Today, we’ll cover chapters 3 and 4 of Marc Lavoie’s “Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics”. You can find the previous two chapters covered here. Chapter 3: A Macroeconomic Monetary Circuit “The principle of effective demand … — that is, the causality that runs from investment to saving — is best understood within the context of a macroeconomic…

Today starts a series of articles summarizing the key ideas of Marc Lavoie’s “Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics”. Enjoy! Intro Lavoie was inspired to write this book after a visit to France. In bookstores, he found many economics books condemning “what the French call ‘la pensée unique’ (the single thought), or what…

See the last part here, and read on for the ending to this summary! Chapter 8: Three Post-Industrial Employment Trajectories Theories of Service-Employment Growth A clear tendency in developed countries is that innovations and automation in industrial labor advance productivity, making industrial goods cheaper. This, coupled with a continued increase inaverage income, means there is a clear shift over time…

Today, we’ll be continuing the summary of this book by discussing the welfare state in the employment structure. In the previous parts, we categorized three welfare regime types, and looked at what political powers may have caused them. But how do these regimes influence other economic variables?

This article will round out the first part of the Esping-Andersen’s book from 1990. You can find the previous part here. Enjoy! Chapter 3: The Welfare State as a System of Stratification Many sweeping generalizations about welfare are incorrect. For example, you might hear someone argue that it lessens class divisions. But not all welfare is created equal: some welfare…

This will be the first in a series of articles about the excellent “The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism” by Gøsta Esping-Andersen, first published in 1990. It focuses on 18 developed Western countries, with extensive data covering decades. Enjoy! Introduction The 1960’s and 1970's saw dramatic expansion and empowerment of welfare…

Today, I’ll be summarizing the classic “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care” by Kenneth Arrow. I think it provides a powerful and commonsense explanation of why medical care is different from most other goods and services. My personal notes will be in brackets [like this]. I. Introduction, Scope and Method First, it should…

Hey everyone, hope all is well! Today I’ll be summarizing this piece by Douglass A. Hibbs Jr. and Hakan Locking from 2000, analyzing how different union policies in Sweden effected productivity and growth. Swedish wage bargaining was centralized and produced very equal outcomes, but broke down somewhat in 1983. This…

Hey there folks! Today, I’ll be examining some economic theory from this paper by Jonas Agell and Kjell Erik Lommerud from 1993. It models solidaristic wage bargaining (SWB): the practice by sectoral unions of bargaining pay equality not just within or across firms, but across industries and sectors as well…