With our book Saving and Investment in the Twenty-First Century: The Great Divergence (published as open access), we present a comprehensive theoretical explanation as well as empirical evidence for the phenomenon of low interest rates observed in the OECD countries and China and make various...

In the early 1970s, hours worked per working-age person in Spain were higher than in the United States. Starting in 1975, however, hours worked in Spain fell by 40%. We find that 80% of the decline in hours worked can be accounted for by the evolution of taxes in an otherwise standard...

A problem that faces many countries including the United States is how to finance retirement consumption as the population ages. Proposals for switching to a saving-for-retirement system that does not rely on high payroll taxes have been challenged on the grounds that welfare would fall for some...

One of the most important aspects of human development is the ability to have a decent standard of living. The secret of the "economic miracle" of many countries that have high standard of living, in fact, is simple and quite obvious. All these countries are characterized by high and sustained...

The study of economic growth is central to macroeconomics. More than anything else, macroeconomists are concerned with finding policies that encourage growth. And by ‘growth’, they mean the growth of real GDP. This measure has become so central to macroeconomics that few economists question...

Eine universelle Übereinkunft darüber, was Geld eigentlich ist, gibt es nicht. Geld wird in einem Prozess geschöpft, an dem die Zentralbank, Geschäftsbanken und Haushalte, der Staat und Unternehmen beteiligt sind. Deren Rolle wurde im Monatsbericht der Deutschen Bundesbank vom April 2017...

This paper estimates the contribution of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of Bulgaria for the period 2004-2013. As predicted by theory, a positive relationship between TFP and FDI is documented. The standard Ramsey (optimal) growth model, augmented with the...

This study tries to ascertain the behaviour of some major macroeconomic factors that would drive Ghana's economic growth using Johansen approach to cointegration. The study uses quarterly data from 1980:Q1 to 2013:Q4. The data were first analyzed using the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF and...

The paper is dedicated to the problem of flat ontology in philosophy and its relation to the practice in economy. The author argues that flat economy is based on a marginal utility theory of value and presents hierarchical value chains with concentration of power-capital as if they were flat and...

The theory of capital as power (CasP) is radically different from conventional political economy. In the conventional view, mainstream as well as heterodox, capital is seen a “real” economic entity engaged in the production of goods and services, and capitalism is thought of as a mode of...