The purpose of this paper is to discuss the origins of a critical process in the North American economy before the subprime crisis, namely, the increasing debt of households. It is argued that causes of this indebtedness are alterations in income distribution (an increased concentration of...

COVID-19 has exacerbated concerns about the rise of the robots and other automation technologies. This paper analyzes empirically the impact of past major pandemics on robot adoption and inequality. First, we find that pandemic events accelerate robot adoption, especially when the health impact...

Firms play an important role in shaping income inequality at the aggregated country level, given that wages represent a significant proportion of household income. We investigate the distributional consequences of capital account liberalization, relying on firm level data to explore the...

The volume of profits in an economy is a magnitude, which is out of sight of orthodox macroeconomic textbooks and effectively ignored by neoclassical macroeconomics. In contrast, Kalecki's approach brings to the forefront the sources of profits and makes possible their further analysis. In a...

This paper uses a DSGE model to simulate the impact of technological change on labor markets and income distribution. It finds that technological advances offers prospects for stronger productivity and growth, but brings risks of increased income polarization. This calls for inclusive policies...

Would countercyclical fiscal policy during recessions improve or worsen the gender employment gap? We give an answer to this question by exploring the state-dependent impact of fiscal spending shocks on employment by gender in the G-7 countries. Using the local projection method, we find that,...

For guidance in determining which items should be included in comprehensive NDP and how they should be included, reference is often made to the libearized Hamiltonian from an optimal growth problem. This note shows how the heuristic linearized-Hamiltonian argumentcan be given a rigorous welfare...

Prisdannelsen og faktorefterspørgslen i Det økonomiske Råds sekretariats SMEC-model af dansk <p> økonomi har siden 1998 været teoretisk begrundet i en underliggende Cobb-Douglas teknologi (i <p> kombination med en antagelse om omkostningsminimering). I SMEC-forgængeren SMEC 94 var det <p> derimod...</p></p></p>

When is a wealth tax preferable to a capital income tax? When is the opposite true? More generally, can capital taxation be structured to improve productivity, incentivize innovation, and ultimately increase welfare? We study these questions theoretically in an infinite-horizon model with...

I develop a simple, static general-equilibrium model with two classes of individuals, workers and entrepreneurs, and two goods. One good is in fixed supply, intrepreted as status-good, and the other is a standard, producible and consumable commodity. All prices are set by firm owners...