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Financial Economics Lecture Ten

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Title: Financial Economics Lecture Ten


1
Financial Economics Lecture Ten
  • Fisher and Debt Deflation

2
Fishera father with two children
  • Irving Fisher (1867-1947) began as a
    mathematically-oriented neoclassical economist
  • Also a mechanical tinkerer, food freak,
    teetotaller and prohibitionist, and eugenicist
  • Main relevance of this for economics he invented
    the Rolodex, sold it to the Rand Corporation, and
    became a substantial stock holder of which more
    later
  • In 1907, published The theory of interest,
    which became the signature neoclassical text on
    finance until Sharpe developed the Efficient
    Markets Hypothesis
  • In 1933, published The debt-deflation theory of
    Great Depressions, which rejected foundations of
    neoclassical theory of money

3
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • Fishers 1907 book made systematic Benthams
    argument that Putting money out at interest, is
    exchanging present money for future (Bentham
    1787, In Defence of Usury)
  • The rate of interest expresses a price in the
    exchange between present and future goods.
    (Fisher 1930 61 rewrite of 1907 book for
    popular audience),
  • This price is the product of three forces
  • the subjective preferences of individuals for
    present goods over future goods
  • the objective possibilities for profitable
    investment
  • and a market mechanism for loanable funds which
    brings these two forces into equilibrium.

4
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • The subjective preferences of individuals for
    present goods over future goods determines supply
    of funds
  • a low time preference
  • most likely a lender
  • high time preference (prefers to consume now
    rather than later)
  • most likely a borrower.
  • Borrowing thus means by which those with a high
    preference for present goods acquire the funds
    they need now, at the expense of later income.

5
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • The objective side of the equation
  • the marginal productivity of investment or
    marginal return over cost (1930 182).
  • willingness to borrow/lend not enough
  • must also be possible for borrowed money to be
    invested and earn a rate of return.

6
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • Market mechanism brings subjective and objective
    forces into harmony
  • Supply
  • A high rate of interest
  • even those with a very high time preference will
    lend
  • supply of funds will be quite high
  • Low rate of interest
  • only those with a very low time preference will
    lend
  • very small supply of funds

7
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • Demand
  • High rate of interest
  • most investments will be unviable
  • demand for funds will be low
  • Low rate of interest
  • most investments have positive net present value
  • demand for funds will be high
  • Market mechanism
  • Forces of supply and demand determine equilibrium
    interest rate at which the funds demanded and the
    funds supplied are equal.

8
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • Two conditions needed for market to perform in
    Fishers equilibrium model
  • (A) The market must be cleared--and cleared with
    respect to every interval of time.
  • (B) The debts must be paid. (1930 495)
  • i.e.
  • No disequilibrium
  • No bankruptcy/default
  • Unrealistic, but...

9
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • Fisher cognisant of
  • social basis to time preference
  • the smaller the income, the higher the
    preference for present over future income (71)
  • If a person has only one loaf of bread he would
    not set it aside for next year even if the rate
    of interest were 1000 per cent for if he did so,
    he would starve in the meantime (71-72)
  • the effect of poverty is often to relax
    foresight and self-control and to tempt us to
    trust to luck for the future, if only the
    all-engrossing need of present necessities can be
    satisfied (72)

10
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • Effect of time pattern and expectations on time
    preference
  • A man who is now enjoying an income of only
    5000 a year, but who expects in ten years to be
    enjoying one of 10,000 a year, will today prize
    a dollar in hand far more than the prospect of a
    dollar due ten years hence. His great
    expectations make him impatient to realize on
    them in advance. He may, in fact, borrow money to
    eke out this year's income and promise repayments
    out of his supposedly more abundant income ten
    years later (73)
  • Akin to lending to poor/lending to prodigals in
    Smiths reasons to restrain the rate of interest
  • Both reasons why preconditions (A) and (B) may
    not be met in the real world

11
An equilibrium theory of finance
  • But this supply and demand theory of the rate of
    interest was accepted wisdom at time of 1929
    Crash
  • Analysis of finance/stock markets similar
  • markets let suppliers of funds (stock purchasers)
  • and demanders of funds (corporations issuing
    shares)
  • establish equilibrium price for shares which
    produces
  • exchange present money (share price)
  • for dividend stream
  • whose NPV exactly equals share price discounted
    at prevailing rate of interest
  • Fisher believed what he preached accepted high
    valuations of 1920s market as reflecting
    rationally expected rosy prospects for US
    economy.

12
From Utility to Depression
  • As well as one of worlds most prominent
    economists, Fisher was also a newspaper columnist
    (a risky business...)
  • On Wednesday, October 15, 1929, Fisher
    commentsStock prices have reached what looks
    like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel
    that there will soon, if ever, be a fifty or
    sixty point break below present levels, such as
    Mr. Babson has predicted. I expect to see the
    stock market a good deal higher than it is today
    within a few months.
  • Best statement of this Panglossian attitude made
    to Bankers forum on October 23 1929
  • but first his October 22 headlines

13
How to lose money and influence on people (1)
  • Fishers New York Times headline before the
    crash
  • Tuesday, October 22, 1929, Page 24, Col. 1
  • FISHER SAYS PRICES OF STOCKS ARE LOW
  • Quotations Have Not Caught Up With Real Values As
    Yet, He Declares SEES NO CAUSE FOR SLUMP
    Economist Tells Credit Men that Market Has Not
    Been Inflated, But Merely Readjusted
  • Next day, in a talk to bankers, Fisher dismisses
    a 6 fall as just an aberration due to a lunatic
    fringe of speculators

14
Faith in the market
  • Began by recounting facts of market advance in
    1920s
  • Shares had doubled in value since 1926
  • Investor who followed the herd and bought and
    sold shares simply on popularity would have
    increased wealth tenfold in those three years.
  • Prices had risen so much that dividend yields
    were below bond yields.
  • Margin call lending was at its highest level in
    history.
  • All these observations supported the notion that
    the market seems too high and to warrant a major
    bear movement (Fisher 1929).
  • BUT

15
Faith in the market
  • We are now applying science and invention to
    industry as we never applied it before. We are
    living in a new era, and it is of the utmost
    importance for every businessman and every banker
    to understand this new era and its
    implications... All the resources of modern
    scientific chemistry, metallurgy, electricity,
    are being utilizedfor what? To make big incomes
    for the people of the United States in the
    future, to add to the dividends of corporations
    which are handling these new inventions, and
    necessarily, therefore, to raise the prices of
    stocks which represent shares in these new
    inventions. (Fisher 1929)
  • Sound familiar?

16
Faith in the market
  • This wave of invention, with returns in future
    years, meant that it was quite natural for the
    ratio of share price to historic earnings to
    rise. In fact, these new firms should be expected
    to make losses as they established their new
    inventions
  • In the airline industry very little attention is
    paid to the earnings today, because the price of
    the stock is purely a speculation on the far
    bigger returns that are expected in the future.
    Any new invention ... at first does not give any
    profit (Fisher 1929)
  • Sound familiar?

17
Faith in the market
  • Low to zero dividend payments not a worry, since
    reinvestment of dividends, was a positive force
  • Firms that paid no dividendsrather than handing
    dividends back to investorswere able to grow
    more rapidly. Hence
  • many of the stocks which sell the highest on the
    stock exchange and which have had the most
    spectacular rise are not paying any dividends
    (Fisher 1929).
  • Sound familiar?

18
Faith in the market
  • The public had changed how it estimated risk,
    because Edgar Smiths influential book Common
    Stocks as Long Term Investments had shown that
    over the longer term, stocks outperformed bonds.
    As a result
  • There has been almost a stampede towards stocks,
    and away from bonds (Fisher 1929)
  • Sound familiar? (Hassett Glassmans Dow 36,000).

19
Trust the professionals
  • Growth of market had led to establishment of
    investment professionals
  • investment counselling and
  • investment trusts which
  • can afford to make studies of stocks which the
    individual investor could not study (Fisher
    1929)
  • As well as diversifying and spreading risk, these
    institutions enabled stocks to be scientifically
    selected. This explained why
  • our stock market is highly selective today
  • As a result,

20
Trust the professionals
  • Half of the stocks during the last year have
    fallen in spite of the fact that the average as
    shown by the index numbers had risen. The leaders
    are becoming fewer and fewer, and those stocks
    that are leading have a greater and greater
    scarcity value. (Fisher 1929)
  • Not a problem though, is it?
  • And as for speculation, not a problem!

21
The lunatic fringe causes downturns
  • There is a certain lunatic fringe in the stock
    market, and there always will be whenever there
    is any successful bear movement going on... they
    will put the stocks up above what they should be
    and, when frightened, ... will immediately want
    to sell out. (Fisher 1929)
  • Wednesdays 6 fall made him slightly less
    sanguine about how dangerous speculators were in
    a down movement (though not a boom!), but the
    other fourteen causes are far more important than
    this one cause itself.
  • Now was buying shares on margin or with borrowed
    money a problem

22
Rational borrowing
  • To a certain extent it is normal that during an
    era such as we are now passing through, where the
    income of the people of the United States is
    bound to increase faster perhaps than ever before
    in its history, and it has during the last few
    years increased amazingly, that we should try to
    cash in on future income in advance of its
    occurring, exactly on the principle that when a
    young man knows he has been given unexpectedly a
    large bequest, and that it will be in his hands
    inside a year, he will borrow against it in
    advance. In other words, there ought to be a big
    demand for loans at a high rate of interest
    during a period of great increase in income.
    (Fisher 1929)

23
Faith in the market
  • So what does the future hold?
  • Great prosperity at present and greater
    prosperity in view in the future ... rather than
    speculation ... explain the high stock markets,
    and when it is finally rid of the lunatic fringe,
    the stock market will never go back to 50 per
    cent of its present level... We shall not see
    very much further, if any, recession in the stock
    market, but rather ... a resumption of the bull
    market, not as rapidly as it has been in the
    past, but still a bull rather than a bear
    movement. (Fisher 1929)
  • And what happened the next day?
  • Black Thursday 10 fall in the Dow Jones in one
    day

24
How to lose money and influence on people (2)
  • In afternoon edition, the news and Fishers
    opinion
  • Thursday, October 24, 1929, Page 1, Col. 1
  • PRICES OF STOCKS CRASH IN HEAVY LIQUIDATION,
    TOTAL DROP OF BILLIONS PAPER LOSS 4,000,000,000
    2,600,000 Shares Sold In The Final Hour In
    Record Decline MANY ACCOUNTS WIPED OUT
  • But No Brokerage House Is In Difficulties, As
    Margins Have Been Kept High ORGANIZED BANKING
    ABSENT Bankers Confer On Steps To Support Market
    - Highest Break Is 96 Points
  • Page 2, Col. 1
  • SAYS STOCK SLUMP IS ONLY TEMPORARY
  • Professor Fisher Tells Capital Bankers Market
    Rise Since War Has Been Justified. ECONOMIC
    REASONS CITED "Public Speculative Mania," He
    Declares, is Least Important Cause of Price
    Inflation.

25
The Wall Street Crash
From 32 at its zenith
To below 5at its nadir
in less than 3 years
26
From Utility to Depression
  • Fishers reputation destroyed by erroneous
    prediction, but turned to developing theory to
    explain the crash
  • The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • based on rejection of conditions of previous
    analysis
  • (A) The market must be cleared--and cleared with
    respect to every interval of time.
  • (B) The debts must be paid. (1930 495)
  • Previous theory assumed equilibrium but real
    world equilibrium short-lived since New
    disturbances are, humanly speaking, sure to
    occur, so that, in actual fact, any variable is
    almost always above or below the ideal
    equilibrium (1933 339)
  • As a result, any real world variable is likely to
    be over or under its equilibrium level--including
    confidence speculation

27
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • Key problems debt and prices
  • The two dominant factors which cause
    depressions are over-indebtedness to start with
    and deflation following soon after
  • Thus over-investment and over-speculation are
    often important but they would have far less
    serious results were they not conducted with
    borrowed money. That is, over-indebtedness may
    lend importance to over-investment or to
    over-speculation. The same is true as to
    over-confidence. I fancy that over-confidence
    seldom does any great harm except when, as, and
    if, it beguiles its victims into debt. (Fisher
    1933 341)
  • When overconfidence leads to overindebtedness, a
    chain reaction ensues

28
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • (1) Debt liquidation leads to distress selling
    and to
  • (2) Contraction of deposit currency, as bank
    loans are paid off, and to a slowing down of
    velocity of circulation. This contraction of
    deposits and of their velocity, precipitated by
    distress selling, causes
  • (3) A fall in the level of prices, in other
    words, a swelling of the dollar. Assuming, as
    above stated, that this fall of prices is not
    interfered with by reflation or otherwise, there
    must be
  • (4) A still greater fall in the net worths of
    business, precipitating bankruptcies and

29
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • (5) A like fall in profits, which in a
    "capitalistic," that is, a private-profit
    society, leads the concerns which are running at
    a loss to make
  • (6) A reduction in output, in trade and in
    employment of labor. These losses, bankruptcies,
    and unemployment, lead to
  • (7) Pessimism and loss of confidence, which in
    turn lead to
  • (8) Hoarding and slowing down still more the
    velocity of circulation. The above eight changes
    cause
  • (9) Complicated disturbances in the rates of
    interest, in particular, a fall in the nominal,
    or money, rates and a rise in the real, or
    commodity, rates of interest. (1933 342)

30
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • Fisher thus concurs with ancient charge against
    usury, that it maketh many bankrotts (Jones
    1989 55)
  • While such a fate largely individual in a feudal
    system, in a capitalist economy a chain reaction
    ensues which leads the entire populace into
    crisis
  • Theory nonequilibrium in nature
  • argues that we may tentatively assume that,
    ordinarily and within wide limits, all, or almost
    all, economic variables tend, in a general way,
    towards a stable equilibrium
  • but though stable, equilibrium is so delicately
    poised that, after departure from it beyond
    certain limits, instability ensues (Fisher 1933
    339).

31
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • Two classes of far from equilibrium events
    explained
  • Great Depression, when overindebtedness coincides
    with deflation
  • with deflation on top of excessive debt, the
    more debtors pay, the more they owe. The more the
    economic boat tips, the more it tends to tip. It
    is not tending to right itself, but is capsizing
    (Fisher 1933 344).
  • Cycles, when one occurs without the other
  • with only overindebtedness or deflation, economic
    growth eventually corrects situation it
  • is then more analogous to stable equilibrium
    the more the boat rocks the more it will tend to
    right itself. In that case, we have a truer
    example of a cycle (Fisher 1933 344-345)

32
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions
  • Fishers new theory ignored
  • Old theory made basis of modern finance theory
  • Debt deflation theory revived in modern form by
    Minsky
  • Fishers macroeconomic contribution (which
    emphasised the need for reflation and 100
    money during the Depression) overshadowed by
    Keyness General Theory
  • Many similarities and synergies in Keynes and
    Fisher, but different countries meant one largely
    unaware of others work

33
Keynes and Debt-deflation
  • Some consideration of debt-deflation in General
    Theory when discussing reduction in money wages
    (neoclassical proposal)
  • Since a special reduction of money-wages is
    always advantageous to an individual entrepreneur
    ... a general reduction ... may break through a
    vicious circle of unduly pessimistic estimates of
    the marginal efficiency of capital... On the
    other hand, the depressing influence on
    entrepreneurs of their greater burden of debt may
    partially offset any cheerful reactions from the
    reductions of wages. Indeed if the fall of wages
    and prices goes far, the embarrassment of those
    entrepreneurs who are heavily indebted may soon
    reach the point of insolvency--with severe
    adverse effects on investment. (Keynes 1936 264)

34
Keynes and Debt-deflation
  • The method of increasing the quantity of money
    in terms of wage-units by decreasing the
    wage-unit increases proportionately the burden of
    debt whereas the method of producing the same
    result by increasing the quantity of money whilst
    leaving the wage-unit unchanged has the opposite
    effect. Having regard to the excessive burden of
    many types of debt, it can only be an
    inexperienced person who would prefer the
    former. (1936 268-69)
  • Keyness focus here more physical and macro
    (impact on investment) than Fisher Keyness main
    contributions on finance relate to
  • Dual Price Level hypothesis
  • Analysis of expectations and behaviour of finance
    markets

35
Keynes and the Dual Price Level Hypothesis
  • In most of General Theory, Keynes argued that
    investment motivated by relationship between
    marginal efficiency of investment schedule (MEI)
    and the rate of interest
  • In Chapter 17 of General Theory, The General
    Theory of Employment and Alternative theories
    of the rate of interest (1937), instead spoke
    in terms of two price levels
  • investment motivated by the desire to produce
    those assets of which the normal supply-price is
    less than the demand price (Keynes 1936 228)
  • Demand price determined by prospective yields,
    depreciation and liquidity preference.
  • Supply price determined by costs of production

36
Keynes and the Dual Price Level Hypothesis
  • Two price level analysis becomes more dominant
    subsequent to General Theory
  • The scale of production of capital assets
    depends, of course, on the relation between
    their costs of production and the prices which
    they are expected to realise in the market.
    (Keynes 1937a 217)
  • MEI analysis akin to view that uncertainty can be
    reduced to the same calculable status as that of
    certainty itself via a Benthamite calculus,
    whereas the kind of uncertainty that matters in
    investment is that about which there is no
    scientific basis on which to form any calculable
    probability whatever. We simply do not know.
    (Keynes 1937a 213, 214)

37
Keynes and the Dual Price Level Hypothesis
  • In the midst of incalculable uncertainty,
    investors form fragile expectations about the
    future
  • These are crystallised in the prices they place
    upon capital asset
  • These prices are therefore subject to sudden and
    violent change
  • with equally sudden and violent consequences for
    the propensity to invest
  • Seen in this light, the marginal efficiency of
    capital is simply the ratio of the yield from an
    asset to its current demand price, and therefore
    there is a different marginal efficiency of
    capital for every different level of asset
    prices (Keynes 1937a 222)

38
Keynes on Uncertainty and Expectations
  • Three aspects to expectations formation under
    true uncertainty
  • Presumption that the present is a much more
    serviceable guide to the future than a candid
    examination of past experience would show it to
    have been hitherto
  • Belief that the existing state of opinion as
    expressed in prices and the character of existing
    output is based on a correct summing up of future
    prospects
  • Reliance on mass sentiment we endeavour to fall
    back on the judgment of the rest of the world
    which is perhaps better informed. (Keynes 1936
    214)
  • Fragile basis for expectations formation thus
    affects prices of financial assets

39
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Conventional theory says prices on finance
    markets reflect net present value capitalisation
    of expected yields of assets
  • But, says Keynes, far from being dominated by
    rational calculation, valuations of finance
    markets reflect fundamental uncertainty and are
    driven by whim
  • all sorts of considerations enter into the
    market valuation which are in no way relevant to
    the prospective yield (1936 152)
  • ignorance
  • day to day instability
  • waves of optimism and pessimism
  • the third degree

40
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Ignorance due to dispersion of share ownership
    (shades of Telecom?)
  • As a result of the gradual increase in the
    proportion of equity ... owned by persons who ...
    have no special knowledge ... of the business...
    the element of real knowledge in the valuation of
    investments ... has seriously declined (1936
    153)
  • Impact of day to day fluctuations
  • fluctuations in the profits of existing
    investments, which are obviously of an ephemeral
    and non-significant character, tend to have an
    altogether excessive, and even an absurd,
    influence on the market (1936 153-54)

41
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Waves of optimism and pessimism
  • In abnormal times in particular, when the
    hypothesis of an indefinite continuance of the
    existing state of affairs is less plausible than
    usual ... the market will be subject to waves of
    optimistic and pessimistic sentiment, which are
    unreasoning and yet in a sense legitimate where
    no solid basis exists for a reasonable
    calculation. (1836 154)
  • The Third Degree
  • Professional investors further destabilise the
    market by attempting to anticipate its short term
    movements and react more quickly
  • As Geoff Harcourt once remarked, Keynes writes
    like an angel. The next few slides are in
    Keyness own words.

Jump Keynes cites
42
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • It might have been supposed that competition
    between expert professionals ... would correct
    the vagaries of the ignorant individual...
    However,... these persons are, in fact, largely
    concerned, not with making superior long-term
    forecasts of the probable yield of an investment
    over its whole life, but with foreseeing changes
    in the conventional basis of valuation a short
    time ahead of the general public... For it is not
    sensible to pay 25 for an investment of which you
    believe the prospective yield to justify a value
    of 30, if you also believe that the market will
    value it at 20 three months hence. (1936 154-55)

43
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Of the maxims of orthodox finance none, surely,
    is more anti-social than the fetish of liquidity,
    the doctrine that it is a positive virtue on the
    part of investment institutions to concentrate
    their resources upon the holding of liquid
    securities. It forgets that there is no such
    thing as liquidity of investment for the
    community as a whole. The social object of
    skilled investment should be to defeat the dark
    forces of time and ignorance which envelop our
    future. The actual, private object of most
    skilled investment today is to beat the gun, as
    the Americans so well express it, to outwit the
    crowd, and to pass the bad, or depreciating,
    half-crown to the other fellow. (1936 155)

44
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • professional investment may be likened to those
    newspaper competitions in which the competitors
    have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a
    hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to
    the competitor whose choice most nearly
    corresponds to the average preferences of the
    competitors as a whole ... It is not a case of
    choosing those which, to the best of one's
    judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even
    those which average opinion genuinely thinks the
    prettiest. We have reached the third degree where
    we devote our intelligences to anticipating what
    average opinion expects the average opinion to
    be. And there are some, I believe, who practise
    the fourth, fifth and higher degrees. (1936 156)

45
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • If the reader interjects that there must surely
    be large profits to be gained from the other
    players in the long run by a skilled individual
    who, unperturbed by the prevailing pastime,
    continues to purchase investment on the best
    genuine long-term expectations he can frame, he
    must be answered, first of all, that there are,
    indeed, such serious-minded individuals and that
    it makes a vast difference to an investment
    market whether or not they predominate in their
    influence over the game-players. But we must also
    add that there are several factors which
    jeopardise the predominance of such individuals
    in modern investment markets.

46
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Investment based on genuine long-term
    expectation is so difficult today as to be
    scarcely practicable. He who attempts it must
    surely lead much more laborious days and run
    greater risks than he who tries to guess better
    than the crowd how the crowd will behave and,
    given equal intelligence, he may make more
    disastrous mistakes. There is no clear evidence
    from experience that the investment policy which
    is socially advantageous coincides with that
    which is most profitable. It needs more
    intelligence to defeat the forces of time and
    ignorance than to beat the gun.

47
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Moreover, life is not long enough--human nature
    desires quick results, there is a peculiar zest
    in making money quickly, and remoter gains are
    discounted by the average man at a very high
    rate. The game of professional investment is
    tolerably boring and over-exacting to anyone who
    is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct
    whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity
    the appropriate toll.
  • Furthermore, an investor who proposes to ignore
    near-term market fluctuations needs greater
    resources for safety and must not operate on so
    large a scale, if at all, with borrowed money...

48
Keynes on Finance Markets
  • Finally it is the long-term investor ... who
    will in practice come in for most criticism,
    wherever investment funds are managed by
    committees or banks. For it is in the essence of
    his behaviour that he should be eccentric,
    unconventional and rash in the eyes of average
    opinion. If he is successful, that will only
    confirm the general belief in his rashness and
    if in the short run he is unsuccessful, which is
    very likely, he will not receive much mercy.
    Worldly wisdom teaches us that it is better for
    reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed
    unconventionally. (Keynes 1936 156-58)

49
Keynes plus Fisher plus Kalecki
  • Keynes thus augments Fisher
  • Fisher explains the dynamic consequences of
    overindebtedness and deflation
  • Keynes explains how expectations formation can
    lead to excessive valuations being placed upon
    financial assets
  • Kalecki explains the link between finance and
    real investment with The Principle of Increasing
    Risk (Kalecki 1937, 1990 285-293)
  • Rejects argument that conditions of production
    (relation of marginal cost to marginal revenue)
    determine level of investment

50
The Principle of Increasing Risk
  • Consider entrepreneur with capital k to invest,
    given method of production, expected stream of
    returns and hence an expected internal rate of
    return e. These can be combined to yield the
    prospective gross profit
  • Prospective net gain g derived by deducting
    market rate of return r, and allowance for
    riskiness, s.

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The Principle of Increasing Risk
  • Micro theory assumes
  • expected gain g is a function of capital employed
    k
  • function has a single maximum turning point
    (diminishing returns again)
  • the second differential of g with respect to k is
    negative.
  • The zero of first differential therefore tells us
    the optimal amount of capital to invest
  • condition for the maximum prospective gain is

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The Principle of Increasing Risk
  • Conventional micro
  • expected profit p increasing but diminishing
    function of capital k
  • no relationship between capital and the interest
    rate or capital and risk
  • So that optimal investment condition is

Firm invests until rate of change of profit wrt
capital equals sum of market return plus risk
premium for investment
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The Principle of Increasing Risk
  • Colloquial explanation amount of investment is
    constrained either by diseconomies of scale as k
    rises, or by imperfect competition (or similar
    real barriers to expansion).
  • Kalecki rejects both
  • True, every machine has an optimum size, but why
    not have 10 (or more) machines of this type?,
  • not relevant when an investor can put his funds
    into a portfolio of projects across a range of
    industries.
  • dp/dk therefore constant
  • no effective real (non-monetary) barrier to the
    optimal size of k for a single investor (Kalecki
    1937 286-287)

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The Principle of Increasing Risk
  • Instead to expand k, investor must borrow
  • the more he borrows the greater is his risk s.
  • If investor not cautious, then it is the
    creditor who imposes on his calculation the
    burden of increasing risk, charging the
    successive portions of credits above a certain
    amount with a rising rate of interest (1937
    288).
  • Thus either
  • for maximum profitable size of investment
  • so increasing risk (and conditions of finance)
    restrains the size of an individual capitalists
    investment, not physical yield of investment.

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The Principle of Increasing Risk
  • Principle of Increasing Risk provides a link
    between finance and investment
  • Finance thus limits entrepreneurs investment.
  • Same conclusion reached by Keynes in 1937
  • it is, to an important extent, the financial
    facilities which regulate the pace of new
    investment
  • Not a lack of savings which inhibits investment,
    but a lack of finance consequent upon too great
    a press of uncompleted investment (Keynes 1937b
    247)
  • Causal loop is thus FinanceInvestmentSavings
    rather than InvestmentSavings as in GT or
    Savings Investment as in neoclassical economics

56
Next week
  • Bringing it all together
  • Minskys Financial Instability Hypothesis
  • Putting the maths (and a bit of Marx) into Minsky
  • Modelling a dynamic process
  • Modelling debt deflation
  • Essential for exam (last question worth 50 of
    exam)
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