No abstract

This paper aims to show that the Sraffian supermultiplier model provides an alternative closure for the heterodox analysis of economic growth. The new closure follows from the assumption of the existence of autonomous non-capacity-creating expenditures, which implies that the ratio of the average to the marginal propensity to save is an endogenous variable whose determination allows the marginal propensity to invest to determine the saving ratio without the need for changes in income distribution. Provided it is also assumed that capitalist competition leads to gradual changes in the marginal propensity to invest in order to adjust productive capacity to demand, the new closure (in contrast to the Cambridge and neo-Kaleckian closures) allows us to reconcile demand-led growth, exogenous distribution, and a tendency towards normal capacity utilization.

The paper argues that Harrodian instability is an instance of what Hicks in his book Capital and Growth (1965) called static instability, related to the direction (and not to the intensity) of the disequilibrium adjustment process. We show why such instability obtains in demand‐led growth models in which the ratio of capacity creating private investment to output ratio is given exogenously by the aggregate marginal propensity to save. We also show that Sraffian Supermultiplier model overcomes the Harrodian instability and that its demand‐led equilibrium is statically stable. It is explained that the latter results do not follow from the presence of autonomous non‐capacity creating expenditure component as such but from its presence within a model in which investment is driven by the capital stock adjustment principle (i.e., the flexible accelerator). Finally, we argue that, although being statically stable, the equilibrium growth path of the Sraffian Supermultiplier model can be dynamically stable or unstable depending on the intensity of the reaction of investment to demand. We then provide a discrete time sufficient condition for the dynamic stability of such equilibrium that implies that the marginal propensity to invest remains lower than the marginal propensity to save during the adjustment process, a modified Keynesian stability condition.

No abstract

a taxa de câmbio real e a restrição externa: uma proposta de releitura com elasticidades endógenas Marcos aDolFo riBEiro FErrari FáBio nEvEs P. FrEitas nElson BarBosa Filho*Real exchange rate and external constraint. This paper investigates a topic of the agenda about growth models, emphasizing the elaboration of an external constrained model with endogenous elasticity, with an emphasis on real exchange rate level as main tool for the economic development. The model is anchored in Kaldor, Thirlwall and Barbosa Filho's models and it will demonstrate that external constraint changes in the course of time.