Austerity, investment and profit Michael Roberts Rio, June 2018
Trump’s fiscal stimulus
Sluggish growth
Advanced economies: spending rose before the GFC
Emerging economies: also
Investment is the swing factor
Business investment drops the most
Keynesian identities Let us consider these identities. We start with: National income = national expenditure. National income can then be broken down to Profit + Wages; and National expenditure can be broken down to Investment + Consumption. So Profit + Wages = Investment + Consumption. Now if we assume that wages are all spent on consumption and not saved, then Profits = Investment.
The cycle of profit
A world rate of profit
Investment follows profitability
Capex and net income
Profits call the tune
Keynes versus Marx Let us return to the Keynes-Kalecki macro identity. It can be re-designed as: Investment – (non-capitalist) Savings = Profits But the Marxist logic is that the causal connection is the opposite. Thus the equation looks like this. Profits + (non-capitalist) Savings = Investment
Deviation from the pre-crisis IMF real growth forecast and fiscal tightening
The Krugman multiplier
The Keynesian multiplier
China: Keynes or Marx?
Government spending before crises
The Marxist multiplier
Comparing the two
Brazil: Keynesian multiplier
Brazil: Marxist multiplier