Income Distribution, Credit and Fiscal Policies in an Agent-Based Keynesian Model

36 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2012

See all articles by Giovanni Dosi

Giovanni Dosi

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM)

Giorgio Fagiolo

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM)

Mauro Napoletano

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion (GREDEG); Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE); SKEMA Business School; Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM)

Andrea Roventini

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM); Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE)

Date Written: January 23, 2012

Abstract

This work studies the interactions between income distribution and monetary and fiscal policies in terms of ensuing dynamics of macro variables (GDP growth, unemployment, etc.) on the grounds of an agent-based Keynesian model. The direct ancestor of this work is the "Keynes meeting Schumpeter" formalism presented in Dosi et al. (201'7. To that model, we add a banking sector and a monetary authority setting interest rates and credit lending conditions. The model combines Keynesian mechanisms of demand generation, a "Schumpeterian" innovation-fueled process of growth and Minskian credit dynamics. The robustness of the model is checked against its capability to jointly account for a large set of empirical regularities both at the micro level and at the macro one. The model is able to catch salient features underlying the current as well as previous recessions, the impact of financial factors and the role in them of income distribution. We find that different income distribution regimes heavily affect macroeconomic performance: more unequal economies are exposed to more severe business cycles fluctuations, higher unemployment rates, and higher probability of crises. On the policy side, fiscal policies do not only dampen business cycles, reduce unemployment and the likelihood of experiencing a huge crisis. In some circumstances they also affect long-term growth. Further, the more income distribution is skewed toward profits, the greater the effects of fiscal policies. About monetary policy, we find a strong non-linearity in the way interest rates affect macroeconomic dynamics: in one "regime" with low rates, changes in interest rates are ineffective up to a threshold beyond which increasing the interest rate implies smaller output growth rates and larger output volatility, unemployment and likelihood of crises.

Keywords: agent-based Keynesian models, multiple equilibria, fiscal and monetary policies, income distribution, transmission mechanisms, credit constraints

JEL Classification: E32, E44, E51, E52, E62

Suggested Citation

Dosi, Giovanni and Fagiolo, Giorgio and Napoletano, Mauro and Roventini, Andrea, Income Distribution, Credit and Fiscal Policies in an Agent-Based Keynesian Model (January 23, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1990209 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1990209

Giovanni Dosi

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM) ( email )

Piazza Martiri della Liberta, 33
Pisa, I-56127
Italy

HOME PAGE: www.lem.sssup.it

Giorgio Fagiolo

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM) ( email )

Piazza Martiri della Liberta', 33-I-56127
Pisa
Italy

Mauro Napoletano

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion (GREDEG) ( email )

250, rue Albert Einstein
Valbonne, 06560
France

Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE) ( email )

60, rue Dostoïevski
Sophia-Antipolis Cedex, 06902
France

HOME PAGE: http://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr

SKEMA Business School ( email )

60 rue Dostoïevski
Sophia Antipolis, 06902
France

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM) ( email )

Piazza Martiri della Liberta, 33
Pisa, I-56127
Italy

Andrea Roventini (Contact Author)

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM) ( email )

Piazza Martiri della Liberta', 33-I-56127
Pisa
Italy

Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE)

69 Quai d'Orsay
Paris 75004
France

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