|
on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Engelbert Stockhammer; José Tomás Labarca |
| Abstract: | Political economists highlight power relations in the economy and the coconstitution of state and economy, but often implicitly retain the conception of the state as a site of political practices and power struggles rather than as an economic actor and site of production. This paper contributes to a political economy framework that recognizes that political and economic practices take place in the market economy, the household, and the state. We categorize the dimensions of wide-ranging state economic practices. Defining productive activities as those that impact the volume of social production, we argue that some state activities are productive and highlight those providing social and physical infrastructures that are inputs in production processes. The state is not only an important economic player; it is also productive. |
| Keywords: | political economy; economic sociology; state; production; social infrastructure; physical infrastructure |
| JEL: | B50 H00 H11 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2521 |
| By: | Davis, John B. (Department of Economics Marquette University); (Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | Disadvantaged social groups in the US suffered disproportionately in the covid pandemic and Great Recession, worsening high levels of inequality associated with their post-1980 declining intergenerational income mobility. For black Americans this reflects the long history of racial discrimination beginning with slavery. Reparations paid to descendants of enslaved individuals to eliminate the black-white wealth gap is a step toward addressing this history. A further needed step is to build predominantly black communities human and social capital through public investments in community health care centers (CHCs) and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). There is considerable evidence that investments in early childhood education positively affect later school performance, income and earnings, higher education, crime, and other well-being outcomes. CHCs and HBCUs promote early childhood education. This paper argues compensation is due to both individuals and their communities, and reparations payments should be accompanied by public investments in those communities. |
| Keywords: | reparations, racial inequality, human capital, social capital, early childhood education, CHCs, HBCUs, restitutive justice, restorative justice |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I31 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2025-05 |
| By: | Rapetti, Martin |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the elusive notion of equilibrium in Keynes’s General Theory and its implications for subsequent interpretations of his work. Through a formal setup of the core relationships in the first eighteen chapters of the book, I show that Keynes’s model allows for multiple equilibria that critically depend on fixed nominal wages, expectations and confidence. While this structure resembles the IS-LM model, it diverges in its treatment of price flexibility, speculative motives in money demand, and the central role of expectations and confidence. The paper evaluates four possible interpretations of the General Theory, each arising from a different understanding of the notion of equilibrium in Keynes: (1) the neoclassical synthesis view, which relies on nominal wage rigidity; (2) a Tobinian view, in which macroeconomic equilibrium is unique but potentially unstable; (3) a social-norms view, where real rigidities à la Akerlof prevent wage adjustments and therefore multiple equilibria are possible; and (4) a Minskian interpretation that denies the existence of equilibrium altogether. The first interpretation is incompatible with the view expressed by Keynes in the General Theory. The other three, while clearly distinct from each other, are all compatible with Keynes’s argument—although they appear with varying degrees of clarity in the book. |
| Keywords: | Keynes, equilibrium, wage rigidity, expectations, General Theory |
| JEL: | B22 E12 E24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125912 |
| By: | Heise, Arne |
| Abstract: | This comment critically examines the recent claim by Alcobia and Barradas that the European Union follows a wage-led growth regime, warranting pro-labour policy intervention. While their findings support a clear policy stance, closer inspection reveals significant methodological and empirical shortcomings, including data limitations, panel heterogeneity, and questionable assumptions about causality. The paper challenges the robustness of their conclusions and questions whether functional income distribution can be effectively influenced by policy. It argues for greater theoretical caution and contextual sensitivity in policy recommendations, particularly given the unresolved ambiguities surrounding the wage- led/profit-led growth framework in diverse European economies. |
| Keywords: | Post Keynesian economics, functional income distribution, wage-led regime research |
| JEL: | C23 D33 E12 O47 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cessdp:325826 |
| By: | Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | Kuznets predicts an economy’s return to low inequality once structural transformation has peaked. I explore some headwinds to falling inequality in developing countries given their thorough engagement in the globalized market Kuznets could not have foreseen. Headwinds include plutocrats’ abuse of open capital markets to elude taxation; populism in rich countries that prevents migration of labor from less to more productive economies; and climate damage. On structural transformation: growth and urbanization in some countries, though less dramatic than for the first industrializers, indicate it is occurring. But in countries including India and Nigeria, the services-based transformation today’s global market now requires depends on a dramatic upgrade in the quality of basic education. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, globalization, plutocrats, populism, structural transformation |
| Date: | 2025–08–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:725 |