Two Important Growth Models

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This post is the last of the five-part series on the contribution of the GEM Project to growth macroeconomics. What follows looks at two powerful theories of trend macrodynamics that aren’t a good fit in market-centric modeling and are, as … 
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Use and Abuse of the Solow Residual

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 Robert Solow’s neoclassical growth theory, to his surprise, provided the framework that rigorous general-market-equilibrium modeling has long used to explain trend and cyclical economic performance. This post, the fourth in a 5-part summary of the GEM Project’s contribution to growth … 
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Generalizing Solow’s Growth Model

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Providing the mainstream literature’s go-to explanation for trend macrodynamics is Robert Solow’s (1956, 1957) neoclassical growth theory. Along with Sir Arthur Lewis’s two-venue theory featured last week, Solow broke the problematic mechanical link between saving and growth.

Basic model. Recall last … 
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Lewis Two-Sector Growth Model

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This post, second in a five-part series on GEM contributions to growth theory, features Sir Arthur Lewis’s celebrated two-sector model that turns out to be a comfortable fit with the Project’s marketplace-workplace general-equilibrium macroeconomics. Once endowed with generalized-exchange microfoundations, Sir … 
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Contributing to Growth Theory

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The most recurring theme of the GEM Blog has two parts. First, mainstream macroeconomics, rooted in market-centric general equilibrium and therefore unable to accommodate meaningful wage rigidity, cannot be stabilization-relevant. Second, the generalization of rational exchange from the marketplace to … 
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The Curse of Market-Centricity

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The GEM Blog’s basic argument with mainstream macroeconomists concerns their market-centricity. The  case is multidimensional but, at its core, is rooted in three facts. First, if rational-behavior macro theory cannot accommodate involuntary job loss (IJL), it cannot be stabilization-relevant. Forced … 
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Thinking about Socialism

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The University of Chicago’s GenForward Project recently polled Americans aged 18 to 34 and found that 49 percent hold a favorable opinion of capitalism and 45 percent favorably view socialism. Among Democrats, 61 percent have a positive opinion of socialism … 
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Kenneth Arrow and What’s Important

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In my considered opinion (with apologies to my MIT colleague Paul Samuelson), Ken Arrow (1921-2017) was the most accomplished economic theorist of the second half of the 20th century. I am especially impressed that he tackled only really important problems. … 
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Settled Macro Theory? More evidence.

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We must not forget that, in the Great Recession, prominent central bankers rejected modern macro theory as useless. That was, of course, when useful theory was most needed. Stabilization authorities complained that consensus modeling failed to provide practical guidelines for … 
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