Monthly Archives: April 2014

Was Keynes a Money Crank or is Gary North?

Posted on April 16, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Following on from my last piece on the money cranks I thought it might be worthwhile to explore this theme in a little more detail. First we will look in more detail at Keynes’ relationship toward certain money cranks. And … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory | 7 Comments

Keynes and the “Fallacy of Aggregation” in Probability Theory

Posted on April 15, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

I recently came across a very nice lecture series by the philosopher Patrick Maher on Keynes’s discussions of probability (scroll down to the three Keynes lectures in this link — the other lectures are also worth a browse for those … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Statistics and Probability | 8 Comments

Scotland Risks Eurozone-Style Crisis if Issues Surrounding Sovereignty and Macro-Imbalances Are Ignored

Posted on April 14, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

This September the people of Scotland will go to the polls to vote whether or not they should remain in the UK. One of the key motivations for this move is to gain greater economic sovereignty so that Scotland can … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Policy | 4 Comments

The Yield Curve and Recessions: Against US-Centricism

Posted on April 11, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

One of the nicest stylised facts in applied economics is that if the Fed inverts the yield curve it will cause a recession. Inverting the yield curve basically means that the Fed hikes the short-term interest rate goes higher than … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic History, Economic Policy, Economic Theory | 24 Comments

A Few Thoughts on Tom Palley’s Asset Based Reserve Requirements Proposal

Posted on April 10, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Tom Palley has an interesting paper out on the Fed’s attempt to taper its QE program. I have written about the tapering program before here and here and I have written about how QE works here. Anyway, I will deal … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Policy | 6 Comments

The Concept of Time Preference is Completely at Odds With Reality

Posted on April 8, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

A conversation that I was having yesterday reminded me of a rather funny point in economic theory. When we consider the value of a financial asset we take into two components: that is, it’s price and it’s income stream. It’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Statistics and Probability | 29 Comments

What Constitutes a Money Crank?

Posted on April 7, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

I’ve been asking myself that question rather a lot in the past two weeks. This is because I have had two separate commissions for pieces of writing that require me jump down the rabbit hole into the land of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Politics, Psychology | 19 Comments

The British Financial Account 2002-2012

Posted on April 4, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Today I published an article on The Guardian’s website entitled The left needs a deft touch in tackling the financial sector’s dominance. In the article I made the case that the value of the sterling is inherently tied up with … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic History, Economic Policy | 1 Comment

Marginalist Microeconomics: The Path to Totalitarian Tyranny

Posted on April 3, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Kevin Hoover, although not generally well-known in Post-Keynesian circles, is easily one of the most interesting economists writing on epistemology and ontology today. He was originally an applied macroeconomist but, like anyone who is remotely philosophically literate, he quickly began … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Policy, Economic Theory, Philosophy, Politics | 9 Comments

Making Sense of the Sterling Depreciation of 2007-2008

Posted on April 2, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Something rather strange happened in Britain around the time of the financial crisis. The sterling tanked, import prices rose substantially and yet the inflation rate didn’t respond as much as we might assume. Other weird stuff happened too. For example, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic History, Economic Policy | 20 Comments