Macroeconomics

Stagnating real wages may have contributed to the slowdown of US productivity

In much of the advanced world, we have witnessed at least three decades of stagnating real wages and massive reductions in the labor share in income. Many analyses have documented these trends, reflecting on their causes and effects from very different standpoints. In the US economy, where the trend toward wage stagnation seems to be particularly strong, it goes together, according to Temin (2015), Storm (2017), and Taylor and Ömer (2020), with a ‘dualistic’ tendency of the economy, with growing polarization between a limited number of high-wage and high-productivity sectors and a growing mass of workers employed in low-productivity and low-wage sectors. Wage stagnation, Taylor and Ömer (2020) note, is also the basis of the growing inequality in personal and family incomes recorded in the USA as well as in many other societies.

A persistent regime of low wages may determine very negative long-term consequences on the economy.

Everyone at INET is saddened by the news that our colleague Lance Taylor passed away on Monday, August 15th, 2022. His loss leaves a giant hole in our hearts as well as in the field of economics. His talents and achievements were prodigious and we will miss his cheerful and inspiring presence. Words help little on such occasions, but we would like to extend our condolences to his wife Yvonne, and his children Signe and Ian.

To commemorate his contributions, here are a few noteworthy articles, events, videos, and interviews by, with, or about Lance Taylor.

In memory of Lance Taylor

In the papers of economist Charles Kindleberger, Perry Mehrling found notes on the paper that won Ben Bernanke his Nobel Prize.

In the 1983 paper cited as the basis for Bernanke’s Nobel award, the first footnote states: “I have received useful comments from too many people to list here by name, but I am grateful to each of them.” One of those unnamed commenters was Charles P. Kindleberger, who taught at MIT full-time until mandatory retirement in 1976 and then half-time for another five years. Bernanke himself earned his MIT Ph.D. in 1979, whereupon he shifted to Stanford as Assistant Professor. Thus it was natural for him to send his paper to Kindleberger for comment, and perhaps also natural for Kindleberger to respond.

Diamond-Dybvig-Bernanke is a flawed model of banking that has no room for a lender of last resort

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2022 to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond, and Philip H. Dybvig for having “significantly improved our understanding of the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises” (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2022a).

The main justification for Diamond and Dybvig's (DD) award is given by a paper published in 1983: “In an article from 1983, Diamond and Dybvig develop a theoretical model that explains how banks create liquidity for savers, while borrowers can access long-term financing” (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2022b, p.4).

A short exposition of the model

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina M. Khan is interviewed by Mark Glick

INET co-sponsored "The New Roaring Twenties: The Progressive Agenda for Antitrust and Consumer Protection Law," a conference at the University of Utah, October 25-26, 2022 where it also supports the Utah Project on Antitrust and Consumer Protection.

What Strategies can Break This Dependency?

The dollar system has proven resilient in the face of recent extreme and unexpected shocks, but it has also failed to foster sustainable growth and prosperity. Can it survive its contradictions? Evidence from the latest Trade and Development Report of UNCTAD suggests better South-South and commodity producers-consumers agreements are needed, on the way to a more inclusive international monetary system.

In a climate of fiscal austerity, unconventional monetary policy has been at the forefront of macroeconomic stabilization efforts since 2008, with the beginning of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE) programs. At the time, when the fiscal channel dried up (after a short-lived stimulus) but growth and inflation remained low, developed countries relied on large purchases of bonds and other securities by their central monetary authorities to support long-term credit creation while maintaining the smooth functioning of the money markets.

A Novel Account of Inflation Forecasts

The use and abuse of MMT (Part 1) Michael Hudson, Dirk Bezemer, Steve Keen and Sabri Öncü Summary After being attacked by monetarists and others…

The post The use and abuse of MMT (Part 1) first appeared on Economic Reform Australia.