IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/elg/rokejn/v8y2020i3p365-384.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stagnation and unnaturally low interest rates: a simple critique of the amended New Consensus and the Sraffian supermultiplier alternative

Author

Listed:
  • Franklin Serrano

    (Professor Associado, Instituto de Economia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (IE–UFRJ), Brazil)

  • Ricardo Summa

    (Professor Associado, Instituto de Economia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (IE–UFRJ), Brazil)

  • Vivian Garrido Moreira

    (Post-Doctoral Researcher, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Economia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (PPGE–UFSC), Florianópolis, Brazil)

Abstract

This paper argues that the amended versions (financial wedge and secular stagnation) of the simple pragmatic New Consensus model are as open to theoretical criticism as the original one was. The authors show that: (i) the real natural rate of interest is unlikely to be negative, (ii) it (inconsistently) depends on the Neoclassical investment function drawn at a position of full employment in a model in which the economy is demand-constrained, and (iii) both investment and full employment saving are induced by the trend of demand in the longer run and this challenges the usefulness of the notion of a natural or neutral rate of interest, which (iv) are also subject to the Sraffian capital critique. This is then contrasted with an alternative simple Sraffian supermultiplier model in which the interest rate and the financial wedge are distributive instead of allocative variables, and there is no natural rate of interest since in the longer run there is no trade-off between consumption and investment and also no full employment of labor. As the capital stock adjusts to demand, potential (capacity) saving will be determined by investment, and both investment and capacity saving increase when consumption increases. Finally, we briefly illustrate how this alternative model could begin to make sense of the recent relevant stylized facts.

Suggested Citation

  • Franklin Serrano & Ricardo Summa & Vivian Garrido Moreira, 2020. "Stagnation and unnaturally low interest rates: a simple critique of the amended New Consensus and the Sraffian supermultiplier alternative," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 8(3), pages 365-384, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:rokejn:v:8:y:2020:i:3:p365-384
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/roke/8-3/roke.2020.03.04.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giovanna Ciaffi & Matteo Deleidi & Stefano Di Bucchianico, 2022. "Stagnation despite ongoing innovation: Is R&D expenditure composition a missing link? An empirical analysis for the US (1948-2019)," Department of Economics University of Siena 877, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    2. Stefano Di Bucchianico, 2021. "Negative Interest Rate Policy to Fight Secular Stagnation: Unfeasible, Ineffective, Irrelevant, or Inadequate?," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 687-710, October.
    3. Peter Flaschel & Sigrid Luchtenberg & Hagen Kramer & Christian Proano & Mark Setterfield, 2021. "Contemporary Macroeconomic Outcomes: A Tragedy in Three Acts," Working Papers 2105, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    4. Summa, Ricardo de Figueiredo, 2022. "Alternative uses of functional finance: Lerner, MMT and the Sraffiansh," IPE Working Papers 175/2021, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    5. Manuel David Cruz & Daniele Tavani, 2022. "Secular Stagnation: A Classical-Marxian View," Working Papers PKWP2229, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    6. Levrero, Enrico Sergio, 2022. "The Taylor Rule and its Aftermath: Elements for an Interpretation along Classical-Keynesian lines," Centro Sraffa Working Papers CSWP59, Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione "Piero Sraffa".
    7. Di Bucchianico, Stefano, 2020. "Discussing Secular Stagnation: A case for freeing good ideas from theoretical constraints?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 288-297.
    8. Di Bucchianico, Stefano, 2021. "Inequality, household debt, ageing and bubbles: A model of demand-side Secular Stagnation," IPE Working Papers 160/2021, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    stagnation; Sraffian supermultiplier; New Consensus model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:rokejn:v:8:y:2020:i:3:p365-384. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Phillip Thompson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elgaronline.com/roke .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.