Gendering Post-Keynesian Macroeconomics Some Speculative Explorations Brenda Spotton Visano Professor of Economics and Public Policy York University, Toronto, Canada Joint IAFFE/URPE Session @ ASSA January 6, 2017

Financial Crises Crisis: appears as a sudden collapse of financial asset prices, a suspension of credit facilities (bank failures), or an abrupt change in the external value of state money Dominant concern: crises disrupt production, increase unemployment Public policy goals: stabilize finance, maximize output and employment Post-Keynesian theoretical focus: Market-determined Output/Growth/Financing unstable

Debt Financing Scenario Growth/Innovation with endogenous credit Credit expansion through debt markets finances innovation; leverage fuels speculation (Minsky) Responsibility for debt closely aligned with those responsible for innovation (compatible incentives) Financial instability sourced in characteristics of the debt contract; debt-deflation spiral (Fisher) Employment fluctuations sourced in “risk” of innovation and instability of banks (Rochon, Parguez)

Equity Financing Scenario Growth/Innovation via equity financing Share ownership more liquid form of title to an asset, promotes innovation and spurs adoption (Rosenberg) Share ownership erodes quality of information; introduces non-quantifiable influences (Chandler) → enhances uncertainty By increasing liquidity, share ownership offers the individual greater perceived stability but introduces greater economy-wide instability(Keynes)

Post-Keynesian Monetary Economy Context If Individual is the primitive Firms-produce & innovate; Households-consume; Banks-finance production; State: redistributes; Financial markets finance innovation More consumption (production) preferred to less but needs ≠ wants then Income effects constrain consumer (household) choice Seek resource allocation to maximize effective demand to maximize production and employment for consumption State interacts with markets to stabilize effective demand; Distribution subordinated to production and growth and Production financing (money) endogenous to macro-economy, evolution of debt in historical time allows mismatches between asset income and debt servicing costs Outcomes are path-dependent and (may be) institution-dependent but remain participant-independent (Davidson, Fisher, Keynes, Lavoie, Minsky, Rochon, Rosenberg, Schumpeter, Wray, e.g.)

What if…? The crisis in a financial crisis is not disrupted production and unemployment but rather, Dominant concerns were to be: unintended redistribution of income and unintended redistribution of work effort from marketed to non-marketed labor Public policy goals: stabilize finance, equalize income, design an intentional distribution of marketed and non-marketed labor

Shifting Focus from Growth/Innovation to Distribution of Income and Work Theoretical frame of productive and financial spheres expanded to include reproductive sphere (Elson) Social provisioning and finance (Todorova) Gendered differences in financial behavior (van Stavaren, Nelson) Impact of crises on precarious labor (Yalnizyan, Vosko) Crises and burden of unpaid work (Braunstein, Folbre) Gendered distributional impacts (Fukuda-Parr, Heintz, Seguino)

A Methodological Challenge Is gender more than a dummy variable? (Figart) Feminist approaches privilege interpretations and situated knowledge (Anderson, Haraway, Harding) Mainstream and (?) post-Keynesian economic thought align with classical positivism; authentic knowledge derived from verifiable, observable, “objective” data (Austen, Jefferson, Danby)

Toward Feminist Post-Keynesianism Fundamental uncertainty introduces collective influence and interdependent preferences (Keynes; but who participates does not seem to matter to JMK) Collective dynamic and interdependent preferences with heterogeneous actors → constructivist/interpretive frame (Spotton Visano) If gender (race, ethnicity,…) influences preferences then who decides determines what we decide And then it matters how we coordinate individual participation and decision-making

Feminist Post-Keynesian Monetary Economy? If Social is the primitive (with social differentiation) Firms-produce & innovate; Households-consume & reproduce; Banks-finance production; State: redistributes and finances revolutionary innovation; Financial markets finance evolutionary innovation More equality in income/consumption is preferred to less then Maximize Subjective Well Being with distributional equality Seek resource allocation to promote more equal distribution of financing for innovation, produced outputs for consumption, intentional distribution of work Distribution primary; Production / growth secondary State/collective: make “big picture” decisions; markets: secondary role and Financing (money) endogenous to macro-economy, evolution of debt in historical time allows mismatches between asset income and debt servicing costs Outcomes are path-dependent, institution-dependent and participant dependent (Elson, Nelson, Seguino, Spotton Visano, Todorova, van Staveren, Waring, e.g.)