Public debt is not a free lunch in an economy close to full employment. But when investment demand tends to fall short of saving, as it does when monetary policymakers are unable to push inflation higher to reduce real interest rates, there is a risk of chronic underemployment – and a stronger argument for deficit spending.
FRANKFURT – Five years ago, the French economist Thomas Piketty made a splash with his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, in which he argued that there is an innate tendency toward wealth concentration in market economies. The mechanism to which Piketty pointed was that the rate of interest, r, is higher than the rate of economic growth, g. With r>g, owners of the means of production – the capitalist class – earn a return that exceeds the growth of the economy as a whole.
FRANKFURT – Five years ago, the French economist Thomas Piketty made a splash with his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, in which he argued that there is an innate tendency toward wealth concentration in market economies. The mechanism to which Piketty pointed was that the rate of interest, r, is higher than the rate of economic growth, g. With r>g, owners of the means of production – the capitalist class – earn a return that exceeds the growth of the economy as a whole.