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Marc Lavoie: Should Sraffian economics be dropped out of the post-Keynesian school?


International Conference Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities 1960-2010.
2nd-4th December 2010, Roma Tre University, Faculty of Economics







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Comments Antonella Stirati

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After the speech the Following Lavoie Took discussion place




Paper Abstract


Several methodologists post-Keynesians argue that Sraffian should be left out of post-Keynesian school (eg, Dunn, 2000, p. 350), as Sraffian seem preoccupied with maximizing benefits, static efficiency and long term, paying little attention to issues such as uncertainty, liquidity and short term. A division between fundamentalists and Kaleckians Sraffian and post-Keynesians, in their opinion, contribute to a more coherent post-Keynesian economics. This paper argues that it is an unnecessary movement.
First, the Sraffian are closely related to post-Keynesian analysis of tradition and history. Second, the Sraffian agree with other post-Keynesians on crucial issues such as the causal link between investment and savings, the role of effective demand tanto a corto como a largo plazo, la endogeneidad de la oferta de dinero y la posibilidad de que el banco Central fije las tasas de interés a corto plazo en los niveles de su elección (Dutt y Amadeo, 1990). En tercer lugar, las opiniones sraffianas no son homogéneas y se han desarrollado a través del tiempo, de modo que, como señaló Nell (2009 y Harcourt 2001), las distinciones entre los Sraffianos y otras de sus vertientes no parece ser tan fuerte como antes’. Los Sraffianos modernos no suponen más que la economía está siempre funcionando en la capacidad normal o completa. La mayoría de ellos ni siquiera suponer que la economía está funcionando a capacidad normal en el largo plazo. En cuarto lugar, los Sraffian provide the equations that explain the production and distribution in an interdependent environment, something lacking somewhat in the other chapters. The Sraffian price theory can be seen as an idealization of the theory of administered prices, a specific type of reference price (Nell, 1998), which make abstraction of imperfect information, previous imbalances, the non-uniform rates of profit or target rates of return, debt structure, etc.

Finally, Sraffian have made contributions to monetary analysis. The Sraffian were the first to claim that relative prices and real wages are affected by the level of the trend rate of interest, through its proportional impact on the normal profit rate, ie, the target rate of return embedded in the setting of mark ups. The paper develops these points, arguing that the economy Sraffian has made a positive contribution to post-Keynesian economics.