{"title":"The ‘General Theory 4.0’ research programme: macroeconomics when Keynes eventually escapes Debreu and meets Ulysses and Einstein","authors":"T. Togati","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac065","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, I propose a new research programme, the ‘General Theory (GT) 4.0’, aimed at restoring the academic influence of Keynes, against many contemporary misunderstandings, by defending his view that macroeconomics is an autonomous discipline with respect to standard theory. This paper focuses on two specific, complementary lines of defence. The first is to show that the metaphor of ‘Ulysses’ journey home’ for understanding Keynes, recently proposed in the literature, provides an intuitive, plastic representation of his major autonomy claims. The second is to suggest that such claims are not ad hoc, but in tune with the postulates of a scientific revolutionary paradigm, such as the relativity theory, reflecting the fact that Keynes and Einstein—despite obvious differences in their respective domains—shared the same ontology, the metaphysical world view of time and epistemology.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43681295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Systemic stablecoin and the brave new world of digital money","authors":"J. Morgan","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac060","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 New forms of money invite informed speculation regarding future possibilities. In this extended commentary, we explore five issue-areas that the growth of cryptocurrency and, more particularly, stablecoin have evoked. This new form of digital money has the potential to change the form and functioning of payments technologies and thus alter not just how something is paid for but what can be paid for. Moreover, as the now shelved plans for Facebook/Meta’s Libra/Diem indicate, there is scope for a major corporation or coalition of corporations to issue their own stablecoin and this greatly increases the likelihood of a ‘systemic’ stablecoin. This, in turn, could change where power resides and who exercises it in banking, finance and society. Concern with power leads to issues regarding the nature of change and thus to concern with possible financial, economic and social disruptions ranging across the nature of trust, bank business models, the effectiveness of central bank policy and security of payments systems. Given these issues, cryptocurrency and stablecoin have become a growing concern for regulators and this concern extends to the case for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). Finally, a new form of money invites discussion of its implications for the nature of money and this leads to matters of philosophical or social theory interest.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44863014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dyeggo Rocha Guedes, André Moreira Cunha, Luiza Peruffo
{"title":"Financial cycles and fiscal policy in developing and emerging economies: an evaluation of the Brazilian case (1997–2018)","authors":"Dyeggo Rocha Guedes, André Moreira Cunha, Luiza Peruffo","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac067","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article investigates the existence of a link between financial cycles and fiscal cycles, and discusses possible policy implications for developing and emerging economies (DEEs). It empirically analyses the impact of financial cycle shocks on the short-term dynamics of Brazil’s fiscal policy by estimating a vector autoregressive (VAR) model for the period 1997–2018. The results indicate that financial cycles have pro-cyclical effects on the fiscal policy. This suggests that a fiscal policy should consider not only the cyclical behaviour of the output, but also its role in minimising financial factors. By explicitly linking Brazil’s fiscal performance with Brazil’s higher vulnerability to the financial cycle, this article adds to the literature that strives to understand the policy implications of the financialisation process in DEEs. It also contributes to the more general empirical literature on DEEs’ fiscal dynamics.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45489407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thorstein Veblen on the cultural and economic significance of modern sports","authors":"Luke Petach, J. Raines","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac066","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper adopts an evolutionary institutionalist approach to explain the persistent popularity of sports in the USA. Veblen’s writing in Theory of the Leisure Class suggests two cultural and economic functions of modern sports: as a mode of preservation of leisure class values and as a means of conspicuous waste. Our analysis emphasises the role of sports as an institution for the preservation of leisure class values in general, and what Veblen terms ‘predatory prowess’ in particular. We identify several contemporary examples of Veblenian cultural traits that explain the affinity for sports in America and illustrate the continued applicability of Veblen’s analysis. Finally, we offer support for the Veblenian view by expanding the scope of our argument to the broader evolutionary institutionalist literature.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47847747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alfred Marshall, Allyn Young and business size","authors":"Ramesh Chandra","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac070","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many prominent thinkers such as Karl Marx and Joseph Schumpeter thought that monopoly capitalism would eventually replace competitive capitalism. Several subsequent economists like Antoine Cournot and Piero Sraffa also maintained that increasing returns are incompatible with competition. This paper examines Alfred Marshall’s and Allyn Young’s views on whether monopoly capitalism is inevitable and whether increasing returns are incompatible with competition. Both Marshall and Young took their data from real life and were of the view that the economy was dominated not by big but small and medium firms. Both built on Adam Smith’s analysis of the division of labour and thought that the dominant tendency in the system was that of industrial specialisation and differentiation. Even if some firms producing standardised products such as steel or raw materials became big, most specialised firms remained small, and both small and big firms coexisted in a framework of effective competition. Advent of imperfect competition did not mean absence of competition but rather its imperfect working.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136082614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Setting the record straight on the recovery from the 1920–1921 recession","authors":"Ahmad Borazan","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac063","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The US recovery from the 1920–21 recession has been presented as a triumph of laissez-faire policies and a serious challenge to Keynesian economics. This study interrogates this claim by using previously unutilised data and examines the historical development of the early 1920s recession and recovery. The study refutes the laissez-faire view and shows that the recovery indeed fits Keynes’s perspective. The deflationary recession was largely engineered by the Federal Reserve a la 1980s Volker disinflation. The recovery closely followed the reversal of tight monetary policy and was propelled by exceptionally long pent-up private consumption and residential spending. The recovery initiated the Roaring Twenties boom of weakened organised labour, rising income inequality and mounting private debt. This private debt-led boom proved unsustainable and was fraught with risks that contributed to the severity of the Great Depression. Although the recovery was not driven by fiscal policy, it cannot be seen as driven by price flexibility either.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135436115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The changing face of anti-trust in the world of Big Tech: Collusion versus Monopolisation","authors":"Prishnee Armoogum, S. Davies, Franco Mariuzzo","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac046","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper presents new evidence on two key developments in worldwide anti-trust in the last decade: (i) a downturn in the number of cartels detected by competition authorities and (ii) exponential growth in cases of monopolisation/abuse of dominance. Big Tech firms have been, undoubtedly, the main focus of the latter but almost totally absent in the former. These two developments offer perspectives on the description of Monopoly Capitalism as set out by Keith Cowling 40 years ago. Superficially at least, this seems to deny the prediction of ever-widening collusion, but, on the other hand, it resonates with the prediction of increasingly unassailable dominant firms. We suggest that the two trends can best be understood by the emergence of the Big Tech giants who have established dominance by exceeding tipping points in many markets. In turn, this leads to an alternative form of collusion—‘mutual forbearance’ in which firms back away from aggressive competition in the other giants’ areas of strength. Given this dominance, they do not need collusion—put simply, no sizeable rivals are remaining with whom they need to collude.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48494080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Big technology and data privacy","authors":"Martin J Conyon","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac052","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses big technology and data privacy. First, we show the rapid rise in technology firms since the millennium. Using Facebook as a case study (the most popular social network in 2022), we show its reliance on personally identifiable data collection and advertising. Second, we investigate the Cambridge Analytica data breach. We show that stock prices fall in response to the data breach using event study methods. Cumulative abnormal returns decline by about 9.8% in the event window. Third, we discuss policy options in response to data privacy concerns. The GDPR provides a legislative model for protecting individually identifiable data.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":"297 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138505965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ramsey and Keynes revisited","authors":"Bill Gerrard","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac068","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper re-assesses Ramsey’s influence on Keynes. It is argued that the Standard View has restricted attention to the implications for probability theory of Ramsey’s criticisms of Keynes’s concepts of logical probability-relations and non-numerical probabilities. Building on the work of both Coates (1996) and Misak (2016), an Alternative View is proposed in which Ramsey’s influence on Keynes is seen as principally philosophical. Specifically, the Alternative View recognises Ramsey’s adoption of the logical pragmatist philosophy of C. S. Peirce from 1924 onwards with a dispositional theory of belief in which beliefs are treated not only as useful mental habits that can successfully guide future actions but also as able to provide true explanations of observed empirical facts. The textual evidence is examined, particularly Keynes’s biographical essay on Ramsey, which, it is argued, supports the contention that Keynes fully appreciated and was sympathetic to Ramsey’s pragmatism especially the importance of vague knowledge and the need for the development of human logic as the study of reasonable human behaviour.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135470817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stratification mechanisms in labour market matching of migrants","authors":"Merve Burnazoglu","doi":"10.1093/cje/beac058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beac058","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 I aim to challenge the standard framework in which systematic exclusion is mistakenly characterised as only a frictional phenomenon that fails to be captured in migrants’ labour market matching mechanisms. Societies organise and rank people in a hierarchical way, not only in terms of individual differences and characteristics but with respect to social groups and categories of people. These macro patterns systematically subject some migrant groups to different forms of exclusion. Social stratification, explained in terms of social identity-based institutional structures, organises labour markets into different destinations like clubs with sharply different sets of opportunities. It functions like a trap for migrants: it reinforces itself by reproducing systems of exclusion and creates dilemmas for migrants. Can migrants organise themselves to avoid such traps? I show that exclusion is endogenous to employment as a type of good in the standard goods typology. Treating different types of employment opportunities as being like clubs, I investigate how migrants join or create alternative employment clubs as a response to real or perceived exclusion from native employment clubs. If these alternative clubs are ‘sticky’ and discourage migrants from trying to join natives’ exclusive employment clubs, the trap becomes inescapable. For migrants to escape the stratification trap, employment should be seen not only as an investment but as a collective action problem structurally targeting exclusion.","PeriodicalId":48156,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60806839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}