OECD demand regimes (1960-2000)

Real wage growth restraint is generally regarded as a necessary condition for sustained gross domestic product growth and lower unemployment in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). We use a general Keynesian growth model, allowing demand growth to be wage led or profit led, to argue that the case for real wage restraint is based on weak foundations. The model is applied to eight OECD countries (1960-2000). We find that (1) demand is wage led in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and (2) the decline in world trade growth is the dominant cause of sluggish growth in all economies, including profit-led Japan and the United States.demand-led growth, OECD unemployment, wage-led and profit-led demand regimes,

How do we judge the responsibility (or otherwise) of research and innovation?: Capital, Aristotle, and the neglected factor: freedom

Missing in the debate on the ‘responsibility’ of research, innovation, and business is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘responsibility’ and the normative economic principles or ‘micro-economic foundations’ that guide the world’s financial capital and therefore determine which businesses, innovations and research are and which are not funded. As a result, much research and innovation that is deemed responsible will not materialise. We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining our understanding of choice and capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundation – homo economicus − as an unduly restrictive version of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice

How do we judge the responsibility (or otherwise) of research and innovation?: Capital, Aristotle, and the neglected factor: freedom

Missing in the debate on the ‘responsibility’ of research, innovation, and business is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘responsibility’ and the normative economic principles or ‘micro-economic foundations’ that guide the world’s financial capital and therefore determine which businesses, innovations and research are and which are not funded. As a result, much research and innovation that is deemed responsible will not materialise. We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining our understanding of choice and capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundation – homo economicus − as an unduly restrictive version of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice