Monday, July 12, 2010

Kling on Jones, Minsky, and Cowen

Arnold Kling presents a Jones-Minsky interpretation of why profits are high if aggregate demand is down.

I think it makes good sense. I've appreciated Kling's posting on the fairly well known work of Minsky and the less well known work of Jones.

I think another interpretation that integrates perfectly well with the Minsky-Jones interpretation is corporate liquidity preference. Roger Farmer has been emphasizing this point a lot lately, and stressing the relationship between corporate liquidity and hiring. I think I'm going to have to add Farmer's new book to the reading list.

I'm working on my personal statement for economics PhDs right now and a big part of that is sketching out research interests. I really want to look into the macroeconomics of gross labor flows - separation and hiring - which has been underemphasized relative to the macroeconomics of net labor flows (i.e. - increases or decreases in employment, unemployment, or the labor force). Minsky, Jones, and Farmer all seem very important to this. Minsky and Farmer especially provide a very Keynesian flavor to the question.

Farmer is also a Keynesian with serious doubts about fiscal policy, which piques my interest. Ya, I really oughta read the book and get a sense of his thinking on it.

1 comment:

  1. That's actually a cool proverb. Thanks spambot!

    ...although I don't know of anyone who actually throw stones at fruit trees, and I imagine that there are folks out there who throw stones at fruitless trees as well.

    But I'm down with the parable qua parable.

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