Carlos Garcimartín, Arnoldo Marmolejo, Carlos Eggers
{"title":"The effect of public social expenditure on imports","authors":"Carlos Garcimartín, Arnoldo Marmolejo, Carlos Eggers","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.05","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the effect of social expenditure on imports. In doing so, it uses cross-country panels of the world economy to estimate an augmented balance-of-payments-constrained growth model that takes into account social spending. The results show that social expenditure reduces imports and offsets the negative effect it could have on the balance of trade through its effect on exports. We also find that for OECD countries, education spending is relevant to imports but not to exports, for which the most relevant component is spending on social protection (old-age and unemployment benefits). This result is particularly relevant for development policy in countries with low social expenditure.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48046437","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":"A sectoral perspective on the persistence of economic sentiment: mere transitory effect or a long memory process?","authors":"Ivana Lolić, Petar Sorić, Marijan Logarušić","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.03","url":null,"abstract":"Opposing the mainstream view that economic sentiment conveys information of purely short-term relevance, we assess the long memory characteristics of confidence indicators derived from Business and Consumer Surveys (BCS). We utilize a battery of fractional integration tests on five sectoral BCS indicators in 28 European economies. Conforming to social learning theory, we find that the examined confidence indicators in all five sectors exhibit noteworthy persistence. This finding stays intact in various robustness checks: across countries and for different fractional integration test specifications. Nevertheless, post hoc comparisons reveal that confidence in the construction and consumer sectors exhibits considerably more intensive persistence than in the industry, retail trade, and services. Since it is evident that shocks in economic sentiment have long-term or permanent effects, this calls for a revival of Keynesian ideas and the stabilization role of well-thought and timely countercyclical economic policy measures.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42904023","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":"On empirical tests of Thirlwall’s law: a reply to Professor McCombie’s rejoinder","authors":"Robert A. Blecker","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.07","url":null,"abstract":"Professor McCombie has provided a thoughtful response to my previous argument about a potential near-tautology in conventional empirical tests of Thirlwall’s law. I accept his characterization of the argument as requiring that the estimated equations must be equivalent to ‘regressions through the origin,’ which could perhaps be called a ‘statistical coincidence’ if one does not like the term ‘near-tautology.’ More importantly, tests for equality between the balance-of-payments equilibrium growth rate and the long-run average growth rate do not directly test for the adjustment mechanism that occurs in response to balance-of-payments disequilibria. Other statistical methods as well as the use of ‘historical-structural analysis’ are needed to identify whether the main adjusting variable is national income or relative prices. This Reply also defends the way balance-of-payments–constrained growth was modeled in my co-authored work with Carlos Ibarra and highlights our use of the historical-structural approach applied to Mexico.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46184745","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":"Critical notes on some recent Neo-Kaleckian contributions on capacity utilization","authors":"S. J. Gahn","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.01","url":null,"abstract":"Within the non-mainstream growth literature, the Neo-Kaleckian model is the only one that presents an endogenous capacity utilization in the long run. After systematizing the debate around recent contributions, presenting the baseline and extensions of the Neo-Kaleckian model and providing some notes on the normal rate of capacity utilization, I critically assess three recent alternatives that try to justify endogenous utilization in Neo-Kaleckian models. All these contributions present different theoretical and empirical shortcomings that should be addressed in order to substantiate their claims.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44055762","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":"Growth trajectories and political economy in a Structuralist open economy model","authors":"G. Porcile, Danilo Spinola, G. Yajima","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.04","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a set of growth and distribution models for open developing economies under different political economy regimes. These regimes give rise to different institutional frameworks which in turn shape macroeconomic outcomes. We focus on three cases: (1) a pure developmentalist state, (2) conflicting claims between workers and government, and (3) an open capital account under a Neoliberal coalition. The equilibrium growth rate is defined by the Balance-of-Payments (BOP) constraint. Cumulative causation à la Kaldor in periods in which the depreciation of the real exchange rate temporarily raises the equilibrium growth rate allows (under certain conditions) for a process of learning that transforms the income elasticity of exports and hence the BOP-constrained rate of growth in the long run. The model produces a variety of outcomes that explains some of the contradictory results reported in the empirical literature in terms of different constellations of power and institutions.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44318728","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":"Why the conventional test of Thirlwall’s law is still not a ‘near-tautology’: a rejoinder to Professor Blecker","authors":"J. Mccombie","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.06","url":null,"abstract":"Blecker (2021) repeats an argument, first put forward by McCombie (1981) (but later repudiated by him) and also summarised by Blecker (2016, 2021) that the traditional test of Thirlwall’s law is merely estimating what Blecker terms a ‘near-tautology’ or ‘near-identity’. This is based on an analysis concerning the arithmetical calculation of the import and export income elasticities of demand, and the circumstances under which these will equal their statistical estimates. The arithmetically calculated income elasticities are the growth of imports divided by the growth of domestic income and the growth of exports divided by the growth of world income, respectively. Blecker’s argument is that if the statistical estimates of the two income elasticities of demand equal their respective arithmetically calculated values, and are used in the testing of the law, this represents a near-tautology. This rejoinder demonstrates that Blecker’s argument concerning the near-tautology is a misinterpretation of the nature of the traditional testing of Thirlwall’s law. It is shown that Blecker and Ibarra’s (2013) alternative model, which is used to test the balance-of-payments constrained model for Mexico and which it is claimed avoids the putative near-tautology problem, is itself problematic. As such, it does not represent an improvement over the traditional model of Thirlwall’s law, but, ironically, may give approximately the same empirical result.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48395999","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: Charles J. Whalen, Reforming Capitalism for the Common Good: Essays in Institutional and Post-Keynesian Economics (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA 2022, ISBN 978-1-80392-628-5) 386 pp.","authors":"Jacob Powell","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.08","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46500989","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: Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan (ed.), Foreign Exchange Constraint and Developing Economies (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA 2023, ISBN 978-1-80088-049-8) 278 pp.","authors":"Terence M. Yhip","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.09","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47929894","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":"Pure Harrodian dynamics: heterogeneous expectations and the loss of three established propositions","authors":"R. Franke","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.03.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.03.02","url":null,"abstract":"Within the narrow but convenient framework of a pure Harrodian dynamics, the paper sheds new light on the macroeconomic textbook modelling with normal utilization in the steady state and the problem of Harrodian instability. To this end, it introduces interacting heterogeneity in the firms’ expectations about future demand. Specifically, the individual firms switch randomly between an optimistic and a pessimistic growth rate, where in the Harrodian spirit the transition probabilities vary with the utilization gap. Unlike the original aggregate analysis, this agent-based approach gives rise to the following three features at the macro level: (i) while the positive Harrodian feedback effects are basically maintained, there is also some scope for the steady state to be stable; (ii) persistent non-normal utilization in this state is not only possible but even the rule; and (iii) the paradox of thrift is re-established (the opposite relationship is true) if the steady state is stable (unstable). A calibration of the IS part provides for a reasonable order of magnitude of the investigated effects.","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43075787","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: James Crotty, Keynes Against Capitalism: His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism (Routledge, London, UK 2019) ISBN: 978-1138612846, 397 pp.","authors":"M. Vernengo","doi":"10.4337/roke.2023.02.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/roke.2023.02.08","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45671,"journal":{"name":"Review of Keynesian Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48701729","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}