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

2. 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

3. 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)

4. 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)

5. Post-Keynesian Monetary Economy ContextIf
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.)

6. 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

7. 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)

8. 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)

9. 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

10. 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.)