In recent decades, neo-mercantilism has become ubiquitous among small and large states. The conventional explanation for the appeal of an export-led growth regime has focused on the material interests of domestic growth coalitions. This article offers an alternative explanation for transition to export-led growth strategies, based on the geopolitical and territorial interests of states. It posits that states embrace a mercantilist export-led growth model because it aligns with their geopolitical objectives. The article demonstrates the geopolitical hypothesis based on the transition of Israel from a consumption-led to an export-led growth strategy after the end of the peace process and the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.
{"title":"The territorial logic of an export-led growth strategy: Israel’s regime change after the Second Intifada","authors":"A. Krampf","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2024.0125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2024.0125","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, neo-mercantilism has become ubiquitous among small and large states. The conventional explanation for the appeal of an export-led growth regime has focused on the material interests of domestic growth coalitions. This article offers an alternative explanation for transition to export-led growth strategies, based on the geopolitical and territorial interests of states. It posits that states embrace a mercantilist export-led growth model because it aligns with their geopolitical objectives. The article demonstrates the geopolitical hypothesis based on the transition of Israel from a consumption-led to an export-led growth strategy after the end of the peace process and the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"322 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139635991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines the emergence of private debt-led growth in Canada since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) by means of a growth regimes and macroeconomic policy regime assessment. Examining each of the four business cycles in the 1983–2020 period, roughly encompassing the entirety of the neoliberal period, results demonstrate the emergence of a ‘rising’ weakly export-led growth regime in the early 1990s, a shift to a ‘falling’ weakly export-led regime by 2001, and a turn to a debt-led private demand regime since the GFC. The macroeconomic policy regime then identifies the structural changes and policy factors that have contributed to Canada’s shifting growth regime. While price competitiveness played an important role in the first three cycles, it failed to re-establish an export-led regime in the post-GFC period due to decreased non-price competitiveness. Instead, the post-GFC combination of low real interest rates, which encouraged the accumulation of private debt and fiscal policy, which ex post did not address the negative financial balances of the household sector, supported the turn to private debt-led growth.
{"title":"From export boom to private debt bubble: a macroeconomic policy regime assessment of Canada’s shifting growth regime","authors":"Theodore Klassen","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0114","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the emergence of private debt-led growth in Canada since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) by means of a growth regimes and macroeconomic policy regime assessment. Examining each of the four business cycles in the 1983–2020 period, roughly encompassing the entirety of the neoliberal period, results demonstrate the emergence of a ‘rising’ weakly export-led growth regime in the early 1990s, a shift to a ‘falling’ weakly export-led regime by 2001, and a turn to a debt-led private demand regime since the GFC. The macroeconomic policy regime then identifies the structural changes and policy factors that have contributed to Canada’s shifting growth regime. While price competitiveness played an important role in the first three cycles, it failed to re-establish an export-led regime in the post-GFC period due to decreased non-price competitiveness. Instead, the post-GFC combination of low real interest rates, which encouraged the accumulation of private debt and fiscal policy, which ex post did not address the negative financial balances of the household sector, supported the turn to private debt-led growth.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"319 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140521136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.4337/ejeep.2023.03.09
Marc Lavoie
{"title":"Book review: Toporowski, Jan (2022): Interest and Capital: The Monetary Economics of Michał Kalecki, Oxford (208 pages, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0198816232)","authors":"Marc Lavoie","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.03.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.03.09","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"143 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139189455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.4337/ejeep.2023.03.10
Junaid Jahangir
{"title":"Book review: Jin, Keyu (2023): The New China Playbook, New York (368 pages, Viking, hardcover, ISBN-13: 978-1984878281)","authors":"Junaid Jahangir","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.03.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.03.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"32 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139188605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karsten Kohler, Benjamin Tippet, Engelbert Stockhammer
The paper provides a framework for theorising the role of house price cycles in national growth models. We synthesise Minskyan approaches with comparative political economy (CPE) by arguing that institutions influence the extent to which countries experience what we call ‘house-price-driven growth models’. First, we argue that house price dynamics have been undertheorised in existing growth models analysis. Finance-led models can be properly understood only against the background of rising house prices that stimulate consumption through wealth effects and investment through construction. Second, we identify behavioural and Minskyan theories of housing cycles as suitable frameworks to theorise the impact of housing on growth. However, this literature does not provide an analysis of cross-country differences in housing cycles. Third, drawing on the CPE literature on housing systems, we argue that factors such as private homeownership and mortgage-credit encouraging institutions can explain differences in the intensity of housing cycles. We provide preliminary empirical support for this framework from a cross-country analysis. Our results show strong cross-country heterogeneity in the intensity of housing cycles. Countries with more intense house price cycles also tend to exhibit more volatile business and debt cycles. Homeownership rates and mortgage-credit encouraging institutions are positively correlated with the volatility of house price cycles.
{"title":"House price cycles, housing systems, and growth models","authors":"Karsten Kohler, Benjamin Tippet, Engelbert Stockhammer","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0121","url":null,"abstract":"The paper provides a framework for theorising the role of house price cycles in national growth models. We synthesise Minskyan approaches with comparative political economy (CPE) by arguing that institutions influence the extent to which countries experience what we call ‘house-price-driven growth models’. First, we argue that house price dynamics have been undertheorised in existing growth models analysis. Finance-led models can be properly understood only against the background of rising house prices that stimulate consumption through wealth effects and investment through construction. Second, we identify behavioural and Minskyan theories of housing cycles as suitable frameworks to theorise the impact of housing on growth. However, this literature does not provide an analysis of cross-country differences in housing cycles. Third, drawing on the CPE literature on housing systems, we argue that factors such as private homeownership and mortgage-credit encouraging institutions can explain differences in the intensity of housing cycles. We provide preliminary empirical support for this framework from a cross-country analysis. Our results show strong cross-country heterogeneity in the intensity of housing cycles. Countries with more intense house price cycles also tend to exhibit more volatile business and debt cycles. Homeownership rates and mortgage-credit encouraging institutions are positively correlated with the volatility of house price cycles.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"77 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139187613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper develops two Sraffian supermultiplier models of two different kinds of economies that are dependent upon foreign direct investment (FDI): the ‘export platform FDI-led’ growth model and the ‘tax haven FDI-led’ growth model. The former is driven by the growth of the exports of foreign-owned firms and is associated with greenfield FDI inflows, whereas the latter is driven by the growth of profits booked at foreign-owned shell companies that are partly absorbed through taxation and is associated with intangible FDI inflows. The two models achieve demand, output, and income growth via fundamentally different channels yet appear similarly export-led given how profit shifting artificially inflates the net exports of tax havens. Based on these models, a set of empirical indicators are proposed to differentiate export-platform from tax haven economies. In contrast to Bohle/Regan (2021), who characterise output growth in both Hungary and Ireland as being led by the exports of foreign-owned firms, the model and indicators proposed here support the hypothesis that Ireland is closer to the tax haven FDI-led growth model whereas Hungary is better approximated by the export platform FDI-led model.
{"title":"FDI-led growth models: Sraffian supermultiplier models of export platforms and tax havens","authors":"Ryan Woodgate","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0110","url":null,"abstract":"This paper develops two Sraffian supermultiplier models of two different kinds of economies that are dependent upon foreign direct investment (FDI): the ‘export platform FDI-led’ growth model and the ‘tax haven FDI-led’ growth model. The former is driven by the growth of the exports of foreign-owned firms and is associated with greenfield FDI inflows, whereas the latter is driven by the growth of profits booked at foreign-owned shell companies that are partly absorbed through taxation and is associated with intangible FDI inflows. The two models achieve demand, output, and income growth via fundamentally different channels yet appear similarly export-led given how profit shifting artificially inflates the net exports of tax havens. Based on these models, a set of empirical indicators are proposed to differentiate export-platform from tax haven economies. In contrast to Bohle/Regan (2021), who characterise output growth in both Hungary and Ireland as being led by the exports of foreign-owned firms, the model and indicators proposed here support the hypothesis that Ireland is closer to the tax haven FDI-led growth model whereas Hungary is better approximated by the export platform FDI-led model.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"49 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139191529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael Schedelik, A. Nölke, Christian May, Alexandre Gomes
The growth model perspective has provided avenues for bridging comparative and international political economy, mainly regarding the Global Financial Crisis and developments within the eurozone. This article aims to contribute to this endeavor by highlighting the joint effects of capital flows and commodity price swings on growth models in emerging capitalist economies. While the literature on dependent financialization has primarily focused on debt-led growth in the Global South, we spell out the negative implications of commodity-based export-led growth. To this end, we first present a stylized depiction of commodity dependence and provide descriptive statistical evidence of its global prevalence. Subsequently, we trace the co-movement of capital flows to emerging economies and commodity prices. We argue that this ‘commodity–finance nexus’ reinforces the pro-cyclical nature of commodity-based growth, financial volatility, and the vulnerability to global boom–bust cycles. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the conventional method for establishing growth models by calculating the relative contributions to growth is ill-suited to capture the commodity-based export-led growth model of highly commodity-dependent economies. Finally, we identify commodity price movements and fiscal policies as major drivers of growth, with an important role for domestic politics as an intervening variable.
{"title":"Dependency revisited: commodities, commodity-related capital flows and growth models in emerging economies","authors":"Michael Schedelik, A. Nölke, Christian May, Alexandre Gomes","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0107","url":null,"abstract":"The growth model perspective has provided avenues for bridging comparative and international political economy, mainly regarding the Global Financial Crisis and developments within the eurozone. This article aims to contribute to this endeavor by highlighting the joint effects of capital flows and commodity price swings on growth models in emerging capitalist economies. While the literature on dependent financialization has primarily focused on debt-led growth in the Global South, we spell out the negative implications of commodity-based export-led growth. To this end, we first present a stylized depiction of commodity dependence and provide descriptive statistical evidence of its global prevalence. Subsequently, we trace the co-movement of capital flows to emerging economies and commodity prices. We argue that this ‘commodity–finance nexus’ reinforces the pro-cyclical nature of commodity-based growth, financial volatility, and the vulnerability to global boom–bust cycles. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the conventional method for establishing growth models by calculating the relative contributions to growth is ill-suited to capture the commodity-based export-led growth model of highly commodity-dependent economies. Finally, we identify commodity price movements and fiscal policies as major drivers of growth, with an important role for domestic politics as an intervening variable.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139193437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper aims to contribute to the literature on growth regimes by combining an operationalization of growth regimes based on growth contributions and sectoral financial balances with an analysis of dominant social blocs (DSBs). We propose the concept of a growth strategy to bridge the political and actor-oriented sphere with the macroeconomic sphere. We employ this framework to analyze the cases of Poland and Turkey. The study identifies a transition from a domestic demand-led regime to a weakly export-led regime in Poland, while Turkey experienced a shift from a domestic demand-led regime to a debt-led private demand regime and subsequently towards a weakly export-led regime, too. Both countries’ new DSBs pursue export-led growth strategies, but Poland’s strategy focuses on non-price competitiveness while Turkey relies on price competitiveness. We lay out the differences between the strategies in terms of policies and the capital fractions supporting them.
{"title":"Growth regimes, dominant social blocs and growth strategies: towards varieties of export-led growth regimes and strategies in Turkey and Poland","authors":"Ümit Akçay, Benjamin Jungmann","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0123","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to contribute to the literature on growth regimes by combining an operationalization of growth regimes based on growth contributions and sectoral financial balances with an analysis of dominant social blocs (DSBs). We propose the concept of a growth strategy to bridge the political and actor-oriented sphere with the macroeconomic sphere. We employ this framework to analyze the cases of Poland and Turkey. The study identifies a transition from a domestic demand-led regime to a weakly export-led regime in Poland, while Turkey experienced a shift from a domestic demand-led regime to a debt-led private demand regime and subsequently towards a weakly export-led regime, too. Both countries’ new DSBs pursue export-led growth strategies, but Poland’s strategy focuses on non-price competitiveness while Turkey relies on price competitiveness. We lay out the differences between the strategies in terms of policies and the capital fractions supporting them.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"61 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139194861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The European Union (EU) and Germany were already being confronted with rapidly changing dynamics on the economic, ecological, and technological terrains prior to the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic, however, has fully exposed critical global value chain (GVC) dependencies, jeopardising the already troubled automotive industry. By employing a historical-institutional and a pre- and post-Covid-19 industrial policy analysis, this article finds that, despite previous attempts, it was during the height of the pandemic that the implementation of green and digital industrial policy gained significant political support in Germany and the EU. In this context, there is an increased relevance of vertical industrial policy, which is geared towards the ‘twin transition’, partly altering the primarily horizontal industrial policy framework manifested in the post-Maastricht period.
{"title":"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on industrial policy in Germany and the European Union – the case of the automotive industry","authors":"Helena Gräf, Salome Topuria","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0112","url":null,"abstract":"The European Union (EU) and Germany were already being confronted with rapidly changing dynamics on the economic, ecological, and technological terrains prior to the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic, however, has fully exposed critical global value chain (GVC) dependencies, jeopardising the already troubled automotive industry. By employing a historical-institutional and a pre- and post-Covid-19 industrial policy analysis, this article finds that, despite previous attempts, it was during the height of the pandemic that the implementation of green and digital industrial policy gained significant political support in Germany and the EU. In this context, there is an increased relevance of vertical industrial policy, which is geared towards the ‘twin transition’, partly altering the primarily horizontal industrial policy framework manifested in the post-Maastricht period.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139352771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bruno De Conti, Hansjörg Herr, Praveen Jha, Z. Nettekoven
Theoretical analysis, empirical development and case studies show that room to manoeuvre stabilising macroeconomic policies during the COVID-19 crisis in the years 2020 and 2021 were fundamentally different in the Global South and Global North. The latter used extensive discretionary fiscal and monetary policy, whereas the former used monetary policy only in a very limited way and fiscal policy to a much smaller extent than in the Global North. While the main reason for this difference is, inter alia, the position of countries in the global hierarchy of currencies, the political orientation of governments in general and towards COVID-19 also played a significant role. The income effects of the pandemic for the poor in Germany were moderate, but disastrous in the Global South, as evidenced by case studies on Brazil and especially India. As a result, the global pandemic added to the trend of increasing inequalities in income and wealth distribution, both within and between countries. Some shortcomings of policies during the pandemic include not raising taxes on higher income or wealth groups, implementing steps towards a global tax system or supporting international capital controls to increase the space for national policies.
{"title":"Macroeconomic policy and policy spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic – case studies from Germany, Brazil and India","authors":"Bruno De Conti, Hansjörg Herr, Praveen Jha, Z. Nettekoven","doi":"10.4337/ejeep.2023.0111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2023.0111","url":null,"abstract":"Theoretical analysis, empirical development and case studies show that room to manoeuvre stabilising macroeconomic policies during the COVID-19 crisis in the years 2020 and 2021 were fundamentally different in the Global South and Global North. The latter used extensive discretionary fiscal and monetary policy, whereas the former used monetary policy only in a very limited way and fiscal policy to a much smaller extent than in the Global North. While the main reason for this difference is, inter alia, the position of countries in the global hierarchy of currencies, the political orientation of governments in general and towards COVID-19 also played a significant role. The income effects of the pandemic for the poor in Germany were moderate, but disastrous in the Global South, as evidenced by case studies on Brazil and especially India. As a result, the global pandemic added to the trend of increasing inequalities in income and wealth distribution, both within and between countries. Some shortcomings of policies during the pandemic include not raising taxes on higher income or wealth groups, implementing steps towards a global tax system or supporting international capital controls to increase the space for national policies.","PeriodicalId":504521,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies Intervention","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139352486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}