Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:24:58.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Critique of the New Consensus View of Monetary Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Marc Lavoie
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales and University of Ottawa, respectively
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This paper seeks to look at the underlying framework of the New Consensus models of macroeconomic policy for inflation and unemployment, providing a post-Keynesian critique. In the light of this critique, the model is reformulated, with its basic structure intact, but with alternate post-Keynesian specifications of the Phillips curve being considered. It is shown that such modifications, either allow a long run trade-off between the rate of inflation and the level of output, the rate of capacity utilisation and, therefore, unemployment, or, in our preferred specification, changes in output and capacity have no implications for inflation over a large range of capacity utilisation. In either case, macroeconomic policy is restored to its role in maintaining full employment.

Type
Symposium on Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Theory and Practice
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005

Footnotes

*

We wish to thank Mario Seccareccia, John Nevile and anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

References

Arestis, P. and Sawyer, M. (2003) Reinventing fiscal policy, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 26 (1), Fall, 3–26.Google Scholar
Dutt, A.K. (1997) Equilibrium, path dependence and hysteresis in post-Keynesian models, in Arestis, P., Palma, G. and Sawyer, M. (Eds), Markets, Unemployment and Economic Policy: Essays in Honour of Geoff Harcourt, Volume Two, Routledge, London, pp. 238253.Google Scholar
Dutt, A.K. (2003) New growth theory, effective demand, and post-Keynesian dynamics, in Salvadori, N. (Ed.), Old and New Growth Theories: An Assessment, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 67100.Google Scholar
Freedman, C., Harcourt, G.C. and Kriesler, P. (2004) Has the long-run Phillips curve turned horizontal?, in Argyrous, G., Forstater, M. and Mongiovi, G. (Eds), Growth, Distribution and Effective Demand: Alternatives to Economic Orthodoxy, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, pp. 144162.Google Scholar
Galbraith, J.K. (1957) Market structure and stabilization policy, Review of Economics and Statistics, 39 (2), May, 124133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannsgen, G. (2004) Gibson's Paradox, Monetary Policy, and the Emergence of Cycles, Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 410.Google Scholar
Hein, E. (2002) Monetary policy and wage bargaining in the EMU: restrictive ECB policies, high unemployment, nominal wage restraint and inflation above the target, Banca del Lavoro Quarterly Review, 222, September, 299337.Google Scholar
Kaldor, N. (1960) Essays on Economic Stability and Growth, Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Kalecki, M. (1944) “Professor Pigou on ‘The Classical Stationary State’ A Comment” Economic Journal Vol.54 pp. 131–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keynes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Macmillan, Lonon.Google Scholar
Kriesler, P. (1997) “Keynes, Kalecki and The General Theory” in Harcourt, G. & Riach, P. (Eds) The Second Edition of Keynes's General Theory Vol. 2, Routledge: pp. 300322 Google Scholar
Lavoie, M. (1996) Traverse, hysteresis and normal rates of capacity utilisation in Kaleckian models of growth and distribution, Review of Radical Political Economics, 28 (4), December, 113147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavoie, M. (2004) The new consensus on monetary policy seen from a post-Keynesian perspective, in Lavoie, M. and Seccareccia, M. (Eds), Central Banking in the Modern World: Alternative Perspectives, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 1534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mankiw, N.G. (1999) Comment, in Solow, R.M. and Taylor, J.B. (Eds), Inflation, Unemployment, and Monetary Policy, MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), pp. 7278.Google Scholar
Nevile, J. and Kriesler, P. (2002) “Tools of Choice for Fighting Recessions” in Carlson, E. and Mitchell, W. (Eds), The Urgency of Full Employment, The Centre for Applied Economic Research: Sydney, pp. 7394.Google Scholar
Pollin, J. (2003) “Une macroéconomie sans LM: quelques propositions complémentaires” Revue d' Economie Politique, Vol 113 pp. 273293 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, D. (2000), Keynesian macroeconomics without the LM curve, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14 (2), 149169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Setterfield, M. (2002) Introduction: a dissenter's view of the development of growth theory and the importance of demand-led growth, in Setterfield, M. (Ed.), The Economics of Demand-led Growth: Challenging the Supply-side Vision of the Long Run, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Setterfield, M. (2003) Central bank behaviour and the stability of macroeconomic equilibrium: a critical examination of the New Consensus, Post-Keynesian conference in Ottawa, September 2003, http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~robinson/english/previous_conferences.htm Google Scholar
Setterfield, M. (2004) Central banking, stability and macroeconomic outcomes: a comparison of new consensus and post-Keynesian monetary macroeconomics, in Lavoie, M. and Seccareccia, M. (Eds), Central Banking in the Modern World: Alternative Perspectives, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 3556.Google Scholar
Solow, R.M. and Taylor, J.B. (Eds),(1999) Inflation, Unemployment, and Monetary Policy, MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) Google Scholar
Taylor, J.B. (1999) Monetary policy guidelines for employment and inflation stability, in Solow, R.M. and Taylor, J.B. (Eds), Inflation, Unemployment, and Monetary Policy, MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), pp. 2954.Google Scholar
Taylor, J.B. (2000) Teaching modern macroeconomics at the principles level, American Economic Review, 90 (2), May, 9094.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, L. (2004) Reconstructing Macroeconomics: Structuralist Proposals and Critiques of the Mainstream, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villeu, P. (2004) “Une macroéconomie sans LM: un modèle de synthèse pour l'analyse des politiques conjoncturelles” Revue d' Economie Politique, pp. 289322 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfson, M. (1996) “A Post Keynesian theory of credit rationing” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Vol.18 pp. 443470 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodford, M. (2002), Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.Google Scholar