Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
78
result(s) for
"Storm, Servaas"
Sort by:
Profit inflation is real
Discussions on \"profit inflation\" are mired in conceptual unclarities, definitional idiosyncrasies and data problems. This article attempts to bring conceptual clarity to the debate on profit inflation, defining profit inflation strictly as an increase in the gross output price that is caused by an increase in the profit mark-up (keeping all other unit cost items constant). Empirical evidence for the U.S. economy (2020-2022) shows that corporate profit mark-ups have indeed increased, raising both the aggregate profit share and the general price level. Hence, unlike in the 1970s, the recent inflationary episode is the outcome not of a wage-price spiral but of a profit mark-up-price spiral in which real wages get squeezed. However, the conflict underlying the recent surge in inflation concerns not just corporate shareholders profiteering at the cost of workers, but - importantly - also involves struggles between financial speculators (in oil and commodity markets) and the real economy.
Journal Article
Labour's loss: Why macroeconomics matters
Electoral support for social democracy in Western Europe is in free fall. The implosion of social democracy is largely self- inflicted, because 'Third Way' social democracy alienated its traditional supporters by (a) a deliberate move to the non- reformist, status-quo oriented macroeconomics of the New Keynesian consensus, which de-politicizes macro management and legitimises macro control by technocratic central banks; and (b) its promotion of a middle-class oriented 'cultural liberalism', as compensation for a lack of achievements on the economic front. As a result, Western European social democratic parties became responsible for austerity, rising inequality, social and economic disempowerment, and heightened insecurity-factors which contributed to a hardening of attitudes on cultural issues and migration. Social democracy has to return to its earlier reformist roots. The paper outlines what is needed in terms of fiscal and monetary policy as well as social concertation to create sufficient space for a reformist, productivist, and egalitarian strategy oriented toward full employment- based on a reimagined Keynesianism in which a prominent role is given to the economy's supply side.
Journal Article
Distribution of economic damages due to climate-driven sea-level rise across European regions and sectors
Economic costs of climate change are conventionally assessed at the aggregated global and national levels, while adaptation is local. When present, regionalised assessments are confined to direct damages, hindered by both data and models’ limitations. This article goes beyond the aggregated analysis to explore direct and indirect economic consequences of sea level rise (SLR) at regional and sectoral levels in Europe. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model and novel datasets, we estimate the distribution of losses and gains across regions and sectors. A comparison of a high-end scenario against a no-climate-impact baseline suggests a GDP loss of 1.26% (€871.8 billion) for the whole EU&UK. Conversely our refined assessments show that some coastal regions lose 9.56–20.84% of GDP, revealing striking regional disparities. Inland regions grow due to the displaced demand from coastal areas, but the GDP gains are small (0–1.13%). While recovery benefits the construction sector, public services and industry face significant downturns. We show that prioritising recovery of critical sectors locally reduces massive regional GDP losses, at negligible costs to the overall European economy. Our analysis traces regional economic restructuring triggered by SLR, underscoring the necessity of region-specific adaptation policies that embrace uneven geographic impacts and unique sectoral profiles to inform resilient strategy design.
Journal Article
Private investments in climate change adaptation are increasing in Europe, although sectoral differences remain
Climate-induced hazards are becoming more frequent and severe, causing escalating economic losses worldwide. Consequently, climate change adaptation is increasingly necessary to protect people, nature and the economy. However, little is known about who is adapting and how much they spend on adaptation measures, especially in the private sector. This article focuses on firms—the backbone of economic development, yet understudied in climate adaptation research. Here we present insights from a unique panel dataset detailing businesses’ adaptation investments across 28 European countries (2018–2022), 5 hazard types, and 19 economic sectors. Our descriptive analysis reveals low but increasing adaptation investments across Europe (0.15–0.92% of national gross domestic product, annually increasing by 30.6–37.4%). Moreover, we highlight considerable differences in adaptation intensity across sectors, including low adaptation intensity in manufacturing and retail trade. Additionally, our econometric analysis indicates that public adaptation spending crowds in private investments in adaptation, highlighting opportunities to facilitate autonomous adaptation.
Climate change adaptation spending in Europe amounts to between 0.15 and 0.92 percent of national gross domestic product and is steadily increasing by 30.6–37.4 percent annually, but manufacturing and retail spend proportionately less than other sectors, according to an analysis of private investment data over 2018–2022.
Journal Article
The New Normal: Demand, Secular Stagnation, and the Vanishing Middle Class
The U.S. economy is widely diagnosed with two \"diseases\": a secular stagnation of potential U.S. growth and rising income and job polarization. The two diseases have a common root in the demand shortfall, originating from the \"unbalanced\" growth between technologically \"dynamic\" and \"stagnant\" sectors. To understand how the short-run demand shortfall carries over into the long run, this article first deconstructs the notion of total-factor-productivity (TFP) growth, the main constituent of potential output growth and \"the best available measure of the underlying pace of exogenous innovation and technological change.\" The article argues that there is no such thing as a Solow residual and demonstrates that TFP growth can only be meaningfully interpreted in terms of labor productivity growth. Because labor productivity growth, in turn, is influenced by demand factors, the causes of secular stagnation must lie in inadequate demand. Inadequate demand, in turn, is the result of a growing segmentation of the U.S. economy into a \"dynamic\" sector that is shedding jobs and a \"stagnant\" and \"survivalist\" sector that acts as an \"employer of last resort.\" The argument is illustrated with long-run growth-accounting data for the U.S. economy (1948-2015). The mechanics of dualistic growth are highlighted using a Baumol-inspired model of unbalanced growth. Using this model, it is shown that the \"output gap,\" the anchor of monetary policy, is itself a moving target. As long as this endogeneity of the policy target is not understood, monetary policy makers will continue to contribute to unbalanced growth and premature stagnation.
Journal Article
Lost in Deflation: Why Italy's Woes Are a Warning to the Whole Eurozone
Using macroeconomic data for 1960-2018, this article analyzes the origins of the crisis of the \"post-Maastricht Treaty order of Italian capitalism.\" After 1992, Italy did more than most other Eurozone members to satisfy EMU conditions in terms of self-imposed fiscal consolidation, structural reform, and real wage restraint-and the country was undeniably successful in bringing down inflation, moderating wages, running primary fiscal surpluses, reducing unemployment, and raising the profit share. But its adherence to the EMU rulebook asphyxiated Italy's domestic demand and exports-and resulted not just in economic stagnation and a generalized productivity slowdown but in relative and absolute decline in many major dimensions of economic activity. Italy's chronic shortage of demand has clear sources: (1) perpetual fiscal austerity; (2) permanent real wage restraint; and (3) a lack of technological competitiveness, which in combination with an overvalued euro weakens the ability of Italian firms to maintain their global market shares in the face of increasing competition of low-wage countries. These three causes lower capacity utilization; reduce firm profitability; and hurt investment, innovation, and diversification. The EMU rulebook thus locks the Italian economy into economic decline and impoverishment. The analysis points to the need to end austerity and devise public investment and industrial policies to improve Italy's \"technological competitiveness\" and stop the structural divergence between the Italian economy and that of France/Germany. The issue is not just to revive demand in the short run (which is easy) but to create a self-reinforcing process of investment-led and innovation-driven process of long-run growth (which is difficult).
Journal Article
How the Invisible Hand is Supposed to Adjust the Natural Thermostat: A Guide for the Perplexed
Mainstream climate economics takes global warming seriously, but perplexingly concludes that the optimal economic policy is to almost do nothing about it. This conclusion can be traced to just a few “normative” assumptions, over which there exists fundamental disagreement amongst economists. This paper explores two axes of this disagreement. The first axis (“market vs. regulation”) measures faith in the invisible hand to adjust the natural thermostat. The second axis expresses differences in views on the efficiency and equity implications of climate action. The two axes combined lead to a classification of conflicting approaches in climate economics. The variety of approaches does not imply a post-modern “anything goes”, as the contradictions between climate and capitalism cannot be wished away.
Journal Article
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.
Journal Article
The New Normal: Demand, Secular Stagnation, and the Vanishing Middle Class: A Reply to James K. Galbraith and William Lazonick
This is a rejoinder to the challenging comments by Professors James K. Galbraith and William Lazonick on my article \"The New Normal: Demand, Secular Stagnation, and the Vanishing Middle Class.\" Professor Galbraith favors an evolutionary approach to the issue instead of my approach but admittedly not on very convincing grounds. His characterization of actual conditions in the U.S. economy (including his view of what drove voters to Trump) appears to focus more on the current state than on underlying structural trends (which are all more negative than he seems to think). Professor Lazonick usefully extends my macroeconomic analysis by his microeconomic emphasis on the impacts of the change to predatory value extraction under a \"downsize-and-distribute\" corporate governance regime, legitimated in the name of shareholder-value maximization. However, even when we extend the analysis to include micro-level financialization, it is still insufficient aggregate demand that is underlying the twin diseases-secular stagnation and a growing dualization-afflicting the U.S. economy at the macro level.
Journal Article