The Rise of European Unemployment: A Synopsis

Unemployment in the European Union has risen from a modest 2% in 1970 to 8.3% in 2002, a level not seen since the Great Depression. In this draft introduction for his new book, The Rise of European Unemployment: A Keynesian Approach, economist Engelbert Stockhammer argues that changes in the relationship between the financial sector and the real sector of the economy, a phenomenon he labels “financialization,” is at the root of the slowdown.

Wage-led growth: An introduction

The past decades have witnessed falling wage shares and a polarization of personal income distribution. Average wages and average labour compensation have not kept up with productivity growth. Functional income distribution has shifted at the expense of labour. In many countries personal income distribution has also become more unequal. By many measures income inequality is worse than at any time in the 20th century. At the same time economic growth processes have become imbalanced. Financial crises have become more frequent; household debts have risen sharply; international imbalances have increased, with some countries relying excessively on export growth. This paper argues that the polarization of income distribution and the decline in the wage share play an important role in the generation of imbalanced and unequal growth, and that a pro-labour wage policy will form an important part of a policy package that generates a stable growth regime. A wage-led growth strategy is thus advocated.Wage-led growth; income distribution; Keynesian economics; economic policy

Peripheral Europe’s Debt and German Wages. The Role of Wage Policy in the Euro Area

The paper argues that the Greek debt crisis, as well as those of other Southern European countries and Ireland, has to be seen in macroeconomic context. The sum of the public sector balance, the (domestic) private sector balance and the current account deficit (or equivalently: the capital inflows) has to add up to zero. By implication in a country that has a current account deficit either the private sector or the public sector has to run a deficit. Therefore the peripheral countries can only solve their public debt problems if there is a change in German current account surpluses. The paper explores the implications of this for wage policy in the euro zone.

Some Stylized Facts on the Finance-Dominated Accumulation Regime

While there is an agreement that the Fordist accumulation regime has come to an end in the course of the 1970s, there is no agreement on how to characterize the post-Fordist regime (or if a such is already in place). The paper seeks put together various arguments related to financialization (in the broad sense) from a macroeconomic point of view and investigate the relevance of these arguments by means of an analysis stylized facts for EU countries. The paper discusses changes in investment behaviour, consumption behaviour and government expenditures, investigating to what extent changes are related to financialization. Households experience higher debt levels. Rising profits of businesses come with only moderate investment. The notion of a “finance-dominated” accumulation regime is proposed to highlight that financial developments crucially shape the pattern and the pace of accumulation. The finance dominated accumulation regime is characterized by a mediocre growth performance and by higher volatility. However, so far deregulated financial markets have not lead to major financial crises in advanced capitalist economies. A possible reason for this is that the size of the state sector has not been substantially reduced despite neoliberal attempts to do so.financialization, finance-dominated accumulation regime, macroeconomics consumption, investment, financial system, financial stability

Financialization and the Slowdown of Accumulation

Over the past decades financial investment of non-financial businesses has been rising and accumulation of capital goods has been declining. The first part of the paper offers a novel theory to explain this phenomenon. Financialization, the shareholder revolution and the development of a market for corporate control have shifted power to shareholders and thus changed management priorities, leading to a reduction in the desired growth rate. In the second part the link between accumulation and financialization is tested econometrically by means of a time series analysis of aggregate business investment for USA, UK, France, and Germany. Extensive test of robustness are performed. For the first three countries evidence that confirms the negative effect of financialization on accumulation is found. A revised version of the paper is forthcoming in the Cambridge Journalof Economics. Please contact the author for the revised version.financialization; business investment; class analysis; theory of the firm

Wage Flexibility or Wage Coordination? Economic Policy Implications of the Wage-Led Demand Regime in the Euro Area

Wage shares have fallen substantially in Europe since the early 1980s. To some extent this is due to a macroeconomic policy package that encourages wage flexibility and wage competition. A system of wage coordination in the Euro area would facility a return to a productivity-oriented wage policy by reducing wage competition. In a recent study on the demand effects of changes in functional income distribution Stockhammer, Onaran und Ederer (2007) find that the Euro area is in a wage-led demand regime. According to their results a reduction of the wage share by 1%-point leads to a reduction of demand by around 0.2%-points of GDP. This finding has far reaching implications for economic policy. A stable wage share would help stabilize demand. The paper aims, first, at clarifying some conceptual issues in the design of a European system of productivity-oriented wage coordination and, second, it discusses the economic policy implications of wage coordination. The present policy package assigns wages the role of a shock absorber. However, as wage reductions do have negative demand effects in a wage-led demand regime, this policy has a deflationary bias. A system of wage coordination will thus have to be complemented by a more active nation fiscal policies and more fiscal redistribution within the EU. If so a regime of productivity oriented wage coordination will help to stabilize demand and it is consistent with price stability. �macroeconomics, economic policy, policy mix, wage coordination, European Union

Financialization and the Global Economy

In this chapter from the forthcoming book, The Political Economy of Financial Crises, edited by Gerald Epstein and Martin H. Wolfson, (Oxford University Press, 2012) Engelbert Stockhammer�discusses ‘financialization’, i.e. changes in the role of the financial sector. This will highlight (1) changes in household behavior, in particular with regards to household debt, (2) changes in the behaviour of non-financial businesses, such as shareholder value orientation and increased financial activity and (3) changes in the financial sector, in particular the emergence of the (hardly regulated) shadow banking sector, a shift towards household credit (rather than business credit) and a shift to investment banking/fee generating business. Second, the chapter discusses the international dimension of financialization. Here the liberalization of capital flows and its consequences, the determination of exchange rates by capital flows (rather than by current account disequilibria), will be discussed. International financial liberalization has not fulfilled the neoliberal promise of generating investment-based growth, but rather has given rise to a series of financial crises that were typically driven by a swing of capital inflows (‘capital flow bonanza’) followed by capital flow reversals. Third, the chapter offers an interpretation of the finance-dominated accumulation regime as having given rise to two distinct growth models (based on Stockhammer 2010): a credit-financed consumption-driven growth model (mostly in Anglo-Saxon countries) and a export-driven growth model (in Germany, Japan, and, possibly, China). Both growth models suffer from a structural demand deficiency, which is due to wage suppression, but each try to overcome this by different means (credit-financed consumption or export orientation). The chapter thus highlights how financialization with its domestic and international effects have interacted with a polarization of income distribution to generate the structural imbalances that led to the crisis 2007-09.

The Slowdown of Accumulation and the Rise of European Unemployment

The paper aims at testing empirically two Keynesian hypotheses. First that increasing financial investment is one of the major causes for the slowdown in capital accumulation and, second, that this slowdown is one of major factors for rising unemployment rates. After presenting evidence from the National Accounts for the rising importance of dividend and interest income, econometric tests are performed for Germany, France, UK and the USA, and for the employment regressions, additionally for Italy. The choice of countries being determined by the interest in European unemployment and limited data availability. Overall, the findings are supportive of both hypotheses.European Unemployment; Keynesian theory; capital accumulation

Is There an Equilibrium Rate of Unemployment in the Long Run?

Distinguishing between profit led and growth led demand regimes, we analyze the conditions of existence and stability of long run equilibrium of unemployment. The model we employ has at its center the relation between growth and distribution. Growth can be either wage led or profit led. Distribution itself is a function of the unemployment rate, with higher unemployment leading to a higher profit share. We use Okun's Law to close the model, making the change of the rate of unemployment a function of growth. The interesting result of our analysis is that in profit led demand regime the short run and long run equilibrium are stable. However, if the demand regime is wage led, the same conditions that guarantee stability of the goods market equilibrium in the short run render impossible the existence of a long run equilibrium rate of unemployment, and vice versa. Thus, if Kalecki's proposition that higher wages lead to higher growth is true, there will be no equilibrium rate of unemployment in the long run that serves as an anchor for the economic system. A revised version of the paper is forthcoming in the Review of Political Economy. Please contact the author for the revised version.growth theory; unemployment; keynesian economics