Economics

ما بعد الركود المزمن

Sep 5, 2018 Joseph E. Stiglitz

نيويورك ــ كما يشير لاري سامرز عن حق، فإن مصطلح "الركود المزمن" أصبح شائعا مع اقتراب الحرب العالمية الثانية من نهايتها. وقد أبدى ألفين هانسن (وغيره كثيرون) القلق من عودة الاقتصاد إلى الركود أو الكساد، في غياب التحفيز الذي توفره الحرب. ويبدو أن الأمر لا يخلو من خلل جوهري يقود إلى هذا.

لكن هذا لم يحدث. فكيف أخطأ هانسن وآخرون فهم الأمر إلى هذا الحد؟ مثل بعض المدافعين عن نظرية الركود المزمن في العصر الحديث، كانت هناك عيوب عميقة في التحليل الجزئي والكلي الأساسي ــ والأكثر أهمية، في تحليل أسباب الكساد العظيم ذاته.

كما زعمت أنا و بروس جرينوالد (مع مؤلفين آخرين)، كان النمو المرتفع في الإنتاجية الزراعية (مقترنا بالإنتاج العالمي المرتفع) سببا في دفع أسعار المحاصيل إلى الانخفاض ــ بنحو 75% في بعض الحالات ــ في السنوات الثلاث الأولى وحدها من الكساد. وانخفضت الدخول في القطاع الاقتصادي الرئيسي في البلاد بمقدار النصف تقريبا. وأدت الأزمة في الزراعة إلى تناقص الطلب على السلع الحضرية وبالتالي التراجع الذي شمل الاقتصاد بالكامل.

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Joseph E. Stiglitz

Writing for PS since 2001
331 Commentaries

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, is a former chief economist of the World Bank (1997-2000), chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and co-chair of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices. He is Co-Chair of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation and was lead author of the 1995 IPCC Climate Assessment.

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Keith Roberts Sep 6, 2018

The bottom line seems to be that both Summers and Stiglitz agree that a much larger stimulus would, in retrospect, have been much better, and that although the design of the stimulus matters, even an unbalanced one like Trump's tax cut can do a lot of good. Their difference seems to be over the political possibilities of enacting a larger stimulus. Why that's even in question is mystifying, as clearly the radical Republicans, soon to take over the party altogether, were strongly opposed to doing anything much at all. I personally thought it was a near-miracle that any stimulus at all took place.
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albecomaj Sep 6, 2018

Not a word about how oil prices caused the great recession.
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G. A. Pakela Sep 5, 2018

The first portion of your column is intriguing in its analysis of powerful underlying social movements and their impact on the economy. We have heard that WWII was the great Keynesian stimulus program that wrenched the U.S. out of the Great Depression. The social, economic impact of the war moving masses of people from the rural economy to an urban, factory oriented economy exists outside of the standard Keynesian economic model. I agree with you regarding the lack of a well-designed stimulus program after the financial crisis of 2008. However, I'm not sure that running a $1.5 trillion deficit at a record-breaking 10% of GDP is a lackluster response from a Keynesian perspective, but the spending did little to invigorate the economy. The financial collapse coincided with the denoument of both the baby boom generation's participation in the work force, and its rabid hunger for credit which started in the early 1980s with the rapid proliferation of credit cards, mortgage refinancing and home equity loans. It is hard to say what combination of Keynesian policies would have made a difference, given that the fiscal multiplier was well below one.
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Per Kurowski Sep 5, 2018

“But what was predictable and predicted was the manner in which under-regulated derivatives could inflame the crisis” Not true!

What should have been predictable is that if you allowed banks to leverage 62.5 times with assets only because a human fallible rating agency had assigned these an AAA to AA rating, something had to end up very bad.

https://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2018/08/risk-weighted-capital-requirements-for.html
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Jose Antonio Vanderhorst Silverio Sep 5, 2018

I just tweeted a response to this article with the following header:

“Trust the #EcoIsOurs narrative of the #TheWorldIsFlat4GD" 3 shared images of "Confíen en la narrativa EcoSiNuestra del mundo globalizado plano ( https://medium.com/@gmh_upsa/conf%C3%ADen-en-la-narrativa-ecosinuestra-del-mundo-globalizado-plano-b637cfbbffa1 … )" is meant to be the response to "Beyond Secular Stagnation by @JosephEStiglitz (http://prosyn.org/OsuGcra )."

The first image says in its first column:

Please consider the companion image “Trust the #EcoIsOurs (all hashtags are emerging knowledge flows) narrative of the #TheWorldIsFlat4GD,” which is a translation of the introductory image of the Medium post “Confíen en la narrativa EcoSiNuestra del mundo globalizado plano:”

-- There must be no trust on EcoNoMy science as the essential lessons to avoid a global downturn are now those of the #EcoIsOurs profession.

-- This responds Joseph Stiglistz, who says that “There is no reason economists should agree about what is politically possible,” in an article mentioned in the second column of this image.

And in its second column

Under his Sep 5, 2018, Project Syndicate article “Beyond Secular Stagnation,” JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ, said that:

-- Here are the essentials: We would have had a stronger recovery if we had had a bigger and better-designed stimulus. We would have had stronger aggregate demand if we had done more to address inequality, and if we had not pursued policies that increased it. And we would have had a more stable financial sector if we had regulated it better.

-- These are the lessons that we should keep in mind as we prepare for the next economic downturn.

The second image says:

Translation. As a self-appointed #GlobalDebout Trust Counsel, I suggest you trust the #EcoIsOurs narrative of #TheWorldIsFlat4GD we need. It would be to create, with institutional innovations, the #SystemicCivilization that, at the beginning, will stimulate exponential learning opportunities to approach the perfect with the #GreatCapitalism in favor of the great majorities. This is how the North Star of the #BrightGlobalization #BG_NS will follow the Updated Global Conceptual Model #MCGA.

Insisting that the developing countries follow efficiently, with for example fiscal reforms, the course of the developed, previously united as the West, I suggest Not to trust the institutions that continue to protect industrial civilization. Do not trust the World Bank, the IMF, the United Nations, which transferred the national power to globalized power, with unsustainable neoliberal regulations that impede the institutional innovation that we now recognize as legalized corruption that is protected by the Simplistic Globalization Model #MSG that supports all kind of false news. These are narratives of good capitalism that favors minorities, enemy of the perfect for others, both that of Margaret Thatcher that There is No Alternative to Neoliberalism, and that of the Washington Consensus that have degenerated with the passage of time into the #DarkGlobalization and in the #DeGlobalization.

That third column is in Spanish and can be seen in the link of the Medium post on the header of the above mentioned tweet heather.
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https://prosyn.org/OsuGcraar

ما بعد الركود المزمن

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