Omineca Herald, July, 13, 1966

We derive a real gravity equation and gain several new insights that were hidden in the nominal specification used so far. Most importantly, the real effective exchange rate (REER) of the exporter and, via the importer's terms of trade, also the importer's REER matter, and we can identify the elasticity of substitution. We estimate real gravity for 18 OECD countries. Therefore, we extend the untangling normalization method from an “it” to an “ijt” panel data model and use it to exploit all variables proposed by theory, despite a broad set of fixed effects (FE). We find that both REERs are important and estimate an elasticity of substitution of 1.5. If we assume homogeneous parameters, as is common, the remaining unexplained exporter-time and importer-time deviations are still substantial, relaxing this assumption improves this. We now explain 64 and 70% of the exporter-time and importer-time deviations, respectively, and thus the majority of the exporter and importer multilateral resistances. Untangling normalization helps to get a better view of what is still unexplained by theory

Guild medals from the Surgeons' Guild of Amsterdam

Between around 1620 and the end of the eighteenth century, every surgeon working in Amsterdam was presented with a guild medal on passing their surgeon's exams. These medals actually represented membership of the Surgeon's Guild of Amsterdam and could be used as proof of attendance at meetings of the Guild. From 1864 onwards surgeons also received the Hortus medal, which allowed them entry to the Hortus Medicus. Less common medals include medals for ensuring the surgeon's apprentices attended lectures, funeral medals for ensuring correct procedures regarding casket bearing duties were followed at a funeral, and medals of honour recognising services to the Guild. The collection of 17th and 18th century Amsterdam Surgeon's Guild medals numbers some 230 examples, and is the largest and most varied collection of its kind in the world. A few of the medals that have been preserved actually belonged to surgeons depicted in the famous series of group portraits. We examined who these surgeons were and what the purpose of these medals was. </p

Normal Utilization as the Adjusting Variable in Neo-Kaleckian Growth Models: A Critique

As well-known, the canonical Neo-Kaleckian growth model fails to reconcile actual and normal rates of utilization in equilibrium. Some recent contributions revive an old proposal for solving this problem – making the normal rate of utilization an endogenous variable that converges to the actual utilization rate – justifying it with new, micro-founded premises. We argue that these new justifications for the convergence of normal to actual utilization do not stand closer scrutiny. First, the proposed microeconomic model relies on various restrictive assumptions, some of which are mutually inconsistent. Second, the derivation of the macroeconomic adjustment mechanism from the microeconomic analysis involves a logical leap, that can be justified only by a very arbitrary assumption with little economic justification. Finally, we discuss the way in which this mechanism has been incorporated into the Neo-Kaleckian growth model by proposers of this approach. We show that, even if one puts aside, for the sake of argument, the first two points, the existence of autonomous components of demand is sufficient to invalidate the resulting macroeconomic model