Visualization and stock-flow norms

Hello,

I am writing an economics thesis and chose the stock-flow framework as my subject. I have past experience in system dynamics (SD) from a non-economics perspective and feel very at home with this approach. I am working my way through Monetary Economics and its models to grasp the concepts. It is interesting to think about the models in terms of SD. I have expressed a few of the simpler models in the book as SD models. SD gives very nice visualization and even interactivity, as you can experiment with constants. If anyone is interested I could upload a pic of how it looks.

I am interested in the principles and assumptions that is behind the SFC approach and guidelines for construction; like quadruple entries, stock/flow norms. What sets it apart from the general approach? Has anyone an overview or short description?

All the best,
Anders Vesterberg

Solving models over the internet

I have dropped the “social network” part of this website, including the Forum section, so I am replicating here a post meant to start a discussion…

I think it would be interesting and helpful to have some simple code for solving models over the internet, allowing visitors to a web site to change parameters, or size of a shock, and check the outcome of simulations.
A nice example, for a different class of models, has been developed here: http://p.seppecher.free.fr/jamel
Anyone interested in contributing?

Course on sfc models in Pavia

I have been invited to give a course on sfc models in Pavia (Dec.14-16), along with a seminar on the current financial crisis (my slides, in Italian, are here).
Here are the slides I used to introduce the course. The course developed a simple sfc-model from the very beginning:

Eviews models are available here. They include

  • model1: a simple sfc model with banks. Income distribution is fixed, investment growth is given. The hidden equation is deposits = loans
  • model2: same as model 1, but with more reasonable values for capital depreciation, so that all stocks have reasonable values
  • model3: first attempt to introduce a price for equities and portfolio choice between equities and deposits, but the accounting is wrong…
  • model4: as model 3, but the accounting (for the demand for loans) has been fixed
  • model5: as model 4, with a better specification for expected wealth
  • model6: investment growth now depends on capacitiy utilization and the cost of borrowing
  • model7: endogenous price level, accounting at constant and current prices

The next logical step would be to introduce a Phillips curve…

Forums, users…

I am still testing this website, and there may be changes in the next few weeks.
Discussions are supposed to take place in the Forum section, and the software I adopted organizes forums by groups, so you should be part of a group if you want to contribute.
New messages in a forum are not reported in the main section, so check the forums page if you are interested.

We are already having “spam users” registering, who will be deleted. If you find your account deleted, please contact me.
Any suggestions for improving the web site are more than welcome!

An introduction to empirical SFC modeling

For who is interested in empirical stock-flow-consistent models, I prepared some Eviews programs with comments, which can be downloaded from my teaching platform here.
Register, and request enrollment to the course “Intoduction to macroeconometric models”

The Fifth “Dijon” Post-Keynesian Conference

13-14th of May 2011 | Université de Bourgogne, Roskilde and Aalborg University

On the 75th year anniversary of The General Theory, this year’s conference themes are:

1. The (Macro) economic Consequences of:
• European Monetary System
• European banks and financial institutions
• European labor markets: unemployment, employment and income distribution
• European fiscal policies: Employment, income distribution and budget deficits
• European Environment and economic growth
2. The General Theory after 75 years:
• Keynes’ methodology
• Keynes’s macroeconomic theory as different from mainstream economics in all areas of relevance
3. Teaching Keynes’s macroeconomics:
• How to teach Keynes’s macroeconomics?
• What to do when textbooks are lacking?

Proposals for a full session and/or for individual papers within these topics are especially welcome.
They could either have a mainly political perspective related to the actual crises in Europe or they might focus on theoretical dimension, how to make a macroeconomic analysis in the spirit of the General Theory. Within the latter category we think that a special session commemorating the original contributions by the late Wynne Godley would be timely.
Submission should be send to professor Jesper Jespersen jesperj@ruc.dk not later than 1st February 2011.

The organizing committee consists of:
Jesper Jespersen, Roskilde Universitet
Mogens Ove Madsen, Aalborg Universitet
Louis-Philippe Rochon, Laurentian University
Claude Gnos, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon

For more information on the conference visit the official web site or download the call for papers.

Hello world!

This web project started from an idea of Marc Lavoie.

It is meant to be a collaborative project on building theoretical and empirical stock-flow-consistent models in economics, and it is open to the contribution of anyone who is interested.