1st Edition

Cycles, Growth and the Great Recession

    260 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    260 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Cycles, Growth and the Great Recession is a collection of papers that assess the nature and role of the business cycle in contemporary economies. These assessments are made in the context of the financial market instability that distinguishes the Great Recession from previous post-war slowdowns. Theorists and applied scholars in the fields of economics and mathematical economics discuss various approaches to understanding cycles and growth, and present mathematical and applied macro models to show how uncertainty shapes cycles by affecting the economic agent choice. Also included is an empirical section that investigates how the Great Recession affected households’ housing wealth, labour productivity and migration decisions.

    This book aims to:

    1. Propose a novel understanding of the business cycle by comparing the approaches of various scholars, starting from Hyman Minsky and Piero Ferri.
    2. Show that uncertainty is a main feature of the business cycle that affects decision-making and economic behaviour in general.
    3. Explain with mathematical models how the behaviour of economic agents can lead to cyclical paths for modern developed economies.
    4. Augment theory with empirical analysis of some central issues related to the Great Recession.

    This book comprises an original view of such widely discussed subjects as business cycles, uncertainty, economic growth and the Great Recession, constructed around theory, models and applications.

    Introduction Part I – Understanding Cycles and Growth 1. Minsky as a Critic of Keynesianism (Riccardo Bellofiore) 2. Can We Say "Minsky Moment" when Households Matter? (Anna Maria Variato) 3. Are Macroeconomic Models with Ceilings and Floors Useful in Understanding the Great Recession? (Steven M. Fazzari and Edward D. Greenberg) 4. The Theory of Business Cycles from a Methodological Perspective (Andrea Salanti) Part II – Uncertainty and Information in Business Cycles Models 5. The Business Cycle as a Method of Analysis (Jan Toporowski) 6. The Asymmetric-Information Approach and the Great Recession: a Critical Appraisal (Alessandro Vercelli) Part III – Formal Models of the Business Cycle 7. A Kaleckian Macromodel with Memory (Gian Italo Bischi and Ahmad Naimzada) 8. The Dynamics of the Labour Market in an Agent-Based Model with Financial Constraints (Domenico Delli Gatti , Mauro Gallegati and Saul Desiderio) 9. Periodic Cycles in a Behavioural Model (Laura Gardini and Fabio Tramontana) Part IV – Empirical and Institutional Factors in Cycles and Growth 10. The Time Dimension of Credit Risk: Modelling Issues and Regulatory Implications (Marida Bertocchi and Costanza Torricelli) 11. The Great Recession, Housing Wealth and Consumption in the European Countries (Annalisa Cristini)12. Growth and Migration in Italy (1861-1913) Interpreted with a Dual Model of an Underdeveloped Economy (Giancarlo Graziola) 13. Organizational and Technological Paradigms: Asynchronized Structural Breaks, Uneven Evolution of Paradigms and Firm Growth between Complementarities and Substitutabilities(Riccardo Leoni)

    Biography

    Annalisa Cristini, Stephen Fazzari, Edward Greenberg, Riccardo Leoni