Reconstructing Macroeconomics

Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-521-83106-2
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 696 g

Reihe: Japan-US Center UFJ Bank Monographs on International Financial Markets

The authors treat macroeconomic models as composed of large numbers of micro-units or agents of several types, and explicitly discuss stochastic dynamic and combinatorial aspects of interactions among them. In mainstream macroeconomics sound microfoundations for macroeconomics has meant incorporating sophisticated intertemporal optimization by representative agents into models. Optimal growth theory, once meant to be normative, is now taught as a descriptive theory in mainstream macroeconomic courses. In neoclassical equilibria flexible prices led the economy to the state of full employment and marginal productivities are all equated. Professors Aoki and Yoshikawa contrariwise show that such equilibria are not possible in economies with a large number of agents of heterogeneous types. The authors treat equilibria as statistical distributions and not as fixed points. They employ a set of statistical dynamical tools via continuous-time Markov chains, and statistical distributions of fractions of agents by types available in the new literature of combinatorial stochastic processes, to reconstruct macroeconomic models.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Aoki, Masanao

Yoshikawa, Hiroshi

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Physik Angewandte Physik Statistische Physik, Dynamische Systeme
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Makroökonomie
• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Stochastik Stochastische Prozesse
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftsstatistik, Demographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface Masanao Aoki; Preface Hiroshi Yoshikawa; 1. Introduction - a new approach to macroeconomics; 2. The methods - Jump Markov processes and random partitions; 3. Equilibrium as distribution - the role of demand in macroeconomics; 4. Uncertainty trap - policy ineffectiveness and long stagnation of the macroeconomy; 5. Slow dynamics of macro system - no mystery of inflexible prices; 6. Business cycles - an endogenous stochastic approach; 7. Labor market dynamics - a new look at the natural unemployment and the Okun's Law; 8. Demand saturation - creation and economic growth; 9. The types of investors and volatility in financial markets - analyzing clusters of heterogeneous agents; 10. Stock prices and the real macroeconomy - power-law versus exponential distributions.

Über Autor(innen)

Aoki, Masanao
Masanao Aoki is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is past President of the Society for Economic Dynamics and Control, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and a Fellow of the IEEE Control Systems Society. Currently Associate Editor of the journal Macroeconomic Dynamics, published by Cambridge University Press, Professor Aoki also served as Editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control and the International Economic Review. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Modeling Aggregate Behavior and Fluctuations in Economics, which won the 2003 Nihon Keizai Shinbun-Center for Japanese Economic Research Prize for best book in economics by a Japanese scholar (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and New Approaches to Macroeconomic Modeling (Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Yoshikawa, Hiroshi
Hiroshi Yoshikawa is Professor of Economics at the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978 and has also taught at Osaka University and the State University of New York at Albany. Professor Yoshikawa is the author of seven books, one of which received the Nikkei Award and another of which received the Yoshino-Yomiuri Award, in addition to a textbook in macroeconomics and the frequently cited Macroeconomics and the Japanese Economy (1995). He is a member of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy of the Japanese Government's Cabinet Office, and served in 2002 as president of the Japanese Economic Association.