy is much less sophisticated than that in ancient hedonist philosophers as Epicurus or Lucretius. Furthermore, it does not solve any of the systematic difficulties regularly faced by hedonist philosophy. However, the argument that economics is detached from philosophy works as a rhetorical artifice to protect its dominant underlying philosophy: Philosophical disputes would have to be addressed within the biased mathematical apparatus of quantitative hedonism. Economists and business students must learn to identify the underlying philosophy in mainstream economics and alternative philosophical systems. |
| Keywords: | quantitative hedonism,hedonism,qualitative hedonism,rhetorical artifice,hedonist economic theory,utilitarianism,labour based economic theory |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03414847&r= |
| By: | Jon Mulberg (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University (UK)) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses Beck's concept of reflexive modernity, and a Foucauldian approach, to critique the positivist philosophy associated with contemporary conventional economics, and to show its inadequacy for the environmental emergency. The paper suggests economics is not neutral but performs an ideological function in justifying the political and social order. Economics can be deconstructed by tracing its history, thereby laying bare its philosophical and political roots. The environmental debate repeats past debates of the 1920s and 30s. By employing the 'subjugated' institutional economics approaches economics can be redefined, and the path to a truly Green New Deal can be unearthed. |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415964&r= |
| By: | Grytten, Ola Honningdal (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | The present paper seeks to investigate the importance of financial instability during four banking crises, with focus on the small open economy of Norway. The crises elaborated on are the Post First world war crisis of the early 1920s, the mid 1920s Monetary crisis, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Scandinavian banking crisis of 1987-1993. <p> The paper firstly offers a brief description of the financial instability hypothesis as applied by Minsky, Kindleberger, and in a new explicit dynamic financial crisis model. Financial instability creation basically happens in times of overheating, overspending and over lending, i.e., during significant booms, and have devastating effects after markets have turned into a state of crises. <p> Thereafter, the paper tests the validity of the financial instability hypothesis by using a quantitative structural time series model. The test reveals upheaval of financial and macroeconomic indicators prior to the crises, making the economy overheat and create asset bubbles due to huge growth in debt. These conditions caused the following banking crises. <p> Finally, the four crises are discussed qualitatively. The conclusion is that significant increase in money supply and debt caused overheating, asset bubbles and finally financial and banking crises which spread to the real economy. |
| Keywords: | Financial crises; banking crises; financial stability; macroeconomic; economic history; monetary expansion |
| JEL: | E44 E51 E52 F34 G15 N24 |
| Date: | 2021–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2021_018&r= |
| By: | Alvaro Calderon (Alvaro Calderon); Vasiliki Fouka (Vasiliki Fouka); Marco Tabellini (Marco Tabellini) |
| Abstract: | Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized racial discrimination. This paper shows that the Great Migration and support for civil rights are causally linked. Predicting Black inflows with a shift-share instrument, we find that the Great Migration raised support for the Democratic Party, increased Congress members’ propensity to promote civil rights legislation, and encouraged pro-civil rights activism outside the US South. We provide different pieces of evidence that support for civil rights was not confined to the Black electorate, but was also shared by segments of the white population. |
| Keywords: | Race, diversity, civil rights, Great Migration |
| JEL: | D72 J15 N92 |
| Date: | 2021–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2133&r= |
| By: | Ceyhun Gürkan (Ankara Üniversitesi) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03414839&r= |
| By: | Ricardo Crespo (Universidad Austral) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415956&r= |
| By: | Kilian, Lutz; Nomikos, Nikos K.; Zhou, Xiaoqing |
| Abstract: | Since the 1970s, exports and imports of manufactured goods have been the engine of international trade and much of that trade relies on container shipping. This paper introduces a new monthly index of the volume of container trade to and from North America. Incorporating this index into a structural macroeconomic VAR model facilitates the identification of shocks to domestic U.S. demand as well as foreign demand for U.S. manufactured goods. We show that, unlike in the Great Recession, the primary determinant of the U.S. economic contraction in early 2020 was a sharp drop in domestic demand. Although detrended data for personal consumption expenditures and manufacturing output suggest that the U.S. economy has recovered to near 90% of pre-pandemic levels as of March 2021, our structural VAR model shows that the component of manufacturing output driven by domestic demand had only recovered to 59% of pre-pandemic levels and that of real personal consumption only to 76%. The difference is mainly accounted for by unexpected reductions in frictions in the container shipping market. |
| Keywords: | Merchandise trade,container,shipping,manufacturing,consumption,COVID-19,supply chain,recession,recovery,globalization |
| JEL: | E32 E37 F47 F62 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cfswop:659&r= |
| By: | Klaus-Peter Hellwig |
| Abstract: | I use three decades of county-level data to estimate the effects of federal unemployment benefit extensions on economic activity. To overcome the reverse causality coming from the fact that benefit extensions are a function of state unemployment rates, I only use the within-state variation in outcomes to identify treatment effects. Identification rests on a differences-in-differences approach which exploits heterogeneity in county exposure to policy changes. To distinguish demand and supply-side channels, I estimate the model separately for tradable and non-tradable sectors. Finally I use benefit extensions as an instrument to estimate local fiscal multipliers of unemployment benefit transfers. I find (i) that the overall impact of benefit extensions on activity is positive, pointing to strong demand effects; (ii) that, even in tradable sectors, there are no negative supply-side effects from work disincentives; and (iii) a fiscal multiplier estimate of 1.92, similar to estimates in the literature for other types of spending. |
| Keywords: | Automatic stabilizers; Fiscal multiplier; Labor markets; benefit extension; State UI scheme; benefit duration; emergency unemployment compensation program; benefit transfer; state UI fund; Unemployment; Employment; Unemployment rate |
| Date: | 2021–03–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2021/070&r= |