I was sent a review copy of Debunking Economics, by Australian economics professor Steven Keen. I agree with his view that heterodox economists have something to offer, particularly in the area of macroeconomics. His discussion of a debt bubble and Minsky reminds me that PSST includes the word “sustainable” for a reason. Patterns of specialization and trade that depend on ever-increasing debt loads are not sustainable. I think that Keen would agree with that one. But I also think that patterns of trade that depend on the government spending money it does not have are equally unsustainable. I do not get the sense that Keen is on board with that one.
If I were a zero-tolerance reader, I would have put the book down at page 7:
neoclassical economics advocated reducing government intervention in the economy and letting markets–especially financial markets–decide economic outcomes unimpeded by politicians, bureaucrats, or regulations. Counter-cyclical government budget policy–running deficits during downturns and surpluses during booms–gave way to trying to run surpluses all the time, to reduce the size of the government sector.
On the second point, suffice to say that the size of the government sector has grown in recent decades, particularly under the two most recent administrations. Furthermore, both Administrations cut taxes and increased spending in response to recessions.
The first point is just as wrong. Suppose you could take an economist from Mars and show him the financial regulatory regime that existed in the United States in 1980 and the one that existed in 2000. Ask that economist which regime constituted turning the banks loose to do whatever they want. I am pretty sure that the answer would be that the 1980 regulatory regime was looser. Back then there were no formal capital requirements at all. In 2000, there were capital requirements that were “sophisticated” in the sense that they were risk-based. In 1980, there were fewer mechanisms in place for resolving failed banks. Deposit insurance prices were not linked to risk.
It is true that in 1980 there were more barriers to competition between various forms of financial institutions. There were certainly more controls on interest rates thirty or forty years ago. But from a safety and soundness perspective, the regulatory regime of 2000 was the more stringent. Keen and all the other chaps who blame the financial crisis on what is often called “the atmosphere of deregulation” are so beguiled by their righteous indignation that they do not seem to see any need to back up their rants with proof.
A few more excerpts below the fold.p. 22:
were it not for the extreme rescue efforts he initiated in 1987, the stock market crash of that year would have precipitated a serious recession, but one far milder than that we are now experiencing. Instead, that rescue and the many others in the crises that followed…encouraged the speculative excesses of Wall Street to continue.
I read this as an Austro-Minsky critique of the “Greenspan put.”
Keen is not just out to debunk macroeconomics. He is ready to toss the whole of neoclassical economics, right down to the laws of supply and demand. On p. 55:
market demand does not necessarily increase when price falls, even if individual demand does.
He makes an argument based on aggregation issues. Consider three propositions.
1. The conditions that are necessary in order to be able to interpret market demand in terms of a representative consumer are unrealistically stringent.
2. The conditions under which market demand absolutely must slope down if individual demand curves slope down are unrealistically stringent.
3. The conditions are under which market demand is likely to slope down if individual demand curves slope down are unrealistically stringent.
Propositions (1) and (2) are true and uninteresting. Proposition (3) would be interesting, but it is not true. Keen uses propositions (1) and (2) to dance a sort of intellectual strip tease that makes you think he is going to reveal a case for (3), but he never goes that far.
p. 101:
Unless perfect competition rules, there is no supply curve.
Keen laments that so many economists are too dense to grasp this insight. I am afraid that I fall into that group.
In spite of all these criticisms, the book made me stop and think about where I agree with mainstream economics and where I disagree. I think that the concept of equilibrium can be a useful fiction, at least with respect to partial equilibrium. That is, although the market intersection of supply curves and demand curves may not be something we can observe outside the context of an organized exchange, the concept is still very useful, particularly in analyzing single markets.
On the other hand, the concept of general equilibrium can often be a harmful fiction. Clearly, the economy is in disequilibrium most of the time. Conditions are always changing, and adjustment is far from complete. I think that disequilibrium dynamics are both difficult to analyze and very important for the economy. I suspect that macroeconomic phenomena, such as widespread unemployment, are a reflection of disequilibrium dynamics.
READER COMMENTS
Steve Sailer
Oct 24 2011 at 4:15pm
I started reading Keen in 2008, and was much impressed with his analysis of the disaster imminently looming for Australia. However, so far, that hasn’t happened … yet … so I haven’t been reading him much lately.
Rick Hull
Oct 24 2011 at 5:52pm
> On the other hand, the concept of general equilibrium can often be a harmful fiction. Clearly, the economy is in disequilibrium most of the time. Conditions are always changing, and adjustment is far from complete. I think that disequilibrium dynamics are both difficult to analyze and very important for the economy. I suspect that macroeconomic phenomena, such as widespread unemployment, are a reflection of disequilibrium dynamics.
Interesting. My own sense (perhaps using an imprecise, informal definition of equilibrium) is that market action *tends* to move things toward equilibrium, but that pesky real world is what changes. The real world change causes a disequilibrium that the market starts to work on.
We get long-term disequilibrium when the market is not allowed to work on the problem. Often, this takes the form of entrenched interests attempting to maintain the status quo.
Publius The Lesser
Oct 24 2011 at 6:08pm
I can help but wonder if this isn’t the key to the stability of the Canadian banking system. Once you’ve got a stable olgiopoly with a handful of big banks and tacit agreements on what kinds of competition are legitimate, the incentive to take risks to generate big returns for shareholders instead of just rolling in the dough by doing the same-old-same old decreases significantly.
Mark Little
Oct 24 2011 at 7:09pm
Sounds like you’re being too kind to him:
> neoclassical economics advocated reducing
> government intervention in the economy and letting
> markets–especially financial markets–decide
> economic outcomes unimpeded by politicians,
> bureaucrats, or regulations.
I believe the very term “neoclassical economics” was a coinage of Samuelson, who also coined “the mixed economy” and was one of its principal exponents, as well as of counter-cyclical fiscal policy. He has it exactly backward.
Thomas Esmond Knox
Oct 24 2011 at 8:35pm
Publius, wonder no more.
As for Canada, so for Australia.
Four big banks with combined over 80% of the market, no real problems and very competitive.
As always, watch this space.
Steve Roth
Oct 25 2011 at 9:34am
“Counter-cyclical government budget policy–running deficits during downturns and surpluses during booms–gave way to trying to run surpluses all the time”
Your objection here is of course accurate, but I think it’s rooted in missing each other’s points. Keen, I think, is talking about a shift in ideology among (neo)classicals — what *should* happen — a change that was not carried out in practice, or at least only to a degree, in contrast to an imagined counterfactual in which neoclassicals did not adopt that position.
On equilibrium, it seems like PSST should reject it as a useful metaphor — or useful only in the way that Hicks characterized his own IS/LM model, as a “classroom gadget.”
Assume that to a first approximation, the global economy is as complex as the global weather system.
Now ask yourself: is a sunny day in Topeka “in equilibrium”? A rainy day? How about 100 miles away? Is equilibrium even a meaningful concept in thinking about the weather? The economy?
In his very useful comments on this post:
http://www.asymptosis.com/is-the-elasticity-of-labor-demand-at-zero.html
Nick Rowe pointed me to the work on disequilibrium economics by Clower, Malinvaud, Leijonhufvud, etc., which I’ve been studying. Sez Nick:
“It flowered briefly in the late 1970s, then was swept away by the New Classical revolution. It’s important.”
Nice summary here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=sgBKtDRmzmQC&lpg=PA101&ots=SAFTIxwMZW&dq=Clower%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%9Cnotional%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%9Cquantity-constrained%E2%80%9D%20demand%20curves&pg=PA101#v=onepage&q&f=false
Hunter
Oct 25 2011 at 12:44pm
The one thing I do agree on with Keen is that arregate demand is based on the GDP + the change in credit which acts as money in our economy.
Eric Morey
Nov 8 2011 at 2:59pm
“Patterns of specialization and trade that depend on ever-increasing debt loads are not sustainable. I think that Keen would agree with that one. But I also think that patterns of trade that depend on the government spending money it does not have are equally unsustainable.”
First, what is the difference between the 2 scenarios you described?
Second, do you mean something more than ever-increasing debt loads are not sustainable i.e. ever accelerating debt levels and/or ratios?
lxm
Nov 14 2011 at 1:40pm
Lawrence Lessig says:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.6/lawrence_lessig_republic_lost_campaign_finance_reform_rootstrikers.php
You say,
Now lets talk about derivatives.
And now lets talk about prosecutions. In the late 80s during the saving and loan crisis hundreds of bankers went to prison. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, *0* bankers and/or financial leaders have gone to jail.
I think that there is some dispute about your position.
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