Fiscal Policy, Eurobonds and Economic Recovery: Some Heterodox Policy Recipes against Financial Instability and Sovereign Debt Crisis

In this paper, we propose a simple post-Keynesian model on the linkages between the financial and real side of an economy. We show how, according to the Minskyan instability hypothesis, financial variables, credit availability and asset prices in particular, may feedback each other and affect economic activity, possibly giving rise to intrinsically unstable economic processes. Through these destabilizing mechanisms, we also explain why governments intervention in the aftermath of the 2007 financial meltdown has been largely useless to restore financial tranquility and economic growth, but transformed a private debt crisis into a sovereign debt one. The paper ends up by looking at the long run and to the interaction between long-term growth potential and public debt sustainability. We explicitly consider the European economic context and the difficulties several EU members currently face to simultaneously support economic recovery and consolidate fiscal imbalances. We stress that: (i) financial turbulences may trigger permanent reductions in long-term growth potential and unsustainable public debt dynamics; (ii) strong institutional discontinuity such as EU financial assistance to member countries may prove to be the only way to restore growth and ensure long-run public debt sustainability.post-Keynesian models, financial instability, debt sustainability, Eurobonds JEL Classification: E12, E44, H63

Palestine: a theoretical model of an Investment-Constrained Economy

The sixty-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict has deeply influenced the evolution of the Palestinian economy. In the last two decades persisting political instability and the Israeli closure policy have been sources of protracted economic stagnation and poor capital formation. The paper describes the consequences on the Palestinian economy of two particular conditions: high transaction costs and market fragmentation. We use a simple one-sector model which describes Palestine as a demand-driven economy and Palestinian capital accumulation as linked to desired investments by Palestinian firms. Into this framework, we show that high transaction costs discourage capital formation by curtailing expected profitability. Market fragmentation further reduces domestic investments by reducing the size of the market and depressing entrepreneurs’ animal spirits. We show that in the short-run, where expectations are given, the two above facts induce low levels of capacity utilization and of capital accumulation. The situation is even more worrying in the long-run when entrepreneurs can adapt their expectations. Depressed animal spirits and low levels of capacity use feed back into each other and give rise to a low-growth trap from which Palestine can hardly escape. We also highlight the possible positive impact of the removal of high transaction cost and of market fragmentation and the ensuing benefits on the long run equilibrium values of both capital accumulation and capacity utilization. The conclusions try to set this analytical results into the historical situation of the Palestinian economy and to envisage the roles of economics and politics in order to establish a sustained process of development.Palestine, low-growth trap, post-Keynesian models

The theoretical weaknesses of the expansionary austerity doctrine

In this paper, we provide a critical analysis of the theory of the expansionary austerity. We take the hotly debated contribution by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff on the supposedly negative relationship between public debt and economic growth (when the debt-to-GDP ratio overcomes the 90 percent threshold) as the starting point of our analysis. We then move to analyze those contributions that more directly point to the possible expansionary outcomes of tough fiscal retrenchments. We eventually criticize the main conclusions of the expansionary austerity theory by presenting a simple short-run theoretical model. We show that fiscal consolidation might have expansionary outcomes only under extreme, very specific and uncertain circumstances. Expansionary austerity would hardly take place in the context of monetarily sovereign economies, or in presence of an accommodative monetary policy like that implemented by the ECB since late 2011, or in economic systems that are poorly integrated to international goods markets

The complex inequality-innovation-public investment nexus

In this paper, we deal with the complex relationship connecting inequality to innovation, and the ways through which public investment can affect it. We first stress that inequality and innovation may interact in many different ways. The positive relation that part of the economic theory often assumes to exist between (initially) rising inequality and improving innovation performances emerges as only one among many other far less virtuous dynamic trajectories. We then analyze the specific case of the US. We put emphasis on the possible perverse effects that the financialization of the US economy may have on the inequality-innovation nexus. We note that the US developmental State - very often neglected by the economic literature - can effectively mitigate such undesirable outcomes. According to our interpretation of recent developments in the US economy, the widespread belief in the positive pro-innovation effects of fierce cutthroat remuneration systems may prove to be ungrounded

The theoretical inconsistency of the expansionary austerity doctrine (reprise): an extension to the long run

In this paper, we provide a critical analysis of the theory of the expansionary austerity (EAT). Our attention is on the theoretical weaknesses of the EAT, say the extreme circumstances and fragile assumptions under which expansionary consolidations might actually take place. We present a simple theoretical model that takes inspiration from both the post-Keynesian and evolutionary/institutionalist traditions. We first show that well-designed austerity measures hardly trigger off short-run economic expansions in the context of expected long-lasting consolidation plans (i.e. when adjustment plans deal with remarkably high debt-to-GDP ratios); when the so-called ‘financial channel’ is not operative (i.e. in the context of monetarily sovereign economies); when the degree of export responsiveness to internal devaluation is low. Even in the context of non-monetarily sovereign countries (see Eurozone countries), austerity’s effectiveness crucially depends on its highly disputable capacity to immediately stabilize fiscal variables. We then analyse some possible long-run economic dynamics. We emphasize the high degree of instability that characterizes austerity-based adjustments plans. Path-dependency and cumulativeness make the short-run impulse effects of fiscal consolidation of paramount importance to (hopefully) obtain any appreciable medium-to-long-run benefit. Should these effects be contractionary on the onset, the short-run costs of austerity measures can breed an endless spiral of recession and ballooning debt in the long run. If so, in the case of non-monetarily sovereign countries debt forgiveness may emerge as the ultimate solution to restore economic soundness. Alternatively, institutional innovations like those adopted since mid-2012 by the ECB are required to stabilize the economy, although not to prompt sustained recovery

Conflicting claims in the eurozone? Austerity's myopia and the need for a European Federal Union in a post-Keynesian eurozone center–periphery model

In this paper we study the role of the eurozone’s institutional design in determining the sovereign debt crisis of the peripheral euro countries by means of a post-Keynesian euro- zone center–periphery model. Within this framework, three points are formally addressed: (1) the incomplete nature of the eurozone with respect to a fully fledged federal union has significantly contributed to generating diverging trends and conflicting claims between central and peripheral eurozone countries in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial meltdown; (2) center–periphery diverging trends may disappear and a systemic crisis may occur should financial turbulences deepen in big peripheral economies, possibly spreading to the center; and (3) fiscal austerity does not address the core problems of the eurozone. The creation of a European federal government, capable of implementing anti-cyclical fiscal policies through a federal budget, and of a government banker consti- tutes the most promising solution to stabilize the macroeconomic picture of peripheral countries and to tackle the crisis. The unlimited bond-buying program recently launched by the ECB is a positive albeit mild step in the right direction away from the extreme mon- etarism that has shaped eurozone institutions thus far

Fighting the COVID-19 emergency and re-launching the European economy: debt monetization and recovery bonds

In this policy brief, we first highlight some peculiar characteristics, from an economic point of view, of the current Covid-19 crisis. We stress its exogenous and symmetric nature with respect to Eurozone countries, as well as the complex mix of supply and demand shocks it entails. Given these features, we then suggest two intertwined policy measures in order to tackle the emergency phase of the crisis and the subsequent recovery. We first advice the pervasive intervention of Eurozone governments in support of business and households income in the context of the “suspended” economy that measures against the diffusion of Covid-19 have forcefully given rise. We advise the ECB to monetize all public expenditures linked to this emergency plan by purchasing public bonds in the primary market, and to subsequently write them off or exclude these issuances from the computation of public debt-to-GDP ratios. With no signs of inflationary pressures coming, the ECB intervention would avoid Eurozone governments to pile up considerably higher stocks of debts and would help to bypass the current political impasse among Eurozone Member States as to the creation and realise of Eurobonds. In the aftermath of the emergency phase, we suggest the implementation of a massive Europe-wide recovery plan centred on public investment addressing the long-lasting technological and environmental challenges of these years, and financed by the European Investment bank through the issuance of Recovery Bonds

A critique to the expansionary austerity (part III): empirical counter facts beyond theoretical weaknesses

In two previous contributions published in this working paper series, we pointed out the theoretical fragilities of the expansionary austerity theory (EAT). In this paper, we develop our critique even further by integrating the above theoretical investigation with an econometric model testing for the effectiveness of the mechanisms at the basis of the EAT. We consider a sample of developed economies composed by both monetarily sovereign and non-monetarily sovereign countries. Our time spell runs from 2007 to 2016 since that we are interested to assess the solidity of the EAT postulates in the post-crisis period. Our findings reinforce the validity of our original critique, and are fully consistent with out theoretical model. Since 2007, the core mechanisms of the expansionary austerity theory were not at work, to say the least. Austerity measures did not provide any expansionary impulse to economic activity since that the “expectation”, “financial” and “external” channels were inactive at best, or they acted in the opposite direction with respect to what EAT advocates would have suggested. Further, austerity per se did not restore any sense of credibility about public finance solidity on financial markets. Rather, it exacerbated financial turbulences and speculation on the market for sovereign bonds. Interestingly, austerity measures delivered perverse results precisely in those non-monetarily sovereign countries where they were thought to be mostly effective

Financial-real side interactions in the monetary circuit: loving or dangerous hugs?

Monetary circuit theory is one of the most known attempts to formally describe the functioning of a monetary production economy as centered around the concept of flux-reflux of money. Endogenous money creation by commercial banks allows the circuit to open and firms to implement production processes. Financial markets ‘passively’ close the circuit by intermediating savings via bond and equity issuance. Despite its natural focus on financial-real side links, the monetary circuit literature has paid relatively little attention to ‘financialization’ and the way it has modified real-financial dynamics. In this paper, we analyze whether the flux-reflux perspective of the circuit may be fruitfully applied to the description of the real-financial linkages in a financialized economy. We propose two interconnected circuits, one for the real economy and one for the financial one. In this context, finance can still ensure a consistent closure of the whole system, thus directly allowing the functioning of the real economy. Newly developed inside-finance interactions, however, may indirectly influence real world dynamics by easing/restricting access to credit/financial markets and give rise to boom-and-bust cycles. Our aim is twofold: modeling modern financial worlds within a MC framework and understanding how financialization could have modified real-financial interactions

The endogeneity of money and the securitizing system. Beyond shadow banking

Financialization is not just a phenomenon regarding the exponential growth of the financial sector with respect to the real side of the economy. This paper aims shedding some light on the nature and the systemic impact of new elements in the financial realm and particularly on the so-called shadow banking through a macroeconomic perspective. Our analysis shows how financial evolutions have had an impact on the monetary system and on the whole economy at multiple levels. It involved the channel through which money enters the economic system, the rise of new financial institutions and activities, the implementation of monetary policies, and the relation between the real and the financial sector. What we are witnessing is not the rise of a shady version of something old whereas the surge of new forms of financial accumulation