Archivo de la categoría: Papers

WP: Value and Capital: Austrian Capital Theory, Retrospect and Prospect

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Último paper co-escrito con Peter Lewin: Value and Capital: Austrian Capital Theory, Retrospect and Prospect. En esta ocasión resumimos contribuciones de nuestros trabajo conjunto con énfasis en una audiencia austriaca. Resaltamos aspectos de la teoría del capital que, creemos, merecen un nuevo foco de atención, especialmente con los aportes que el cálculo financiero puede traer a la economía.

Abstract

The time is right for a reexamination of Austrian capital-theory. We attempt to capture the essence of Carl Menger’s approach to capital, highlighting the important distinction between goods and the valuable services they yield (implying that goods are valuable only because they yield valuable services) and highlighting also the importance of money in facilitating exchange and production and in providing the means to value them. We look at the capital-theory of Böhm-Bawerk and suggest that, in many respects, this was a wrong turn, although it did set in motion valuable efforts to clarify the importance of the heterogeneity of productive-resources and their growing complexity over time. We examine the production-function, micro and macro, and show that it is logically untenable and useless as an instrument for empirical investigation, and that this has been known for decades. Of the Austrians after Menger, only Mises followed Irving Fisher in focusing on valuation. He did so in the context of explaining the importance of calculation. Mises’s approach to capital has been insufficiently understood and appreciated. By way of conclusion we draw from our considerations to provide a research agenda in Austrian capital theory.

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WP: Ludwig Von Mises’s Approach to Capital as a Bridge between Austrian and Institutional Economics

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New working paper with Eduard Braun and Peter Lewin about how Mises’s treatment of the concept of «capital» can be a bridge between Austrian Economics and Institutional Economics.

Abstract

Ludwig von Mises seems to be something of an outlier within the Austrian school when it comes to capital – though his position is clearly foreshadowed in a neglected article by Carl Menger (1888). In this paper we examine Mises’s view on capital and suggest that it constitutes a bridge between Austrian and institutional economics. As an outflow of Mises’s approach, an incipient financial approach may be discerned, an approach to capital that integrates concepts from financial theory into a broader view of capital that contains both institutional and Austrian elements.

Download the paper from SSRN.

Modelos y Escuela Austriaca

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Abstract

Filosofía de la Economía (2015), vol. 4, pp. 69-85

Es común la contraposición habitual entre los “modelos neoclásicos”, supuestamente irrealistas, versus la teoría del proceso de mercado de la Escuela Austríaca, supuestamente más realista. El objetivo de este artículo es intentar demostrar que tal contraposición es falsa. Ambas escuelas usan modelos como Mäki los analiza, y ambos modelos pueden manejarse bajo el esquema “si tales y cuales condiciones, entonces tal cosa”, siendo esas condiciones un conjunto de hipótesis universales cuyo grado de realismo es irrelevante para la verdad del modelo. La conclusión general es que la posición de Friedman, interpretada de modo realista, no es tan lejana de la Escuela Austríaca como parece.

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WP: The Myth of the Resource Curse: A Case Study for Argelia

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Borrador sobre el mito del Resource Curse según el cual la presencia de rentas significativas originadas por rescursos naturales atenta contra el desarrollo económico de los países. En este paper, junto a Mohammed Akacem, argumentamos que el problema no es la presencia de recursos naturales con valor de mercado, sino que el problema es institucional.

Entre otroas argumentos, mostramos que el factor institucional tiene mayor significancia económica a largo plazo que rentas de recursos naturales.

In October 1988, Algeria went through the autumn of its own discontent and yet more than two decades later, the country is still ruled by the «old guard», namely the veterans of the war of independence. This paper examines the reasons Algeria has resisted the winds of change blowing through the region with emphasis in the role of oil and democracy. Much of the scholarship that deals with the resource curse concludes that Oil is at the root of economic troubles and social unrest. This is not the case in Algeria, rather like many countries, its institutions are what greatly affect the economic and political ills of the country. The paper highlights the importance of institutions and presents empirical evidence to support the claim that contrary to Jeffrey Sachs they matter for everything.

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WP: An Empirical Application of the EVA(R) Framework to Business Cycles

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Junto a Peter Lewin, en este paper extendemos el trabajo que hemos estado realizado en aplicar finanzas a teoría del capital al campo de estudios empíricos. Usando métricas de EVA(R) estudiamos la correlación entre tasas de interés, política monetaria, y el tamaño (capital financiero) de firmas.

En resumen, la estructura del paper es la siguiente. Como argumentamos en papers anteriores, empresas con un mayor capital financiero posee mayor duration (roundaboutness o período promedio de producción) que empresas con un menor capital financiero. A modo de referencia tomamos las 10 empresas más grandes (HD -high duration) y más pequeñas (LD -low duration) que se encontraban en el Dow Jones a inicios del 2002 (aproximadamente cuando comienza la política expansiva de la Fed.) Luego utilizamos tasas de corto y largo plazo para evaluar si sus movimientos afectan el ratio de empresas más roundabout (duration) respecto a empresas menos roundabout.

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WP: The Time-Value of Money and the Money-Value of Time

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Nuevo borrador, junto a Peter Lewin, en torno a la relación entre finanzas y teoría del capital. En este ya quinto paper discutimos menos el problema de ciclos económicos y nos enfocamos más en teoría del capital, incluyendo el problema de «reswitching.» El paper es un review de los temas que hemos tratado con algunos nuevos comentarios.

Abstract

All human action takes place in time, and with an awareness of time. We make choices in the present with a view to the future. Choices imply valuation, and the relative value to us of the things we choose depend crucially on the their connection to time. We discount the value of things depending on how long we have to wait for them. This well-known phenomenon is called the time-value of money.

When contemplating multiple receipts or payments distributed over time, if we need to judge the effect of the influence of time on the each of the values received or paid, we need some way to value the time periods involved. We may call this the money-value of time. A particular approach to capturing this idea has been developed in the finance literature, known as ‘duration’. Similar considerations can be found in the economics literature in the area of capital-theory.

In this paper we explore the interaction between these two phenomena.

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WP: Argentina’s Post 2001 Economy and the 2014 Default

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En esta ocasión comparto el borrador de un artículo sobre la economía Argentina post 2001 y el default del 2014. En esta ocasión, el borrador lo he escrito con Carolyn Thomas, senior student en MSU Denver.

Resumidamente, el borrador discute primero la crisis del 2001, luego la política monetaria post-crisis y finalmente explica el fallo del Juez Griesa y el default del 2014.

With two sovereign debt defaults within the last thirteen years, Argentina represents an interesting case study on the causes and effects of defaults by sovereign states. Argentina has had a history of economic strife for the last one hundred years, largely due to political and economic instability. This paper discusses the economics of Argentina after the 2001 financial crisis that lead to the default in 2014. The paper also explains the main legal aspects for the Holdouts versus Argentina trial over the pari passu controversy, as well as discusses the different reactions to the trial and consequential default.

Acceder al borrador en SSRN.

Hayek and Contemporary Macroeconomics (by Larry White)

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Larry White comparte un muy interesante borrador sobre la relación e influencia de Hayek en la macroeconomía contemporánea. Es una lectura que vale la pena para todo interesado en ciclos económicos.

Comparto los puntos centrales de la conclusión:

The booms should not just precede but cause the busts: busts are fundamentally endogenous, the result of the vulnerabilities and distortions built up during the boom.

The busts should generate debt and capital stock overhangs – the natural legacy of the preceding unsustainable expansion.

And potential output should not just be identified with non-inflationary output: as the previous evidence indicates, output may be on an unsustainable trajectory even if inflation is stable.

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WP: NGDP Targeting: Is 5 Percent Too Much

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This is the title of my latest draft (of which I very much welcome comments) about Market Monetarist’s NGDP Targeting.

Since I don’t want the title to send the wrong impression, I want to clarify is that I don’t question the NGDP Targeting principle. The topic of the paper is whether or not there are signs that a 5% growth of NGDP before the subprime crisis wasn’t in fact too much.

There is some tension. On one side Taylor Rule and the productivity norm suggest that monetary policy was too loose during the ca 2002-2007 period. But Market Monetarism does not support this reading. The problem was the fall of NGDP in 2008, not that NGDP was growing to fast. This also requires to deal with the question of how a housing bubble took place without an excess of money supply.

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Modelos y EA: Una fusión entre Friedman y la EA pasando por Mäki

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CIECEComparto la ponencia que hemos presentado junto a Agustina Borella en las XX Jornadas de Epistemología de las Ciencias Económicas que organiza cada año la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas de la Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires.

 

Resumen

La siguiente ponencia es la versión resumida de un art. homónimo que estamos presentando a Filosofía y economía. El objetivo de ese artículo es intentar demostrar que tal contraposición entre austríacos y neoclásicos, en tanto modelo
versus proceso de mercado, es falsa. Ambas escuelas usan modelos como Mäki los  analiza, y ambos modelos pueden manejarse bajo el esquema “si tales y cuales condiciones, entonces tal cosa”, siendo esas condiciones un conjunto de hipótesis universales cuyo grado de realismo es ir relevante para la verdad del modelo. La conclusión general es que la posición de Friedman, interpretada de modo realista, no es tan lejana de la Escuela Austríaca como parece.

Acceda aquí a la ponencia completa en pdf.

Acceda aquí al programa completo de estas Jornadas.

Acceda aquí a información de todas las Jornadas organizadas a partir de 1995.