Within the demand-led approach to growth, the long-period tendencies of quantities cannot be effectively studied through theoretical positions entailing normal utilization of capacity. Whether in the form of constant or of average normal utilization, this assumption contradicts the supposed autonomy of aggregate demand. Analysis of the operation of the adjustment of capacity to demand suggests that potentially offsetting forces make fully adjusted positions irrelevant. As quantities cannot be assumed to gravitate towards such positions, the relations between quantity variables determined on the normal utilization hypothesis provide a poor guide to the analysis of reality.Growth, Capacity Utilization, Keynesian Long-period Analysis, Accumulation,
This paper challenges the mainstream view of potential output, and enquires into the supposed effects of Great Recession on potential growth. We identify in the demand-led growth perspective a more promising theoretical framework both to define the notion and to gauge the long-term effects of a demand slow down. Based on the poor reliability of standard estimates of potential output, we also propose an alternative calculation. This is based on an update of Arthur M. Okun's original method for estimating potential output, which, differently from the estimation methods currently in use, does not rely on the notion of NAIRU, thus being immune to its theoretical and empirical shortcomings. Our calculation, based on a re-estimation of Okun's Law on US quarterly data, shows both how far an economy generally operates from its production possibilities, and how much potential growth is affected by the actual growth of demand over time. These wide margins for expansion of actual and potential output growth imply that a determined policy of demand expansion would create, given time, the very capacity that justifies it.
This paper challenges the mainstream view of potential output, and enquires into the supposed effects of Great Recession on potential growth. We identify in the demand-led growth perspective a more promising theoretical framework both to define the notion and to gauge the long-term effects of a demand slow down. Based on the poor reliability of standard estimates of potential output, we also propose an alternative calculation. This is based on an update of Arthur M. Okun's original method for estimating potential output, which, differently from the estimation methods currently in use, does not rely on the notion of NAIRU, thus being immune to its theoretical and empirical shortcomings. Our calculation, based on a re-estimation of Okun's Law on US quarterly data, shows both how far an economy generally operates from its production possibilities, and how much potential growth is affected by the actual growth of demand over time. These wide margins for expansion of actual and potential output growth imply that a determined policy of demand expansion would create, given time, the very capacity that justifies it.
This paper deals with the analysis of growth and development Nicholas Kaldor formulated in the later part of his career, during the 1970s and 1980s. Kaldor’s passage from a resource-constrained to a demand-driven conception of growth was closely connected to his persistent effort to make economic theory more realistic and relevant, and led him to a complex vision of the growth process, with historical and institutional factors playing a fundamental role. However, the particular formulation in which Kaldor expressed his ideas about the strategic role of exports in the growth process, namely the long-period foreign trade multiplier, cannot fully capture the main characteristics of his vision of the growth process, and is in some respects contradictory with that vision. A critical role is played by Kaldor’s conception of the determinants of investment, which, as in his full-employment growth models, he treats as entirely induced by output growth, and hence as not posing limits, in normal conditions, on output expansion
An approach to the theory of output and growth which combines the classical theory of\ud
value and distribution with Keynes’s principle of effective demand originates from the theoretical\ud
contribution of Piero Sraffa. The paper addresses the main lines of this ‘classical–\ud
Keynesian’ approach. It also expounds the main questions that animate the debate within\ud
the approach
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