Economists do not understand inflation. Daniel K. Tarullo. Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board should surely be in a position to know. I will list some key conclusions from his paper with the revealing title: Monetary Policy Without a Working Theory of Inflation:
We do not, at present, have a theory of inflation dynamics that works sufficiently well to be of use for the business of real-time monetary policy-making
Many … good monetary policymakers … have an almost instinctual attachment to some of those problematic concepts and hard-to-estimate variables.
(Nonetheless!) Going forward, monetary policy decisions will need to be made with as much, if not more, emphasis on the constellation of observable indicators with which the FOMC is confronted
(Despite all this!) Macroeconomists (should) continue to play a decidedly leading role.
The italicized words are mine, not in Tarullo’s paper. If we pause to reflect, these are breathtaking conclusions. Tarullo says — quite clearly and explicitly — that current theories of inflation are NOT of use for real-time monetary policy. Furthermore, despite their evident failure, economists are blindly attached to these theories — they are “unmoved by lack of correspondence between their theories and facts of observation“. But, regardless of these, for reasons that I could not fathom, Tarullo advocates going forward with using current constellation of observable indicators, and having the blind macro-economists continue to play a leading role in monetary policy decision making.
The real reason that economists do not understand inflation is because it is an outcome of the class struggle between laborers and capitalists. This topic is taboo in conventional economic theory — it has been ruled out of bounds of the subject, and to study it is to commit professional suicide. My post on “Marxism Revisited” shows how graduate students are taught to ridicule and hold Marxist theories in contempt. As an illustration, the Daniel Tarullo article cited above does not mention the conflict theory, even though he surveys all theories of inflation to show that they do not work. Like Vol-de-Mort, the conflict theory cannot even be named in order to be rejected.
Let me mention that it was in the process of teaching Macro from the MMT Textbook by Mitchell, Wray and Watts that I first came across this theory, which makes eminent sense. The heterodoxy has such a low profile that I did not even know about the existence of this theory until recently. According to the conflict theory, the workers demand higher wages in order to get a bigger share in the revenue pie. Firms usually find it easier to meet their demand and pass on the prices via markup pricing, rather than resist demands and risk a strike. This creates a spiral, as workers try to regain real wages lost due to inflation. There are many reasons why this story disagrees with neoclassical views. For one thing, the marginal productivity theory suggests that each party — capitalist and laborers — get exactly what they deserve in terms of marginal product. Furthermore, this share is technologically fixed, so that a struggle cannot take place. Even though the theory is absurd and easily refuted both empirically and theoretically, it continues to occupy dominant position in neoclassical textbooks. For a theoretical refutation, see my post on “Simple Model Explains Complex Keynesian Concepts“ which shows that with a Leontief type production function, both the marginal product of capital and labor is the same at the total marginal product, so sharing between the two must be based on different principles — relative power of the two parties or the institutional structures which is often a concrete embodiment of this abstract power. Each factor cannot get its own marginal product because this would be twice the marginal revenue.
The 45m Video Lecture below on Employment and Inflation goes through Chapter 11 of the Mitchell, Wray, and Watts Intro to MMT textbook. This deals with evolving conceptions of the Phillips curve and the central role it has played in the making of Monetary Policy. In particular, the chapter documents how wrong theories of inflation have guided monetary policy with DISASTROUS effects. Even though inflation has been successfully controlled, the costs in terms of low growth and high unemployment have been extremely high. Again the conflict theory predicts this outcome, as the costs of this type of monetary policy have been paid by the powerless labor class, while the benefits are enjoyed by the powerful capitalist class.
For access to lecture notes, slides, and other course materials for my Advanced Macroeconomics course, use the link below:
SADLY, it is true that ‘money makes the world go round’. But, it is also true that very few people understand how. This article is an attempt at explaining the basics of our global trading system.
A good starting point is the Bretton-Woods conference which took place in 1944, while the Second World War was still raging. The two World Wars had drained the treasuries of the European states, making the gold standard impossible to maintain. An entirely new system had to be created to enable global trade for the post-War era. At the Bretton-Woods conference, the most sensible proposal for the global trading system was created and advocated by John Maynard Keynes. Unfortunately, the political power of the United States enabled it to quash this proposal. Instead, gold was replaced by the dollar standard, with the proviso that dollars could be exchanged for gold.
When the Vietnam War forced the US to print an excessive amount of dollars, president Richard Nixon declared in 1971 that dollars would no longer be backed by gold, creating a brave new world of currencies without any backing. Just like a fixed exchange rate is the natural consequence of pegging currencies to dollar or gold, so too a floating exchange rate system emerges naturally when there are no pegs for any currency
Today, the dollar is at the centre of the global trading system, and is as good as gold once was. Everyone needs dollars as reserves to back up their currencies. To acquire dollars, all countries other than the US, must strive to increase exports — this is how one earns dollars. The US can increase imports just by printing dollars, while the rest of world exports goods and services to earn dollars. Because dollars are the gold of the modern financial system, the US can print money without adverse consequences. For instance, the US printed trillions of dollars to finance the Iraq war, and other trillions to bail out the financial sector from the global financial crisis that was created by it.
If we pause to reflect, the consequences of the dollar-based global trading system are truly breathtaking. Because of mutual dependencies, no one can opt out of the global trading system. Everyone within the system needs dollars, and must strive to increase exports, in order to earn dollars. Net exports cannot increase, and cannot earn dollars, unless the US increases imports. In this financial colonisation of the world, everyone must strive to pay tributes in terms of goods to the US, while the latter country prints dollars to pay for them.
For anyone who falls behind in their payments of tributes, the IMF is there to ‘help out’ by extending a loan, which puts the borrowers deeper in debt enslavement. The results of this system whereby the US prints dollars in return for tributes in real goods provided by the rest of the world are obvious in terms of the immense disparities between American levels of consumption and those of the rest of the world.
A rough measure of how much tribute has been extracted is the current level the US debt, which is $21tr. About $15tr of this total amount has been acquired since 2000. As a benchmark for comparison, note that the world GDP, excluding the US, was around $60tr dollars in 2017. Many more details are required for a more accurate calculation of benefits which accrue to the US due to this dollar-based global trading system, which requires all of us to work hard at increasing exports, while the US printing presses work hard to print dollars to pay for them.
What can be done to replace this immensely lopsided and unjust global trading system, which gives tremendous benefits to the US at the expense of the rest of the world? The first opportunity was lost — rather, suppressed — when Keynes’ proposal for a symmetric trading system was rejected at the Bretton-Woods conference. Keynes’s original proposal continues to be attractive to this day, but many new ideas for how to structure global trading have also emerged over the past few decades.
There are two main concepts at the heart of all such proposals, which differentiate them from the current system. In any fair trading system which treats all countries equally, the target for all countries would be to balance exports and imports. The second concept is to place the burden of adjustment on countries with excess exports as well as those with excess imports. This is more equitable than the current system which places all the burden on the weaker country. With the emergence of China and the European Union as major players, the time is ripe for the demise of the dollar. With multiple centres of economic power, we may hope for a transition to a more equitable global trading system.
Global warming and global CO2 emissions are interconnected. In 2018, heatwaves were observed in Europe, Asia, North America and northern Africa, while the extent of Arctic sea ice has been continuously dropping. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the last four years (2015-2018) have been the warmest years on record. In particular, between January and October 2018, global average temperature increased 0.98 degrees Celsius above the levels of 1850-1900. If this trend continues, temperatures may rise by 3-5 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Global CO2 emissions have also been increasing in the last years. China and the US together account for more than 40% of the global total CO2 emissions, according to 2017 data from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. After the withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement, the US’s environmental policy shifted to a pro-fossil fuels agenda on behalf of the need to overcome the disadvantage of American businesses and workers. Trump called climate change a “very, very expensive form of tax”. Fossil fuel lobbies in Saudi Arabia, Russia and Canada are powerful forces against government climate policies. Besides, it cna be hoghlighted that Aistralia is still dependent on coal exports.
In this global setting, where there has been noted a rise in investments in coal, the challenges and possibilities of effective global agreements have turned out to be more complex. The scenario of the COP 24 certainly reveals these tensions. The current Conference of the Parties (COP) in Katowice has been announced as the most critical on climate change since the 2015 Paris Agreement that pledged to keep temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In 2017, global emissions were 53.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide while the promises made in 2015 amounted 53 billion tons up to 2030.
The United Nations 2018 report warned that, in 2030, global greenhouse gas emissions could be between 13 billion and 15 billion tonnes higher than the level required to keep global warming within 2 degrees Celsius. Indeed, policy makers are currently at pressure to make progress since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 report also highlighted that it is urgent to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In this attempt, governments should have to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by around 25 percent and 55 percent lower than 2017 to limit global warming to 2 degrees and 1.5 degrees Celsius respectively.
Considering this background, climate finance can be a tool to accelerate effective de-carbonization of the economy by means of a) progress on energy efficiency, b) decarbonisation, c) electrification carbon capture and storage, d) afforestation and reforestation. Overall, global and local investments in electricity continue to fall far short of what is needed to close the energy access gap. In Africa and Asia, while international private finance more than doubled from the 2013-14 level to amount USD 2.9 billion in 2015-16, international public finance declined from USD 10.5 billion in 2013-14 to USD 8.8 billion in 2015-16.
In terms of technologies, more than half of total amount of finance committed to electricity in 2015-16 was related to renewable projects, mainly on-shore wind and solar PV. Although there has been a huge amount of investment in renewable energy technologies, the scaling up global investment requires declining prices for renewables. However, in the same period, investments in coal plants increased in Africa and Asia, from USD 2.8 billion in 2013-14 to USD 6.8 billion in 2015-16. Philippines, India, Bangladesh and Kenia have received a large part of the financing commitments in 2015-16.
As a matter of fact the recent trends call for a reflection on climate change and the deleterious effects of the main features of contemporary capitalism. First, the commodification of natural resources is a feature of the long-run process of financial expansion characterized as the financialization of the capitalist economy where social vulnerabilities have increased – mainly in developing countries. Second, market deregulation opened up new energy investment patterns in a context where institutional investors have assumed an active role in the selection of high profit potential projects. Under the expansion of monopoly-capital, energy investments and policies could pass down social and environmental safeguards.
Today, restructuring energy policies to face climate change require comprehensive solutions in order to include issues related to regulation and finance, technology and innovation, governance and politics, besides environment and social inclusion. There is the need to overcome the lack of articulation between governments and the private sector in order to promote changes in investment patterns and to face education challenges towards a green economy.
Despite the threats and challenges, climate change has still little impact on today’s economics education. However, an understanding of modern economies cannot be arrived at without an understanding on of how climate change touches on development theories. Taking into account the relevance of these issues, some contemporary discussions should be included in the economics curriculum, such as: Which are the main features of a green economy? Which alternative energy technologies and policies can be implemented in the short-run to de-carbon the global economy? How can green policies be articulated to job creation policies? Which are the sources of finance of low-carbon innovations? Can be a green economy competitive in the global trade system? Which should be the foundations of a low-carbon international political economy?
Most people admire and appreciate my educational credentials — BS Math 1974 from MIT completed in 3 years at age of 19, and Ph.D. Econ 1978 from Stanford at age 23. They would find it difficult to imagine that it has taken me decades of life experience to recover from the damage that this education has done to me. The damage was done in so many different dimensions that it is hard to even catalog the whole list. However, before explaining this in greater detail, I must answer some questions which immediately arise whenever I make such statements.
Q1: Do I regret having had this education? To the contrary, I deeply appreciate having had this chance for training at the finest educational institutions that currently exist in the world. This type of education currently shapes minds and thinking of people all over the planet. Without having it, I would be…
The outcome of all this discussion can be summarized metaphorically by saying that we all use glasses to see the world. The direct world out there is a jumble of sensations – a matrix of points – which makes no sense by itself, and must be interpreted using our own frameworks, represented by the glasses. This means that ALL observations are tinged with subjectivity, and interpreted within the frameworks created by our past experiences, successes and failures, in viewing the world.
A paradigm shift occurs if we remove the glasses we use to view the world, and instead put on a different pair of glasses. A famous experiment conducted by Professor Theodor Erismann, of the University of Innsbruck put reversing glasses on his student and assistant Ivo Kohler. It caused extreme disorientation and discomfort at first, but after about a week of stumbling around, he adapted to this new way of seeing the world. His subjective interpretative equipment learned to interpret the reversed image by performing an additional reversal within the brain to arrive at a correct image of the world. Now, when the glasses were removed, the world appeared to be upside down to Ivo. On a much larger scale, this is what happened in Europe due to the Great Transformation[1] which transformed traditional society to a market society, where everything is viewed a commodity for sale. Later, these ways of thinking were spread throughout the world by colonization and Western education. We learned to value everything according to its market price, and forgot that the most precious things cannot be purchased. Then it became easy to kill a million children, and destroy entire nations, for corporate profits.
We can now understand the extreme difficulty of creating a paradigm shift. For those who have spent lifetimes learning to see the world with a specific pair of glasses, these glasses become melded into the flesh, and are impossible to remove. After failing to convince his contemporaries about his Quantum theory, Max Planck disappointedly realized that science progresses one funeral at a time. Thomas Kuhn also noted that paradigm shifts do not occur by converting those faithful to the old paradigm, but by inducting the young into the new worldview. Unlike the older generation, for younger and more flexible minds, it is possible to take off glasses manufactured in the Euclidean factory, and put on non-Euclidean glasses. Nonetheless, it is still a disconcerting and uncomfortable experience, which will not be undertaken unless there is some expectation of a great reward for this struggle and sacrifice. The costs of paradigm shift must be paid upfront – one loses the ability to talk to the mainstream when one describes the world using an alien framework. The rewards are in the future, and highly speculative and uncertain. Nonetheless, for reasons explained elsewhere,[2] it seems essential to make the effort – the survival of humanity is at stake. read more
IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS: Article ends as above, but there are some very important implications that follow from this analysis. The first is that there are no objective facts. This strikes at the core of Logical Positivism. LP takes the observations as concrete, objective reality out there, which is independent of the subjective viewer. While it is likely true that there is an objective reality, our only access to this reality is using our own subjective apparatus for sensing reality, and what we see is the product of THREE factors — Objective Reality, Sensing Apparatus, Interpretation — two of these factors are subjective, and are inevitably jumbled. It is impossible to extricate an objective reality.
When this was posted earlier as “Radical Paradigm Shifts” on RWER, there were 117 comments. Many of the commentators thought that THEY had the objective facts, the right model, they were frustrated at the inability of others to see what was so obvious, and thought that my article explained why. The realization that NO ONE has access to objective reality leads to a dramatic shift in perspective. What appears as objective reality to me (due to my failure to distinguish between my glasses, and what is out there), is just a subjective recreation, a picture in my mind. No one else can see this picture. So all effort at “explaining” is an effort at persuading others to look at the world from MY point of view. This means that FIRST we must appeal to the hearts of the people, to persuade them to listen to us, and to make the effort to see the world from my point of view. . However when we are in possession of facts (when we mistake our subjecive interpretation for objective reality), then those who do not agree with us are blind to reality, and insane (unable to see plain facts or use simple logic). The idea that there are objective facts, and that I can access them leads to arrogance. Subjectivity, and the need to persuade others to think like us requires humility.
Some weeks ago, Will Doherty sent to me an interesting introduction to the Light Board pedadogy that I will share with you today. The Light Boad is a teaching device that can be used in order to create dynamic digital lectures.
by Will Doherty, The “Light Board” is a Teaching Device for On Line Lectures
Presenting the new teaching device
Student attention, learning retention is the key to teaching. The moment you turn your back and write on the white board or flip chart you disengage with the audience. Imagine a method where you can avoid this by writing on glass, facing the audience with the message being seen and read at the same time on both sides. This is the Light Board.
Professors Matt Anderson and Michael Peshkin are the founders of the Light Board concept. Together these experts developed a new approach that allows freedom to free script as well as show and annotate Power Point images. Their research and experience has confirmed how the Light Board can benefit STEM related subjects.
In the UK, a smaller version: Mini Light Board (MLB) by Will Doherty.. Designed for the low budget market, it lends itself to High Education tutors and teachers. Ideal for coaching and tutoring students in on line courses or classes, the Light Board and Skype can make learning interactive and adaptable to any subject. The MLB can be built for under £100.
This device can also be used in on line teaching and interaction with students in remote areas. An example includes teaching “real time” from a base in Edinburgh or Glasgow reaching out to the Outer Hebrides, Shetland, Orkney Islands or Scandinavia. If the students and the teachers have a Light Board both can show and tell, demonstrate and see. Free scripting can take place allowing scribbles, drawing and demonstration.
2. Why is significant?
Light board and similiar tools such as the MBL offer a way to create videos that complement flipped classrooms and other online or hybrid learning models. These videos can provide highly effective assistance for problem explanations, homework explication, and course review. Those who frequently explain or lecture using a board may find these tools a natural fit for presentation.
As such, it can help overcome the reservations of instructors who are uneasy about video production. In addition, the technology presents new opportunities for creative use as presenters annotate images or video. These simple and elegant tools enable lecturers to face the camera while illustrating and annotating their talk, making the content both easier for the viewer to follow and more interesting to watch.
Although the technology is meant to enable quick video production, some recordings might still require some postproduction video editing and encoding. Therefore, it is desirable for videos to be completed in a single take, obliging those using this technology to carefully plan their presentations.
3. Implications for teaching and learning
Light board and similar tools like the MLB meet the student’s need for clear and informative lecture capture while offering the instructor a quick and effective method of video production that includes visual aids. The technology is especially valuable for instructors in economics, who often work through formulae or explain complex processes using diagrams and illustrations.
The resulting lectures are easy to watch and the lecturer’s face remains a natural part of the presentation.
4. Workshops on the MLB
The MLB project has been launched and trialled at Manchester and Strathclyde University in order to support on line learning and creativity by moving away from bullet point slides to interactive free hand scripting.
In 2017 a workshop was held at Manchester University, Turing Institute. Here senior lecturers identified how the mini light board will help with on line Maths tutorials both UK and overseas. Several of the lecturers carry out voluntary work teaching Maths to students across Africa and this will help with the delivery and learning.
Some months ago, in 2018, Strathclyde University hosted the first Mini Light Board workshop. Lecturers and senior managers attended the workshop to learn and see how the MLB concept could augment their on line lecturing strategy as well as build a proto type mini version. The day was succesful, the team developed their own new prototype which is now being tested throughout Scotland. During the plenary discussion students identified new applications and enhancements for the MLB also in the primary school market.
As the Light Board teaching concept has provenance from the USA market, more evidence is certainly need on how we can use and apply it to augment existing teaching pedagogies in the UK and other countries.
About Will Doherty: Lecturer and University Staff Governor Blackburn College, Programme Leader BA (Hons) Business & HRM Lancaster University Programme, Author and Business Consultant. Among his articles and publicatoons: Introduction to Light Board Pedagogy , Copyright theft, Why Training Doesn’t Work!, Why Have an L&D Dept?, Development Needs Analysis, Global Businesses Need global standards.
Previous post on Lecture 8A covers first 17m of video lecture in Advanced Macro — explains how different ways of articulating the micro-foundations for Keynesian Macro Concepts leads to dramatically different Macro Outcome.
This post is Lecture 8B — from 17m to 37m of video lecture linked at bottom of post. It attempts to make sense of the Keynesian explanation of unemployment based on insufficient aggregate demand. It concludes that several elements missing from Keynes must be added to get to a satisfactory explanation.
Friedman’s Methodology leads to crazy models: In previous post ( Lecture 8A – Microfoundations for Keynesian Economics ), we showed that even small differences in the micro-foundations could lead to very large differences in the macro outcomes. Depending on how we choose micro-foundations, we can get almost any result we like at the macro level. So the question arises: HOW should we construct our micro-foundations? How can we choose among the wide variety of possible micro-structures. This leads to a very serious methodological issue of what models are and how they relate to reality. On this topic, see my detailed discussion in post on “Models and Reality“. Briefly, the standard POV adopted in neoclassical textbooks is that the only job of models is the provide a match to observations. The inner details of the models can be arbitrary. However neoclassical economists insist that a good model must have optimizing behavior by all agents, and the equilibrium outcome of the model should match observations. There is no requirement for models to be realistic. Because realism or lack of it is not relevant, Friedman’s methodology states that significant models will have wildly inaccurate descriptive representations. This methodology leads to ridiculous and absurd models, which failed completely in the Global Financial Crisis (see Quotes Critical of Economics ). In fact, as we have argued elsewhere, maximization does not describe either firm behavior or consumer behavior. Furthermore, behavior of a complex dynamic system cannot be understood by looking at its equilibria. So the methodological tenets of neoclassical economists are fundamentally wrong.
Critical Realism in Models: In this course, we take the POV that models are simplifications which help us to understand a complex reality. Because of this, realism is a requirement – we cannot allow wildly inaccurate descriptions. Realism has to be understood correctly. We want to strip away inessential elements and focus on simplest descriptions which capture the mechanisms that produce the phenomena of interest. The process of stripping away complexity can be said to create descriptive inaccuracy, but this is of a different type from the kind of absurdities created by conventional methodological stance a la Friedman. For example, when massive empirical evidence proves that human agents do not maximize utilities, than we cannot made utility maximizing behavior as an explanation of any observed phenomena. Note that we may nonetheless assume utility maximization as a convenient placeholder for human behavior if the phenomenon we wish to explain does not depend very much on exact nature of human behavior. That is, if we believe that replacing utility maximization by many other types of behavior would lead to the same results.
The phenomenon we wish to explain is unemployment. Consider a simple fixed proportion production function where 10 LLs own 5 Acres of land each, and One Acre + One Laborer can produce 10 units of corn. Each LL can hire a maximum of 5 laborers, so if there are more than 50 laborers, the model will generate unemployment. Here we have a very simple model which produces unemployment. This model generates understanding – if we do not have sufficient productive capacity – ways to utilize laborers for production, then excess labor beyond maximum productive capacity will remain unemployed. When we come to the Great Depression, it is clear that this explanation will not suffice. This is because the economy did have full employment prior to the GD 29, and so potential there was capacity in the economy to employ all workers. So the problem is to find a model in which there is unemployment when the economy does have the capacity to hire all the labor. For example, suppose that there are 40 laborers in the economy given above. Then it is clear that all 40 CAN find productive employment. There is land to spare, and each laborer can produce 10 units of corn when allowed to work.
In this situation, there really is a puzzle as to how unemployment could emerge. Something must go wrong to prevent an activity which yield benefit to all participants – laborer would earn wages, and landlord would earn profits, and there are no parties which would be hurt by this additional production. If we can solve this puzzle, we may get some understanding of why unemployment occurs in the real world.
Keynes argued that money is an essential ingredient, and has real effects in the short and long run. He also stated explicitly the sequencing that wages are paid upon hiring laborers, and production takes place later. Let us try to use these two ideas as building blocks for a model where unemployment might occur. Since Keynes used a static one-period framework, we will also work with this same case.
Suppose initially that all laborers are paid PKR 100, which is the going nominal wage rate. All 40 are hired, and production takes place, creating 10 units each for a total of 400 units of corn. This sequencing, where payment is made in nominal terms, before the market for corn opens, has rather startling consequences, which run counter to intuition generated by neoclassical theories of price determination.
Model 1: Suppose a closed economy, and no use for corn other than sale on domestic market. Than all 400 units would be put on the market, while laborers have 4000 PKR as their wage earnings, which is all the money available to buy. So price of corn would be 10 PKR per unit, and every laborer would receive 10 units of corn – Wage equals marginal product of labor. But this is a very strange model because the LLs earn zero profits. Why would they go to the trouble of producing corn, if they earn nothing in the process – this question arises in a Market Economy, where production is done for profits.
Model 2: LLs can consume some of the corn, and put the rest on the market. Suppose each LL consumes 200 units of corn, and puts the remaining 200 units on the market. Now there is a total of 2000 units of corn on the market, while there is 4000 PKR available in wages to purchase the corn. So the price would be 20 PKR per unit of corn, and each laborer would be able to buy 5 units of corn, distinctly less than the Marginal Product of labor, which is 10 units of corn. This is a static equilibrium which can repeat. The landlords do not make any monetary profits, but they get to eat a vast amount of corn.
QUESTION: Why does wage fail to equal marginal product of labor in Model 2? The theory is that there would be competition among the LLs to increase the wage, because each has an extra acre of unutilized land, and if he can attract a laborer, he can make more profits. However, in the initial phase where wages are being paid, competition in nominal wages has no effect on outcome. Regardless of how high the money wage is, the price of corn will be set in exact proportion to get back all of the wage income. This illustrates how wages are set in nominal terms and the real wage is an outcome of the system as a whole, exactly as Keynes said.
Both of these models illustrate one of the basic principles of MMT – A sector cannot make profits unless it receives injections from the outside. All inside transactions cancel in monetary terms.
Model 3: The only way for Landlords to make monetary profits is to sell the surplus corn to some other sector. This could be the government, or it could be an urban sector (or any other sector of domestic economy), or it could be exported to the foreign sector. In all such cases, money which flows into the sector from the outside is the profit to the landlords. As MMT tells us, the private profits of the agricultural/rural sector exactly offset losses of some other sector. How much can the landlords sell to the urban sector (for example)? According to neoclassical theory, there are technological constraints on the profits of the landlord. Their profit should be equal to the marginal product of Land, the input they supply to the production process. In the fixed proportions production function, the marginal product of 1 Acre of Land is equal to the marginal product of one laborer and both are equal to 10 units of corn. Adding up of the two marginal products to the total product does not hold. In this model, the Landlords can sell arbitrarily large amounts to external sectors, and leave arbitrarily small amounts for the domestic market. Regardless of how much or how little they put on the domestic market, the laborers will spend all their wage-money on purchasing the product.
It seems reasonable to think that landlords will leave subsistence amounts of corn on the domestic market, so as to prevent domestic unrest or revolutions, while marketing the rest for highest profit. Since the amount retained for domestic market is based on political considerations, it need not satisfy equilibrium conditions for profit maximization. That is the domestic price can be less than or higher than the foreign price at which the surplus over subsistence is sold.
So far, there is no unemployment in this model, and unemployment cannot exist unless some amount of produce remains unsold. If this happens, it would give a signal to the landlords that over-production has taken place, and they would make decision to reduce production. But how can produce remain unsold? Let us consider the Keynesian idea that the labors SAVE some portion of their wages for use later. This would reduce the effective demand and perhaps lead to surplus production which could not be sold. To see how this works, suppose the LLs sell 200 units of corn to external sector at some price p, making profits of 200p. The remaining 200 units of corn is put on the domestic market for sale, there is a total of 2000 units for sale, while the laborers have 4000 PKR in total income. If they spend all of their income on purchasing corn, the price of corn would be 20 PKR per unit and every laborer would get 5 units of corn.
Now suppose that the laborers decided to save half of their income for potential contingencies in the future. Saving 2000 PKR leaves them with 2000 PKR to purchase corn. When 2000 units are available for sale, the price will fall from 20 PKR/unit to 10 PKR/unit and all of the corn will be sold. Since all the corn is sold, there is no reason for the Landlords to limit production in the next round, and this situation can repeat.
If there is price rigidity, and the price of corn cannot fall from PKR 20/unit, THEN we have the possibility of surplus. Only 1000 units of corn can now be sold on the domestic market and 1000 units of corn remains as surplus. If this can be sold to some external sector – government, urban sector, foreign sector – then again there is no serious problem. But if there is some capacity limit on outside sales, then the surplus cannot be sold. In this case, the LandLords get the message that what was produced could not be sold, and so they should cut back on production. This can produce unemployment in the next period.
Lessons from this model/analysis
In one-period, static model, shortfall in aggregate demand can only come from fixed prices. This is not true in DYNAMIC Multi-period models, but these require more sophisticated analysis, which Keynes did not make. SAVINGS by laborers DOES create disequilibrium: Money profits to landlords become NEGATIVE. They do not recover in revenue what they paid in wages. However, this should result in declines in nominal wages. What happens depends on disequilibrium dynamics.
The final conclusion from all of these considerations is that the mechanism of insufficiency in aggregate demand which was used by Keynes to explain unemployment has not been sufficiently articulated. Many factors were left unspecified, all of which matter to the outcome. A well-articulated Model must specify the technology of production: Cobb-Douglass, IRTS, DRTS, Leontief. These all make a difference. In addition, market structure and sequencing must be specified. Do we have competition, monopoly, monopsony, posted prices or oral double auction. Who produces, and who markets the product. The Information Structure is also important – the Sequencing of Decisions and information flows, who know what and when?. Relative Bargaining Power, and Social Norms govern the outcomes. Of Vital importance is disequilibrium outcomes and how they are resolved. The Class Structure – Landlords, Laborers, Others, also matters – even in our simple models, consumer behavior of laborers is essentially different from that of the Landlords for structural reasons – Landlords do not consume out of wages they earn. Similarly, if the economy is driven by profits, then some other sector must be involved, because profits can only be earned if money is injected into the system. So a well-specified model must have multiple sectors, such as Domestic Other, External Sector, and Government.
We abandon Keynesian analysis of unemployment, noting that the explanation it provides is seriously complete, and must be augmented by additional factors. In particular, fixed prices does provide an explanation, but this is clearly a short run phenomena and to get a serious explanation along these lines requires consideration of disequilibrium dynamics. Subsequent analyses by many authors show the importance of debt, and in particular leveraged debt, which plays a key role in producing major financial crises. To introduce these ideas, we consider a different mechanism – Fisher’s theory of Debt-Deflation – which was also proposed as an explanation of unemployment and the Great Depression, but did not receive much attention in the mainstream. In recent times, elements of this theory have been picked up by Minsky, Koo, Mian and Sufi and others.
This post (Lecture 8B) covers the 20 minute segments from 17m to 37m of the lecture 8. The first 17m were covered in previous post on Lecture 8A: Microfoundations Matter
The remaining portion of the lecture explains Fisher’s Debt-Deflation Theory.
