Whose saving behavior really matters in the long run? The Pasinetti (irrelevance) theorem revisited

This review paper is intended to outline some of the main qualitative theoretical issues involved in the debates on the results emerging from the Pasinetti (irrelevance) theorem, which is an important element of the post-Keynesian approach to growth and distribution. Firstly, it is briefly described the Cambridge (U.K.) vs Cambridge (U.K.) controversy following the publication of the original works by Kaldor and Pasinetti. It is then reviewed the subsequent Cambridge (U.S.) vs Cambridge (U.K.) exchange between Samuelson and Modigliani, on one side, and Pasinetti, Robinson, and Kaldor on the other side.saving behavior, growth, distribution

A Neo-Kaleckian Model of Profit Sharing, Capacity Utilization and Economic Growth

This paper sets forth a Neo-Kaleckian model of capacity utilization and growth with distribution featuring a profit-sharing arrangement. While a given proportion of firms compensate workers with only a base wage, the remaining proportion do so with a base wage and a share of profits. Consistent with the empirical evidence, workers hired by profit-sharing firms have a higher productivity than their counterparts in base-wage firms. While a higher profit-sharing coefficient raises capacity utilization and growth irrespective of the distribution of compensation strategies across firms, a higher frequency of profit-sharing firms does likewise only if the profit-sharing coefficient is sufficiently high.profit sharing, productivity, capacity utilization, growth

A Non-linear Development Dynamics of Capital Accumulation, Distribution and Technological Innovation

It is elaborated a development dynamic model of accumulation, growth and distribution in which endogenous technological innovation plays a significant role. Firms’ rate of labour-saving technological innovation is made to depend non-linearly on the distributive (wage and profit) shares, with the latter determining both the incentives to innovate and the availability of funding to carry it out. As it turns out, the direction and the intensity of the effect of a change in distribution on the rates of accumulation and growth depend on the prevailing distribution, with a similar dependence applying – alongside the relative bargaining power of capitalists and workers – to the dynamic stability properties of the system. Hence, the model does not rely on full capacity utilisation being reached for a change in the accumulation and growth regime to take place.capital accumulation, distribution, technological innovation

The Cost Channel of Monetary Policy in a Post Keynesian Macrodynamic Model of Inflation and Output Targeting

This paper contributes to the debate about whether or not inflation targeting is compatible with Post Keynesian economics. It does so by developing a model that takes into account the potentially inflationary consequences of interest rate manipulations. Evaluations of the macroeconomic implications of this so-called cost channel of monetary policy are common in the mainstream literature. But this literature uses supply-determined macro models and provides standard optimizing microfoundations for the various ways in which the interest rate can affect mark-ups, prices and ultimately the form of the Phillips curve. Our purpose is to study the implications of different Phillips curves, each embodying the cost channel and derived from Post Keynesian, cost-based-pricing microfoundations, in a monetary-production economy. We focus on the impact of these Phillips curves on macroeconomic stability and the consequent efficacy of inflation and output targeting. Ultimately, our results suggest that the presence of the cost channel is of less significance than the general orientation of the policy regime, and corroborate earlier finding that, in a monetary-production economy, more orthodox policy regimes are inimical to macro stabilization.Cost channel of monetary policy, incomes policy, inflation targeting, macroeconomic stability

Embodied technological change, capital sectoral allocation and export-led growth

This paper contributes to the literature on economic growth by seeking to join several lines of research on structural factors in a more fully specified framework, on the one hand, and by making this more inclusive supply side to interact with demand factors in a model of export-led growth, on the other hand. Balance-of-payments constraints influence the adoption of investment-specific technological change which requires the import of capital goods, while the sectoral allocation of physical and human capital is likewise revealed to be crucial for economic growth, both results having important policy implications.embodied technological change; sectoral allocation of investment; human capital accumulation; export-led growth

Balance-of-payments-constrained growth in a multisectoral framework: a panel data investigation

This paper contributes to the literature on balance-of-payments-constrained growth by providing an innovative empirical evaluation of a disaggregated version of the so-called Thirlwall's Law derived from a Pasinettian multisectoral framework. After estimating sectoral elasticities of exports and imports for a considerable panel dataset of 90 countries over the period 1965-1999, we have performed two empirical exercises. First, we grouped countries together by income level and evaluated a multisectoral balance-of-payments-constrained growth model by analyzing prediction errors and mean absolute deviations. Second, we carried out a regression validity test on the results. Our main findings give support to the validity of the multisectoral version of Thirlwall's Law, providing therefore further understanding of the structural determinants of the uneven international development and guidance for the design of growth-enhancing national structural policies.balance-of-payments constraint; structural change; economic growth; macrodynamics

Privileging Micro over Macro? A History of Conflicting Positions

Mainstream macroeconomists agree that we live in the age of microfoundations. The recent worldwide financial crisis may have emboldened critics of this microfoundational orthodoxy, but it remains the dominant view that macroeconomic models must go beyond supply and demand functions to the level of “deep parameters.” Microeconomics on this view is prior to macroeconomics. The standard narrative of the rise of microfoundations locates their origins in the work of Lucas and his new classical friends and followers in the 1970s. Our purpose is to step back and to reexamine the history of the relationship of microeconomics and macroeconomics without presupposing the truth of the standard narrative, challenging the association of microfoundations with Lucas and rational expectations.microfoundations; new classical macroeconomics; Robert Lucas; new Keynesian macroeconomics; new neoclassical synthesis