Gennaro Zezza will be introducing stock-flow-consistent models, run labs with Michalis Nikiforos on how to build such models in practice, at the 2017 Minsky Summer Seminar at the Levy Institute
Slides of the presentation on Minsky-Godley and stock-flow-consistent models
At the 5th International Summer School on “Keynesian Macroeconomics and European Economic Policies”, organized in Berlin from July 27th to August 2nd, one day will be dedicated to stock-flow-consistent modeling
Again this year we will present stock-flow consistent modeling at the annual Levy Minsky Summer Seminar.
Speakers include Marc Lavoie and myself, and in the Stock-Flow Lab we (Michalis Nikiforos and myself) will guide participants to building a stock-flow model from scratch using Eviews
Winter School On Agent Based And Stock Flow Consistent Modelling
Limerick, January 26th – February 3th
Why You Should Join Our Winter School
If you are a highly motivated student of economics at master or Ph.D. level, or you are working with a research center or a public institution and want to spend one week studying, researching, discussing, and exchanging experiences in the nice atmosphere of an Irish University campus nurtured by international experts and fellow students from all around the world, our winter school offers you:
One-week winter university with international students and lecturers.
An opportunity to produce and confront research outputs such as thesis chapter or working paper with established scholars.
Lab modules, to learn how to implement and apply the theoretical models using software like R, Java.
Social activities
This year, as in the previous years, Marc Lavoie and Gennaro Zezza will be presenting the Stock-Flow-Consistent modeling approach at the Minsky Summer Seminar at the Levy Institute.
The annual conference of the Research Network Macroeconomic and Macroeconomic Policies in Berlin had two sessions dedicated to stock-flow models, plus other papers using this approach in other sessions.
The program is available here
by Antoine Godin and Mauro Napoletano
A wide variety of approaches, methodologies and topics were presented during the first workshop, allowing for interesting discussions and exchanges. Clearly, the complementarities of the Stock-Flow Consistent and Agent-Based approaches emerged, even if some were skeptical at first. The influence of finance, fiscal austerity and the construction of the euro zone are at the heart of applied work from both approaches. Furthermore, the topics and issues addressed by papers from both methodologies are similar. On the methodology side, SFC and ABM practitioners share issues regarding estimation or the role of expectations. On the first issue, the workshop has featured some presentations about methods that could be used to improve the matching between theory and data in both SFC and ABMs. An open issue there, and that could be developed in future workshop, is how far to go in the model calibration and estimation exercises. Indeed, both types of exercises impose strong restrictions on models (e.g. about the ergodicity of the dynamics) which could be limiting in terms of the ability of the model to catch salient features of the reality or that could be hard to detect into some models. Furthermore, the ABM literature has developed robustness checks and stability analysis that need to be further developed in SFC models. This highlights the interest of confronting the two approaches.
This workshop also showed us the importance of getting together and confronting our analysis and results. In particular, the workshop has highlighted the strong complementarities existing between ABM and SFC models. On one hand, SFC models have so far been developed as general aggregative models, i.e. as systems of stock-flow consistent equations describing the laws of motion of the economy at the aggregate level. On the other hand, ABMs provide explicit micro-foundations to macroeconomic relations that, in ABMs, are emergent properties of the disequilibrium interactions occurring among heterogeneous agents. However, the use of the stock-flow consistent approach in ABMs has so far been limited (few exceptions to this are represented by the models of Kinsella et al., 2012 and by Seppecher and Salle, 2012, Raberto et al. 2012). The use of the stock-flow consistent approach in ABMs could thus contribute to improve the rigor of the micro-foundations provided by these models. However, it could also help to micro-found many of the Keynesian dynamics emphasized by SFC models. This is important also because, as it was pointed out in the workshop, SFC models are particularly suitable to study the effects of imbalances at the aggregate level. However, by construction, they cannot study the factors underlying the emergence of those imbalances, such as for example the factors leading to bubble-and-burst dynamics in asset markets. Finally, we should mention the possibility of having some kind of mixed models where some sectors are agent based and others aggregated. Combining ABM and SFC allows thus to offer a wide variety of models with more or less complexity and different levels of aggregation, depending of the subject under scrutiny.
References
– Stephen Kinsella & Matthias Greiff & Edward J Nell, 2011. “Income Distribution in a Stock-Flow Consistent Model with Education and Technological Change,” Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 37(1), pages 134-149.
– Raberto, Marco & Teglio, Andrea & Cincotti, Silvano, 2012. “Debt, deleveraging and business cycles: An agent-based perspective,” Economics – The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 6(27), pages 1-49.
– Seppecher, Pascal & Isabelle Salle, 2012. “A Two-Sector Agent-Based Model: Empirical Validation and Prospects” Unpublished.
SFC Workshop, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, 26-27 of August 2013
After a first very fruitful workshop in Dijon, we now turn to a second workshop in Limerick.
A wide variety of approaches, methodologies and topics were presented during the first workshop, allowing for interesting discussions and exchanges. Clearly, the complementarities of the Stock-Flow Consistent and Agent-Based approaches emerged, even if some were sceptical at first. Furthermore, the topics and issues addressed by papers from both methodologies are similar. On the methodology side, SFC and ABM practitioners share issues regarding estimation or the role of expectations. The influence of finance, fiscal austerity and the construction of the euro zone are at the hart of applied work from both approaches.
This workshop also showed us the importance of getting together and confronting our analysis and results. The need to develop a common language surfaced. We will target this workshop, held at the University of Limerick, Ireland, to begin to work towards a common language for the posing of problems and the discovery of solutions to those problems.
Call for paper
We encourage papers building bridges between SFC and ABM methodologies. However any paper treating on either of the methodologies will be considered, as the goal is also to get together. The deadline for paper proposals is 30 June 2013. Please send an abstract (one page) to godin.antoine@gmail.com. Decisions will be made by mid-July.
Support
Hotel costs will be covered for all participants. Transportation costs will be covered for some participants (especially Ph.D. students), if requested when submitting a paper.
Stephen Kinsella
Antoine Godin
INET’s Young Scholar Initiative has created, under the suggestion of Neil Lancastle and Jay Pocklington, a virtual reading group of SFC models as well as of Godley and Lavoie’s Monetary Economics. If you’re interested, send me an email and I’ll invite you to the groups.
Dear all, the doodle gave its verdict for the Dijon venue: we will have the opportunity to set up a new collaboration between SFC practitioners on May 2 and 3. Those without any background but interested in the methodology and the functioning of this kind of modeling are also welcome.
Call for paper
In the first document we tried to classify the purposes of the meetings. However it was probably too ambitious seeking to structure the three workshops by topics: 1) state of art, 2) empirical issues and 3) theoretical aspects.
All those aspects are relevant and such that structuring the workshops is not required. The goal is to create a sustainable international collaboration between the researchers with more or less experienced but converging toward the same direction: the improvement of the SFC modeling framework in order to get forward in understanding the real world and provide alternative policy recommendations based on a robust diagnosis. Accordingly, the papers proposed should address any relevant theme aiming to achieve this goal.
Organization
The deadline for the submission of paper is March 10. The proposals, under the form of an extended abstract of 2 pages must be sent either to Antoine Godin (godin.antoine@gmail.com) or to Mickaël Clévenot (clevenot.mickael@gmail.com). For any logistical questions, contact M. Clévenot.
We intend to support transport costs or accommodation fees, or both costs depending on the number of participants. Note that only those who submit a paper within the deadline will obtain financial support. Of course any person interested in the workshop is welcome, at its own expenses. There is no participation fee.
The papers must be sent one month before the workshop so that other participants may read them, the papers will be uploaded on the sfc-models.net website. The papers may still be preliminary versions. Traditional sessions will be organized with a discussant. We will require all participants to be a discussant.
More informal sessions as round-table will be organized on the methodology and on the topics you want to address. For this purpose, let us know your wishes as soon as possible. This workshop is ours; it is up to us to make it a lever to move forward together.
To insure a wider diffusion of the ideas developed during the workshop, some sessions might be broadcasted on the internet.
Expecting you numerous, motivated, in a spirit of sharing.
M. Clévenot
A. Godin