Macroeconomics

Some Fundamental Keynesian and Post-Keynesian Insights, with an Analysis of Possible Mechanisms to Achieve a Sustained Recovery

A gap between theory and reality has haunted economists.

We develop a neo-Kaleckian growth model that emphasizes the importance of consumption behavior.

This paper sketches the outlines of the new international monetary system that has emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

This paper studies the role of credit in the business cycle, with a focus on private credit overhang.

This paper traces the evolution of the concept of the cyclically adjusted budget from the 1930s to the present.

This essay critically evaluates the benefits and costs of the dominant methodology in macroeconomics, the DSGE approach. Although the approach has led to great progress in some areas, it has also created biases and blind spots in the profession that hold back our understanding and our ability to govern the macroeconomy. There is great scope for progress in macroeconomics by judiciously pushing the boundaries of some of the methodological restrictions imposed by the DSGE approach.

US Military needs during the Cold War induced a mathematical modeling of rational allocation and control processes while simultaneously binding that rationality with computational reality. Modeling strategies to map the optimal to the operational ensued and eventually became a driving force in the development of macroeconomic dynamics.

This paper, an extension of the Presidential Address to the International Economic Association, evaluates alternative strands of macro-economics in terms of the three basic questions posed by deep downturns: What is the source of large perturbations? How can we explain the magnitude of volatility? How do we explain persistence?

And how do they relate to our democratic institutions and institutional social relations?

The recent financial crisis has impressively illustrated the dangers of rapid credit growth in a painful way.

There is now a growing consensus among policymakers and academics that a key element to improve safeguards against financial instability is to strengthen the “macroprudential” orientation of regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly interpreted as either a crisis of fiscal profligacy or of deteriorating unit-labour cost competitiveness (caused by rigid labour markets), or a combination of both.

A survey on behalf of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung indicates that German economists are much more American in their thinking than is presumed – with a rising trend.

This paper studies the long-run impact of public debt expansion on economic growth and investigates whether the debt-growth relation varies with the level of indebtedness.