The paper examines the behavior of monetary policy and the institutional organization of economic policy in Mexico during the years of financial liberalization and the outgrowth of the financial industry. It argues that these policies have favored monetary and financial stability at the cost of reducing investment and negatively affecting the strength of the productive structure and the international competitiveness of the economy. The paper argues that such negative results, with the passage of time, increase the odds that current monetary policy will become unable to pursue monetary and financial stability. Unlike other outstanding critical literature, the emphasis of our evaluation regarding current policy's negative consequences is on the reduction of public investment that the institutional organization of economic policy has produced, instead of the overvaluation of the real exchange rate. As a final point, the paper discusses how institutional organization can be reformed to avoid further weakening of the productive structure and international competitiveness of the Mexican economy.
{"title":"Monetary policy in liberalized financial markets: the Mexican case","authors":"Santiago Capraro, C. Panico","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.06","url":null,"abstract":"The paper examines the behavior of monetary policy and the institutional organization of economic policy in Mexico during the years of financial liberalization and the outgrowth of the financial industry. It argues that these policies have favored monetary and financial stability at the cost of reducing investment and negatively affecting the strength of the productive structure and the international competitiveness of the economy. The paper argues that such negative results, with the passage of time, increase the odds that current monetary policy will become unable to pursue monetary and financial stability. Unlike other outstanding critical literature, the emphasis of our evaluation regarding current policy's negative consequences is on the reduction of public investment that the institutional organization of economic policy has produced, instead of the overvaluation of the real exchange rate. As a final point, the paper discusses how institutional organization can be reformed to avoid further weakening of the productive structure and international competitiveness of the Mexican economy.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper argues that the application of loss aversion to wage determination can explain the deflation puzzle: the failure of persistently high unemployment to exert a persistent downward impact on the rate of inflation in money wages. This is an improvement on other theories of the deflation puzzle which simply assume downward wage rigidity, namely the hysteresis theory, the lubrication theory and the efficiency wage theory. The paper presents estimates that support the loss-aversion explanation of the deflation puzzle for both the US and Australia. Furthermore, our estimation approach gives a more precise estimate of the potential rate of unemployment than does the natural rate approach and reveals potential rates of unemployment for the US and Australia at the end of 2017 of about 4 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively.
{"title":"Can loss aversion shed light on the deflation puzzle?","authors":"Jenny N. Lye,Ian M. McDonald","doi":"10.4337/roke.2021.01.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2021.01.02","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that the application of loss aversion to wage determination can explain the deflation puzzle: the failure of persistently high unemployment to exert a persistent downward impact on the rate of inflation in money wages. This is an improvement on other theories of the deflation puzzle which simply assume downward wage rigidity, namely the hysteresis theory, the lubrication theory and the efficiency wage theory. The paper presents estimates that support the loss-aversion explanation of the deflation puzzle for both the US and Australia. Furthermore, our estimation approach gives a more precise estimate of the potential rate of unemployment than does the natural rate approach and reveals potential rates of unemployment for the US and Australia at the end of 2017 of about 4 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"122 3-4","pages":"11-42"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Mauro L. Baranzini and Amalia Mirante, Luigi L. Pasinetti: An Intellectual Biography (Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK 2018) 390 pp.","authors":"Daniele Schilirò","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.08","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"156-159"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper models a representative bank, and uses this model to explore the assumptions and implications of a selection of money-creation theories. It is shown that the money-supply process tends toward the logic of exogeneity as banks' fears about liquidity stress increases. At present, banks do not fear liquidity stress because central banks are operating under a floor system with a superabundance of reserves following unsterilized quantitative easing. Secondly, a role for a ‘central-bank digital currency’ is suggested as a useful complement to reserves policy in an economy with large or collusive banks.
{"title":"Money creation in the modern economy: an appraisal","authors":"J. Stevens","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.03","url":null,"abstract":"This paper models a representative bank, and uses this model to explore the assumptions and implications of a selection of money-creation theories. It is shown that the money-supply process tends toward the logic of exogeneity as banks' fears about liquidity stress increases. At present, banks do not fear liquidity stress because central banks are operating under a floor system with a superabundance of reserves following unsterilized quantitative easing. Secondly, a role for a ‘central-bank digital currency’ is suggested as a useful complement to reserves policy in an economy with large or collusive banks.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"43-60"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Liquidity trap economics seems to have fared particularly well on all counts of its predictions, in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Therefore, in this paper we evaluate formally the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy in a liquidity trap, based on data from Japan, the USA, and the eurozone over periods of liquidity trap conditions (1994–2018 for Japan and 2009–2018 for the USA and the eurozone). Under effective unconventional policies, changes in the base money-growth regime should be associated with similar regime changes in either inflation or investment expenditure growth and the estimation of a switching regimes model allows us to test whether significant joint regime shifts occur in the data. Also, a test of liquidity trap conditions is based on a discrepancy of regime shifts between growth rates of base money and broad money, since this implies a collapse of the money multiplier. Our findings show that drastic shifts in the growth rate of the monetary base do not produce similar behavior for the inflation rate, investment expenditure growth, and broad money growth, thus pointing to liquidity trap conditions and unconventional monetary policy ineffectiveness.
{"title":"Monetary policy effectiveness in the liquidity trap: a switching regimes approach","authors":"Dimitris G. Kirikos","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.07","url":null,"abstract":"Liquidity trap economics seems to have fared particularly well on all counts of its predictions, in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Therefore, in this paper we evaluate formally the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy in a liquidity trap, based on data from Japan, the USA, and the eurozone over periods of liquidity trap conditions (1994–2018 for Japan and 2009–2018 for the USA and the eurozone). Under effective unconventional policies, changes in the base money-growth regime should be associated with similar regime changes in either inflation or investment expenditure growth and the estimation of a switching regimes model allows us to test whether significant joint regime shifts occur in the data. Also, a test of liquidity trap conditions is based on a discrepancy of regime shifts between growth rates of base money and broad money, since this implies a collapse of the money multiplier. Our findings show that drastic shifts in the growth rate of the monetary base do not produce similar behavior for the inflation rate, investment expenditure growth, and broad money growth, thus pointing to liquidity trap conditions and unconventional monetary policy ineffectiveness.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"139-155"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Neoclassical economic theory views current-account imbalances as the result of (individual) decisions to save more than to invest domestically. Monetary analysis in the Keynesian tradition rejects such approaches and emphasizes that a country's net savings are the result, not the cause, of net selling of goods and services to foreigners. The latter, in turn, depends on global demand patterns and absolute advantages between countries. We complement this Keynesian approach, taking a closer look at the financial account of the balance of payments: a necessary condition for countries to net-sell goods and services to foreigners is the willingness of domestic sector(s) to accumulate net foreign assets. While previous analysis of global imbalances has partially discussed the role of central banks' reserve accumulation it has failed to incorporate the macroeconomic role of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). We analyse eight surplus countries' external positions and find that the public sector typically purchases and manages significant amounts of foreign assets via both central banks and SWFs. This, in turn, supports current-account surpluses. We then consider the particular case of Switzerland where, contrary to other surplus countries, public-sector purchases of foreign assets had been absent for a long time, yet set in massively after 2008.
{"title":"Explaining global imbalances: the role of central-bank intervention and the rise of sovereign wealth funds","authors":"Richard Senner, D. Sornette","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.04","url":null,"abstract":"Neoclassical economic theory views current-account imbalances as the result of (individual) decisions to save more than to invest domestically. Monetary analysis in the Keynesian tradition rejects such approaches and emphasizes that a country's net savings are the result, not the cause, of net selling of goods and services to foreigners. The latter, in turn, depends on global demand patterns and absolute advantages between countries. We complement this Keynesian approach, taking a closer look at the financial account of the balance of payments: a necessary condition for countries to net-sell goods and services to foreigners is the willingness of domestic sector(s) to accumulate net foreign assets. While previous analysis of global imbalances has partially discussed the role of central banks' reserve accumulation it has failed to incorporate the macroeconomic role of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). We analyse eight surplus countries' external positions and find that the public sector typically purchases and manages significant amounts of foreign assets via both central banks and SWFs. This, in turn, supports current-account surpluses. We then consider the particular case of Switzerland where, contrary to other surplus countries, public-sector purchases of foreign assets had been absent for a long time, yet set in massively after 2008.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"61-82"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: George Selgin, Floored! How a Misguided Fed Experiment Deepened and Prolonged the Great Recession (CATO Institute, Washington, DC, USA 2018) 230 pp.","authors":"A. Borazan","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.09","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"160-163"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
John Maynard Keynes's (1936) concept of ‘animal spirits’ or ‘spontaneous optimism’ as a major driving force in business fluctuations was motivated in part by his and his contemporaries' observations of human reactions to ambiguous situations where probabilities couldn't be quantified. We can add that in such ambiguous situations there is evidence that people let contagious popular narratives and the emotions they generate influence their economic decisions. These popular narratives are typically remote from factual bases, just contagious. Macroeconomic dynamic models must have a theory that is related to models of the transmission of disease in epidemiology. We need to take the contagion of narratives seriously in economic modeling if we are to improve our understanding of animal spirits and their impact on the economy.
{"title":"Print Email The Godley–Tobin memorial lecture","authors":"R. Shiller","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.01","url":null,"abstract":"John Maynard Keynes's (1936) concept of ‘animal spirits’ or ‘spontaneous optimism’ as a major driving force in business fluctuations was motivated in part by his and his contemporaries' observations of human reactions to ambiguous situations where probabilities couldn't be quantified. We can add that in such ambiguous situations there is evidence that people let contagious popular narratives and the emotions they generate influence their economic decisions. These popular narratives are typically remote from factual bases, just contagious. Macroeconomic dynamic models must have a theory that is related to models of the transmission of disease in epidemiology. We need to take the contagion of narratives seriously in economic modeling if we are to improve our understanding of animal spirits and their impact on the economy.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"1-10"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores the evolution of monetary policy at the People's Bank of China (PBoC) in the context of the distinct path China has adopted in fostering the international role of the renminbi. The paper highlights the challenges faced by the PBoC as it seeks to promote the use of the renminbi in international lending in particular, while simultaneously seeking to contain and discipline the inherent instability and potentially disruptive logic of finance. The problem it faces is not simply that of negotiating the impossible trinity, but rather the dilemma posed by its attempt to step out of the shadow of the US and forge an independent global role for the renminbi, while asserting control over the contours of its developing financial sector. The Chinese experiment tests the limits of the capacity of the state to tame finance.
{"title":"The evolution of China's monetary policy: on the horns of a dilemma","authors":"R. Vasudevan","doi":"10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ROKE.2021.01.05","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the evolution of monetary policy at the People's Bank of China (PBoC) in the context of the distinct path China has adopted in fostering the international role of the renminbi. The paper highlights the challenges faced by the PBoC as it seeks to promote the use of the renminbi in international lending in particular, while simultaneously seeking to contain and discipline the inherent instability and potentially disruptive logic of finance. The problem it faces is not simply that of negotiating the impossible trinity, but rather the dilemma posed by its attempt to step out of the shadow of the US and forge an independent global role for the renminbi, while asserting control over the contours of its developing financial sector. The Chinese experiment tests the limits of the capacity of the state to tame finance.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"83-108"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70742546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper provides an alternative view of monetary sovereignty (MS) from the Neo-Chartalist approach found in the Modern Money Theory literature. The differences between the author's approach to MS and Neo-Chartalism cover the following aspects: the nature of money, the acceptability of money, and the relationship between the central bank and the Treasury. The paper then analyses the relationship between MS, the currency hierarchy (CH), and policy space. The focus is placed on emerging-market economies. It is argued that emerging-market economies' policy space is determined by the interplay of two factors: the degree of MS and the position of national money (that encompasses the state and bank monies) within the CH.
{"title":"Beyond Modern Money Theory: a Post-Keynesian approach to the currency hierarchy, monetary sovereignty, and policy space","authors":"D. Prates","doi":"10.4337/roke.2020.04.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2020.04.03","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides an alternative view of monetary sovereignty (MS) from the Neo-Chartalist approach found in the Modern Money Theory literature. The differences between the author's approach to MS and Neo-Chartalism cover the following aspects: the nature of money, the acceptability of money, and the relationship between the central bank and the Treasury. The paper then analyses the relationship between MS, the currency hierarchy (CH), and policy space. The focus is placed on emerging-market economies. It is argued that emerging-market economies' policy space is determined by the interplay of two factors: the degree of MS and the position of national money (that encompasses the state and bank monies) within the CH.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4337/roke.2020.04.03","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47524144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}