1,721,009 research outputs found
Same old song: On the macroeconomic and distributional effects of leaving a Low Interest Rate Environment
Full text linkIn this paper, we present a hybrid Agent-Based Stock-Flow-Consistent (AB-SFC) model about the macroeconomic and distributional implications of central bank’s decision to leave a ‘‘Low(-for-long) Interest Rate Environment’’ (LIRE). Our goal is to study the non-linear effects of monetary tightening when implemented under LIRE than in an alternative ‘‘Higher Interest Rate’’ setting (HIRE). This way, we shed light over the interaction between monetary policy, inequality, and macro-financial fragility in a financialized economy characterized by the presence of securitization and the production of complex financial products, i.e., Asset-Backed Securities (ABSs). We obtain three main findings. First, consistent with existing empirical literature, LIRE may be sources of vulnerabilities in the financial industry (i.e., lower banks’ profitability and capital adequacy ratio). However, it may reduce systemic macro-financial risk by stimulating faster growth, lower unemployment and inequality records alongside with lower public and private indebtedness and lower-scale securitization. Second, central bank’s decision to raise interest rates improves financial sector’s performance indicators at the costs of harsh real-side consequences, i.e., permanently higher unemployment and inequality, when implemented under LIRE. Third, financialization structurally changes the functioning of the economy by feeding the creation of a debt-led economy in which monetary policy becomes less effective in its attempt of controlling inflation. Central bank’s reaction in the form of a permanently tighter monetary policy stance eventually prompts a more unequal and unstable rentier-friendly economy
Households’ liquidity preference, banks’ capitalization and the macroeconomy: a theoretical investigation
Full text linkIn this paper we build a simple model on the role of households’ liquidity preference in the determination of economic performance. We postulate, for the sake of the argument, a purely “horizontalist” environment, i.e., a world of endogenous money where the central bank is able to fix the interest rate(s) at a level of its own willing. We show that even in such a framework liquidity preference, while obviously not constituting anymore a theory for the determination of the interest rate, continues to be a key element for the determination of both the level and evolution over time of aggregate income and capital accumulation. In our model, this happens because of the working of a mechanism so far unexplored in the literature, i.e., the endogenous variations of banks’ policy of profits’ distribution in response to changes in the liquidity preference of the public
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Back to fiscal rules: The insanity of normality, unless the rich pay for it!
No full textWith central banks and national governments returning to more conservative monetary and fiscal policies after Covid, the debate about the macroeconomic effects of fiscal rules has revamped. We address this topic via an extended version of the hybrid ABM-SFC model in Botta et al. (2024) that includes a Taylor-type monetary policy rule and a variety of fiscal rules aimed at reducing the public debt-to-GDP ratio. We compare spending-based fiscal rules vastly advocated by international economic institutions with wealth tax-based fiscal policies. We do this in the context of a modern financialized economy where securitization and complex financial products like Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) alter economic dynamics and the effectiveness of monetary policy in controlling inflation. We assume heterogeneous households to track how alternative fiscal strategies affect income and wealth inequality. Our findings are threefold. First, spending-based fiscal rules can reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio in the long term but at the cost of significantly higher unemployment and permanently lower real GDP. Second, wealth tax-based fiscal policies reduce public debt without harming economic performance. Third, perhaps unexpectedly, in a financialized economy, spending-based fiscal austerity may hurt the relative position of rich households in wealth distribution as much as a wealth tax does; this is due to capital losses that spending cuts may eventually induce in households’ financial wealth. In the end, wealth taxes are preferable to spending cuts, and the usual political opposition against them by the rich appears largely unfounded given their potential economic benefits compared to spending-based fiscal austerity
The Monetary Circuit in a Financialized Economy. From Credit Creation to Profit Realization
No full textIn this paper, we analyze the role of financialization, namely securitization and the production of structured financial products, within the functioning of a monetary capitalist economy of production. We do this by embedding such 'financial innovations' in an extended financialized monetary circuit. We complement this theoretical analysis with data about the evolution of the commercial banks in the US economy since the end of World War II. We show how the 'financial side of financialization', by allowing commercial banks to extend more credit to the economy, and household sector in particular, may have significantly contributed to the monetization of surplus value in neoliberal capitalist regimes. In this sense, we stress how financialization appears to be fully consistent rather than dysfunctional to the needs of capitalist economies. We also note that this may come at the cost of heightened systemic fragility. While financialization may enable the capitalist system to monetize profits more easily, it also modifies the structure of the pyramid of money hierarchy and favors the expansion of what has been defined as 'fictitious liquidity' relative to bank money. In our view, this last contradiction can make capitalist economies more exposed to in-depth macro-financial instability as soon as financial turmoil emerges
Fighting the COVID-19 Crisis: Debt Monetisation and EU Recovery Bonds
Full text linkThis paper highlights some peculiar characteristics of the economic crisis induced by the spread of COVID-19. It suggests two intertwined policy measures in order to tackle the emergency phase of the crisis and to support the economy in the subsequent recovery phase. The proposed short-term policy measures offer policy responses in the event of a second wave of coronavirus infections in the coming months. In the aftermath of the emergency phase, the current proposal puts forward the implementation of a massive EU-wide recovery plan addressing the long-lasting technological and environmental challenges of these years, which will be financed by European institutions through the issuance of European Pandemic Recovery Bonds
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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