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Financial Assets, Debt and Liquidity Crises: A Keynesian Approach
Abstract
The macroeconomic development of most major industrial economies is characterised by boom-bust cycles. Normally such boom-bust cycles are driven by specific sectors of the economy. In the financial meltdown of the years 2007–2009 it was the credit sector and the real-estate sector that were the main driving forces. This book takes on the challenge of interpreting and modelling this meltdown. In doing so it revives the traditional Keynesian approach to the financial-real economy interaction and the business cycle, extending it in several important ways. In particular, it adopts the Keynesian view of a hierarchy of markets and introduces a detailed financial sector into the traditional Keynesian framework. The approach of the book goes beyond the currently dominant paradigm based on the representative agent, market clearing and rational economic agents. Instead it proposes an economy populated with heterogeneous, rationally bounded agents attempting to cope with disequilibria in various markets.
... When in the text occasional reference to long-run equilibria will be made, it may be understood that for the models in evolutionary economics abjuring this notion, the analogue would be their long-run time averages. 2. A further example is the book on medium-scale models by Charpe et al. (2011), in which the authors employ four different values for their output-capital ratio in a steady state position, namely, 0.50, 0.40, 0.45, 1.00 (on pp. 48, 109, 296, 303, respectively). ...
Regarding the output-capital ratio in heterodox macroeconomic simulation studies, a surprisingly wide range of numerical values can be found. The paper discusses quarterly US data that are publicly available where, in order to capture depreciation, the construction of the capital stock by the perpetual inventory method relies on detailed estimates of its lifetime. Subsequently the paper builds up a capital stock series by alternatively having recourse to the statistics about capital consumption and furthermore determining an initial level by an assumption about the long-term growth of capital. This procedure leads to somewhat different results. In addition, the rates of depreciation and profit are studied that are implied by the two approaches. The paper closes with two numerical proposals for the steady state values of these variables and the output-capital ratio that could be readily employed for macrodynamic modelling, and that are quite different from many of the aforementioned examples.
This paper develops a multi-country post-Kaleckian model that incorporates the role of the government. One key novelty of the model is that it integrates cross-country effects of changes in both income distribution and fiscal policy. The model is used to estimate econometrically the effects of income distribution and fiscal policy on the components of aggregate demand and the budget balance in EU15 countries. The results show that a simultaneous increase in the wage share in all EU15 countries would increase demand and the primary budget balance in all countries. A simultaneous increase in government spending turns out to boost economic activity in all the EU15 countries, indicating the positive economic effects of expansionary fiscal policy. Moreover, a progressive tax policy that would be implemented simultaneously at the EU level would lead to an increase in output in all countries.
In this paper, a six‐dimensional model of flexible prices with the monetary and fiscal policy mix, describing the development of the firms' private debt, the output, the expected rate of inflation, the rate of interest, government expenditure, and government bonds are analyzed. The stress put on the “twin debt accumulation” means that in our model both private debt accumulation and the public debt (government bond) accumulation are explicitly introduced. Questions concerning the existence of limit cycles around its normal equilibrium point are investigated. The bifurcation equation is found. The formulae for the calculation of its coefficients are gained. Numerical example illustrating the results attained is presented by means of numerical simulations.
Wynne Godley and Hyman Minsky were two macroeconomists who ‘saw the crisis coming’. This paper develops a simple macrodynamic model that synthesises some key perspectives of their analytical frameworks. The model incorporates Godley’s financial balances approach and postulates that private sector’s propensity to spend is driven by a stock-flow norm (the target net private debt-to-income ratio) that changes endogenously via a Minsky mechanism. It also includes two fiscal rules: a Maastricht-type fiscal rule, according to which the fiscal authorities adjust the government expenditures based on a target net government debt ratio; and a Godley–Minsky fiscal rule, which links government expenditures with private indebtedness following a counter-cyclical logic. The analysis shows that (i) the interaction between the propensity to spend and net private indebtedness can generate cycles and instability; (ii) instability is more likely when the propensity to spend responds strongly to deviations from the stock-flow norm and when the expectations that determine the stock-flow norm are highly sensitive to the economic cycle; (iii) the Maastricht-type fiscal rule is destabilising while the Godley–Minsky fiscal rule is stabilising; and (iv) the paradox of debt can apply both to the private sector and the government sector.
Wynne Godley and Hyman Minsky were two macroeconomists who ‘saw the crisis coming’. This paper develops a simple macrodynamic model that synthesises some key perspectives of their analytical frameworks. The model incorporates Godley’s financial balances approach and postulates that private sector’s propensity to spend is driven by a stock-flow norm (the target net private debt-to-income ratio) that changes endogenously via a Minsky mechanism. It also includes two fiscal rules: a Maastricht-type fiscal rule, according to which the fiscal authorities adjust the government expenditures based on a target net government debt ratio; and a Godley-Minsky fiscal rule, which links government expenditures with private indebtedness following a counter-cyclical logic. The analysis shows that (i) the interaction between the propensity to spend and net private indebtedness can generate cycles and instability; (ii) instability is more likely when the propensity to spend responds strongly to deviations from the stock-flow norm and when the expectations that determine the stock-flow norm are highly sensitive to the economic cycle; (iii) the Maastricht-type fiscal rule is destabilising while the Godley-Minsky fiscal rule is stabilising; and (iv) the paradox of debt can apply both to the private sector and to the government sector.
In this paper, we reconsider Minsky's financial instability hypothesis from the point of view of mathematical macrodynamic modeling. We start from a simple prototype small scale model of private debt and income with fixed prices. This system is similar to the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey system, in which private debt plays the role of predator and income plays the role of prey. Then, we extend the model step by step by introducing variable prices, inflation expectation, public debt and a budget equation of the consolidated government including the central bank. We also study the effect of macroeconomic stabilization policies by means of monetary and fiscal policies.
In this paper we set up a baseline, but nevertheless advanced and complete model representing detailed goods market dynamics, heterogeneous labor markets, dual and cross-dual wage-price adjustment processes, as well as counter-cyclical government policies. The cyclical movements of output generate, through Okun’s law, employment variations in the heterogeneous labor market. The core of the resulting Keynesian macrodynamics is however given by credit-financed investment behavior and loan-rate setting by credit suppliers. The framework is constructed in such way that simplified, lower dimensional versions of the model can be obtained by setting parameters describing specific feedback effects from one sector to another equal to zero. Starting from such low dimensional sub-dynamics, we show the local stability of the full 7D model through a “cascade of stable matrices” approach if the feedback chains are sufficiently tranquil in their transmission mechanisms. However, local stability is the point of departure for the numerical investigation of local explosiveness and the forces that can bound such a behavior.
In this paper, we present a model of an economy with household debt, and discuss the conditions under which financial fragility arises. Financial instability is driven by distributive effects. In addition to the income transfers associated with interest payments, the accumulation of debt feeds back with the distribution of income between labour and capital. The model also gives a central role to banks and credit rationing. Contrary to the existing literature, credit supply does not depend on the characteristics of borrowers, but on those of banks. There is a feedback channel between the health of the financial system and the quantity of credit in the economy. We show that there is a diversity of channels through which financial fragility may arise. We identify three channels: a debt–deflation effect à la Fisher, a credit‐financed consumption boom and an exhilarating debt effect.
IntroductionMacroeconomic Portfolio Choice and Keynesian Business Cycle Theory; the KMGTModelLong-Term Bonds, Not Money, as the Primary Financing Instrument of the GovernmentIntensive Form of the ModelKeynesian Fiscal Policy Rules and Stability of Balanced GrowthConclusions
NotesReferences
In the framework of a Keynesian based monetary macro model, we study the implications of targeting monetary aggregates or targeting the interest rate as two alternative monetary policy rules. Whereas the former targets the inflation rate indirectly, through the control of the money supply, the latter, also called the Taylor rule, implies direct inflation targeting. Our monetary macro model exhibits: asset market clearing, disequilibrium in the product and labor markets, sluggish price and quantity adjustments, two Phillips curves for the wage and price dynamics and expectations formation which represents a combination of adaptive and forward looking behavior. The parameters of different model variants are estimated partly through single equation and partly through subsystem estimations for US quarterly time series data 1960.1–1995.1. With the estimated parameters system simulations for the two monetary policy rules are performed. Although the two rules have slightly different stability properties, we show that discretionary monetary policy, i.e. policy that responds to the state of macro variables, has stabilizing effects. We also show that our model with either of the two rules generate in terms of impulse response functions roughly the same responses to shocks as one obtains from standard VAR studies.
There has been increasing interest in continuous-time macroeconometric models. This research investigates stability of the Bergstrom, Nowman, and Wymer continuous-time model of the U.K. when system parameters change. This particularly well-regarded continuous-time macroeconometric model is chosen to assure the empirical and potential policy relevance of the results. Stability analysis is important with this model for understanding the dynamic properties of the system and for determining which parameters are the most important to those dynamic properties. The main objective of this paper is to determine the boundaries of parameters at which instability occurs. Two types of boundaries are found: the transcritical bifurcation boundary and the Hopf bifurcation boundary, corresponding to two different ways that instability occurs when parameter values cross the bifurcation boundary.The existence of the Hopf bifurcation boundary is particularly useful, since Hopf bifurcation may provide explanations for some cyclical phenomena in macroeconomy. Numerical algorithms are designed to locate the stability boundaries, which are displayed in three-dimensional diagrams. A notable and perhaps surprising fact is that both types of bifurcations can coexist with this well-regarded U.K. model--in the same neighborhood of the parameter space.
This paper describes the current credit crisis and explains aspects of its macro and micro features. In particular, it describes the mechanism by which sub-prime mortgages and securitisation products helped to exacerbate the problem. In contrast to many other descriptions, it employs no advanced mathematical techniques, allowing non-specialists to appreciate the important dynamic processes at work.
The paper sets up a portfolio model of the financial sector with markets for equity, government bonds, money and debt. The comparative statics of the temporary equilibrium are studied analytically and numerically. Subsequent simulations explore the reactions of financial markets in response to stylized oscillations of some of the exogenous variables. These include economic activity, income distribution, inflation, investors' sentiment, and banks' perceived bankruptcy risk of firms. Special emphasis is put on the resulting cyclical pattern of Tobin's q and the interest spread between loan rate and bond rate.
Endogenous money is widespread in economic theory. The post-Keynesian contribution is identification of a causal link between bank lending and the money supply. Though driven by macroeconomic concerns, the post-Keynesian debate has reduced to a microeconomic debate over the role of financial intermediaries in the accommodation process. In the IS–LM model endogenous money flattens the LM. This misses its substantive significance which is the discrediting of monetarist money supply policy rules and monetarist critiques of central banking, its identification of the key role of credit, and its provision of a credit-driven theory of the business cycle.
This paper examines a nonlinear disequilibrium model of price formation in speculative markets with two groups of speculators, fundamentalists and chartists. The behavior of the fundamentalists is stabilizing, whereas that of the chartists is destabilizing; a sufficiently high share of wealth in the hands of the latter group can cause attracting periodic orbits to arise. If information about fundamentals is costly to obtain, then chartists obtain higher pay-offs in a stable regime, while fundamentalists perform better in an unstable regime. This gives rise to endogenous regime switching: the market alternates between periods of stability and instability, with the transition from one regime to another determined endogenously through the evolution of wealth shares.
Observers have relied increasingly on simple reaction functions, such as the Taylor rule, to assess the conduct of monetary policy. Applying this approach to deflationary or near-zero inflation environments is problematic, however, and this paper examines two shortcomings of particular relevance to the Japanese case of the last decade. One is the unusually high degree of uncertainty associated with potential output in an environment of prolonged stagnation and deflation. Consequently, reaction function-based assessments of Japanese monetary policy are so sensitive to the chosen gauge of potential output as to be unreliable. The second shortcoming is the neglect of policy expectations, which become critically important as nominal interest rates approach zero. Using long-term bond yields, we identify five episodes since 1996 characterized by abrupt declines in Japanese inflation expectations. Policies undertaken by the Bank of Japan during this period did little to stabilize expectations, and the August 2000 interest-rate increase appears to have intensified deflationary concerns.
This paper is concerned with the application to monetary and fiscal policy analysis of a recently developed second-order continuous time macroeconometric model of the United Kingdom. It deals with the effect on stability of both simple ad hoc policy feedbacks and more sophisticated feedbacks derived by using optimal control theory. The latter are designed to minimize an infinite horizon quadratic cost function involving deviations of output, the exchange rate, and the monetary and fiscal policy instruments from their steady state paths and, also, the rates of change of the policy instruments.
The asymptotic distributions of cointegration tests are approximated using the Gamma distribution. The tests considered are for the I(1), the conditional I(1), as well as the I(2) model. Formulae for the parameters of the Gamma distributions are derived from response surfaces. The resulting approximation is flexible, easy to implement and more accurate than the standard tables previously published.
Rental adjustment equations have been estimated for a quarter century. In the United States, models have used the deviation of the actual vacancy rate from the natural rate as the main explanatory variable, while in the United Kingdom, drivers of the demand for space have dominated the estimation. The recent papers of Hendershott (1996) and Hendershott, Lizieri and Matysiak (HLM 1999) fall into the former category. We reestimate these equations using alternative formulations and present evidence that changes in real interest rates were not capitalized into Sydney and London real land prices. We then derive a model incorporating supply and demand factors within an Error Correction framework and show how the U.S. and U.K. traditions are special cases of this more general formulation. We next estimate a two-equation variant with a separate vacancy rate equation using data from the City of London office market. This model allows calculation of the underlying price (rent) and income (employment) elasticities and explains the data marginally better than the HLM model. Importantly, our model passes standard modern econometric requirements for unit roots and cointegration. Copyright 2002 by the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.
Two kinds of view about the recent stagnation of the Japanese economy have been particularly popular. The first adopts a "monetary" perspective, arguing that Japan has fallen into a liquidity trap from which only unconventional monetary policy can save it. The second maintains that a large part of Japan's macroeconomic difficulties is structural and related to problems in the "real" side of the economy. We argue here that it is hard to justify a neat division between these real and monetary problems. Declining expectations of future productivity may have depressed real interest rates and reduced monetary policy flexibility, but they are also likely to have prompted real responses that have contributed to stagnation. In the long run, the conclusions of the two kinds of diagnosis are complementary, but in the short term tension may exist, with loose monetary policy weakening incentives for structural reform, and structural adjustment exacerbating demand deficiency. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.
We develop a post-Keynesian macrodynamic model of productive capacity utilization and income distribution in which the supply of credit-money is endogenous. Nominal interest rate is set by banks as a markup over the base rate, which is exogenously determined by the monetary authority. Over time, banking markup falls with firms' profit rate on physical capital and rises with the rate of inflation, whereas the base rate remains unchanged. The dynamic behaviour of the system is analysed for both cases regarding capacity utilization, namely full utilization and excess capacity, which then makes for the possibility of multiple equilibria for the state variables real wage and nominal interest rate. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.
We formulate a descriptive dynamic macroeconomic model of the Keynes-Wicksell type which incorporates goods, labour and financial markets. The model has well specified budget constraints with respect to the economic agents (households, firms and government) within it. We introduce some standard nonlinearities into the goods and labour markets. The dynamics of the general model consist of five differential equations; we analyse two- and three-dimensional subcases to show the existence of real and monetary cycles whose interaction will determine the full dynamics. We use numerical simulation to study the dynamics of the full model and the impact of various government fiscal and monetary policies.
This paper analyzes the price adjustment process for rental office space in 17 cities across the United States over the time period 1960 to 1975. The results confirm much of what economic theory suggests. Landlords react to fluctuations in demand by building up or drawing down inventories of unlet or vacant office space. Other things equal, higher levels of vacant office space mean that landlords lower their rents and reduce the difference between desired and actual vacancies. Empirical evidence is also presented on the normal vacancy rate across different cities.
This paper tests, using U.S. data, the dynamics implied by the NAIRU view of the relationship between inflation and the unemployment rate. The results are somewhat sensitive to the measure of inflation used, but they generally reject the dynamics. An alternative way of thinking about the relationship between inflation and the unemployment rate is suggested. 1 The NAIRU Model The main purpose of this paper is to test the dynamics implied by the "NAIRU" view of the relationship between inflation and the unemployment rate. This view is that there is a value of the unemployment rate (the NAIRU) below which the price level forever accelerates and above which the price level forever decelerates. The simplest version of the NAIRU equation is # t - # t -1 = #(u t -u # ) +#s t +# t ,#<0,#>0, (1) # Cowles Foundation, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8281. Voice: 203-432-3715; Fax: 203-432-6167; e-mail: ray.fair@yale.edu; website: http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu. All the data ...