A Prototype Regional Stock-Flow Consistent Model

Our new Zezza&Zezza paper “A Prototype Regional Stock-Flow Consistent Model” has come out as a Levy Institute Working Paper

We set up a three-region SFC model with labor mobility, to explore the implications of regional imbalances. Loosely calibrating the model on Italian North-South data, the model shows that the dependency of a poorer Southern region from imports will imply labor migration, as well as transfers of ownership of Southern real and financial assets to the other region. The model shows that, absent targeted policies, there is no automatic tendency to convergence in real income across regions.
Eviews code available here: https://gennaro.zezza.it/software/eviews/2022levywp.prg

Authors:
Francesco Zezza, Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy, and Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
Gennaro Zezza, Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Italy, and Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Abstract
Starting from the seminal works of Wynne Godley (1999; Godley and Lavoie 2005, 2007a, 2007b), the literature adopting stock-flow consistent (SFC) models for two or more countries has been flourishing, showing that consistently taking into account real and financial markets of two open economies will generate different results with respect to more traditional open economy models. However, few contributions, if any, have modeled two regions in the same country, and our paper aims at filling this gap. When considering a regional context, most of the adjustment mechanisms at work in open economy models—such as exchange rate movements, or changes in interest on public debt—are simply not present, as they are in control of “external” authorities. So, what are the adjustment mechanisms at work?

To answer this question, we adapt the framework suggested in Godley and Lavoie (2007a) to consider two regions that share the same monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate policies. We loosely calibrate our model to Italian data, where the South (Mezzogiorno) has both a lower level of real income per capita and a lower growth rate than the North. We also introduce a fragmented labor market, as discouraged workers in the South will move North in hopes of finding commuting jobs.

Our model replicates some key features of the Italian economy and sheds light on the interactions between financial and real markets in regional economies with “current account” imbalances.

The Employer of Last Resort Scheme and the Energy Transition: A Stock-Flow Consistent Analysis

Giuliano Toshiro Yajima has just published a new Levy Institute working paper: “The Employer of Last Resort Scheme and the Energy Transition: A Stock-Flow Consistent Analysis”

Abstract
The health and economic crises of 2020–21 have revived the debate on fiscal policy as a major tool for stabilization and meeting long-term goals. The massive surge in unemployment, due to the economic disruption of the lockdown measures, has increased the interest in policies that target employment directly instead of trying to achieve it via a general “demand push.” One of the proposals currently under debate is the job guarantee. Under such a policy the government would act as an “employer of last resort” by offering a job to everyone that is able and wants to work but cannot find a job in the private sector. This paper argues that a carefully designed scheme of direct employment and public provision by the state—addressing both the low- and high-skill workforce—can have permanent effects and promote the economy’s structural transformation, in particular by fostering energy transition and a lower carbon footprint. Starting from this point, a stock-flow consistent model is developed to study the long-run effect of the job guarantee’s implementation, inspired by the work of Godin (2013) and Sawyer and Passarella (2021).

A Post-Keynesian stock-flow consistent model of the Global Financial Crisis and the Age of Secular Stagnation

Adam Kaczynski has recently completed his PhD with a thesis on “A Post-Keynesian stock-flow consistent model of the Global Financial Crisis and the Age of Secular Stagnation”.
The PDF is available here, and the corresponding code can be downloaded from Github.

Abstract:
This thesis is an attempt to build a dynamic, long run, Stock-Flow Consistent, Post Keynesian model of the Global Financial Crisis and Secular Stagnation. While multiple New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models of these historic phenomena already exist, these models are built on theoretical foundations which have been rejected by Post Keynesians because of their inadequacy. The Sraffian Supermultiplier has been chosen as the theoretical framework, isolating parts of the economy generating instability from the parts which may set the trend in the long run. The model uses a continuous-time framework and is expressed as a differential-algebraic system of equations. It is simulated using an Open Source package OpenModelica which is widely used in empirical and technical sciences for simulating dynamic systems. While not calibrated by regression, and more theoretical than econometric, it nevertheless reproduces multiple macroeconomic phenomena and stylised facts which have puzzled mainstream economists. This research is an attempt to advance the macroeconomic modelling methodology and contribute to understanding macroeconomic processes by demonstrating how complex phenomena can emerge when simple parts of the economy interact. The understanding is based on sound macroeconomic theories built by Marx, Keynes, Kalecki, Sraffa and contemporary Post Keynesian economists.

A SFC course at UNAM

I have delivered a series of lectures on stock-flow-consistent modeling at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM).

In this page you can find all slides and related materials.

Stock-flow-consistent macroeconomic models: A survey

Levy Institute Working paper n.891, May 2017
Michalis Nikiforos and Gennaro Zezza

Abstract
The stock-flow consistent (SFC) modeling approach, grounded in the pioneering work of Wynne Godley and James Tobin in the 1970s, has been adopted by a growing number of researchers in macroeconomics, especially after the publication of Godley and Lavoie (2007), which provided a general framework for the analysis of whole economic systems, and the recognition that macroeconomic models integrating real markets with flow-of-funds analysis had been particularly successful in predicting the Great Recession of 2007–9. We introduce the general features of the SFC approach for a closed economy, showing how the core model has been extended to address issues such as financialization and income distribution. We next discuss the implications of the approach for models of open economies and compare the methodologies adopted in developing SFC empirical models for whole countries. We review the contributions where the SFC approach is being adopted as the macroeconomic closure of microeconomic agent-based models, and how the SFC approach is at the core of new research in ecological macroeconomics. Finally, we discuss the appropriateness of the name “stock-flow consistent” for the class of models we survey.
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Forthcoming in Journal of Economic Surveys

Stock-Flow Consistent Ecological Macroeconomics

Tim Jackson, Peter Victor and Ali Asjad Naqvi, ‘Towards a Stock-Flow Consistent Ecological Macroeconomics’, ESRC Passage Working paper Series 15-02, 2015
Abstract: Modern western economies (in the Eurozone and elsewhere) face a number of challenges over the coming decades. Achieving full employment, meeting climate change and other key environmental targets, and reducing inequality rank amongst the highest of these. The conventional route to achieving these goals has been to pursue economic growth. But this route has created two critical problems for modern economies. The first is that higher growth leads (ceteris parabis) to higher environmental impact. The second is that fragility in financial balances has accompanied relentless demand expansion.
The prevailing global response to the first problem has been to encourage a decoupling of output from impacts by investing in green technologies (green growth). But this response runs the risk of exacerbating problems associated with the over-leveraging of households, firms and governments and places undue confidence in unproven and imagined technologies. An alternative approach is to reduce the pace of growth and to restructure economies around green services (post-growth). But the potential dangers of declining growth rates lie in increased inequality and in rising unemployment. Some more fundamental arguments have also been made against the feasibility of interest-bearing debt within a post-growth economy.
The work described in this paper was motivated by the need to address these fundamental dilemmas and to inform the debate that has emerged in recent years about the relative merits of green growth and post-growth scenarios. In pursuit of this aim we have developed a suite of macroeconomic models based on the methodology of Post-Keynesian Stock Flow Consistent (SFC) system dynamics. Taken together these models represent the first steps in constructing a new macroeconomic synthesis capable of exploring the economic and financial dimensions of an economy confronting resource or environmental constraints. Such an ecological macroeconomics includes an account of basic macroeconomic variables such as the GDP, consumption, investment, saving, public spending, employment, and productivity. It also accounts for the performance of the economy in terms of financial balances, net lending positions, money supply, distributional equity and financial stability.
This report illustrates the utility of this new approach through a number of specific analyses and scenario explorations. These include an assessment of the Piketty hypothesis (that slow growth increases inequality), an analysis of the ‘growth imperative’ hypothesis (that interest bearing debt requires economic growth for stability), and an analysis of the financial and monetary implications of green investment policies. The work also assesses the scope for fiscal policy to improve social and environmental outcomes

The Monetary Circuit in the Age of Financialisation

Malcolm Sawyer and Marco Veronese Passarella, ‘The Monetary Circuit in the Age of Financialisation: A Stock-Flow Consistent Model with A Twofold Banking Sector’, Metroeconomica, doi: 10.1111/meca.12103, 2015
Abstract: The paper explores how the Theory of Monetary Circuit can be developed to reflect some important features of the evolution of the financial system in the past three decades, which have been associated with what may be termed ‘financialisation.’ For this purpose, we embed the benchmark single-period monetary circuit scheme proposed by Graziani in a richer set of institutional arrangements. The stock-flow consistent modelling technique pioneered by Godley and Lavoie is used to support our narrative.

Money Creation under Full-reserve Banking

Patrizio Lainà, ‘Money Creation under Full-reserve Banking: A Stock-Flow Consistent Model’, Levy Institute Working Paper n.851, 2015
Abstract: This paper presents a stock-flow consistent model+ of full-reserve banking. It is found that in a steady state, full-reserve banking can accommodate a zero-growth economy and provide both full employment and zero inflation. Furthermore, a money creation experiment is conducted with the model. An increase in central bank reserves translates into a two-thirds increase in demand deposits. Money creation through government spending leads to a temporary increase in real GDP and inflation. Surprisingly, it also leads to a permanent reduction in consolidated government debt. The claims that full-reserve banking would precipitate a credit crunch or excessively volatile interest rates are found to be baseless

Eviews code