Sunday, April 12, 2015

On the blogs

DRAFT For “Rethinking Macroeconomics” Conference Fiscal Policy Panel -- Brad DeLong says that government debts should be bigger, since the old Domar functional finance g>r rule indicates that governments in developed countries tended to be on the sustainable side of debt accumulation.

Macro teaching and the financial crisis -- Simon Wren-Lewis praises the Carlin and Soskice textbook. The new edition adds the stuff from their three equation model, and is probably the most up-to-date mainstream New Keynesian textbook around. I got my copy last month, and have many problems with the book, in particular the resistance of getting rid of the natural rate concept.

A Quick Point on Models  -- JW Mason on models. A bit older (I missed it), but worth reading. Yes models are about regularities, and you can measure capital for sure. BTW, what you cannot do, and Piketty does in his model, is to assume that there is a negative relation between capital intensity and its remuneration.

Notes on Frantz Fanon -- Branko Milanovic on why Fanon was all wrong, but you should still read it. I have my copy somewhere, that my mom gave me back in the 1980s. Not sure I would re-read as Branko did.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Matias, thanks a lot for your blog - I try not to miss a post. Is there a good Post Keynesian macro textbook that you would recommend ?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. Marc Lavoie's, which has a new edition, if I'm not wrong.

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  2. I agree with you re Piketty, but to me an even bigger problem is the assumption that the quantity of capital is equal to the cumulated investment less a stable, technologically determined depreciation rate. In principle his framework allows for variation in the profit rate, but if you throw out the idea that capital measured in money terms corresponds to some physical quantity then the whole thing falls apart.

    What do you think are the best articles/blogposts/whatever responding to Piketty?

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    Replies
    1. Haven't read any in a long time. I remember Jamie Galbraith and Lars Syll's as being good, and both are linked somewhere in the blog

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    2. What about Aspromourgos' review?

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    3. Did not see that one. But I like all his stuff. Do you have a link?

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  3. Here:
    http://www.centrosraffa.org/public/bbc90001-bb13-4313-955c-fd9e0ea2df62.pdf

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