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Begin New Search Political Geography Global Focus Author Jan Toporowski

1. Corporate Liquidity and Financial Fragility: The Role of Investment, Debt and Interest

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The paper addresses the issue of how debt deflation may arise in a capitalist economy with a sophisticated credit system. It argues that the standard argument of debt deflationists, that debt-financed investment causes a build-up of unsustainable investment, fails to recognise that debt is back by credit. A corollary of this is that the rate of interest is not a factor in investment decisions. Financial fragility is caused by heterogeneity of balance sheets, debt financed operations in financial markets and insufficient debt-financed investment, rather than too much such investment.
Topic:
Debt, Markets, Investment, and Credit
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Lange and Keynes

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
Lange engaged with Keynes in the matter of Keynes‟s macroeconomics, and over econometrics. Lange‟s interpretation of the Keynesian macroeconomic model laid the foundation for the neo-classical synthesis. But it was limited in its monetary economics. Lange also intervened in the Keynes-Tinbergen dispute over the scope and significance of econometrics. Lange collaborated in a paper that conceded Keynes‟s main point that empirical investigation could not determine theory, but insisted that theories could nevertheless be tested empirically. The paper was never publish and Keynes, unconvinced, planned to recruit Kalecki to his critique of econometrics.
Topic:
Socialism/Marxism, Economic Theory, Macroeconomics, and Keynes
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Neologism as Theoretical Innovation in Economics: The case of 'Financialisation

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The term „financialisation‟ is a recognition that finance has come to play a key role on the modern capitalist economy. But users of the term do not agree on its meaning and recognition of the growing scale of finance has not brought about an increased understanding of financial processes. The paper examines the reasons for increased turnover in financial markets. The main themes in the literature on financialisation are examined and shown to lack a coherent account of financial processes that goes beyond the evidence of financial activity.
Topic:
Debt, Finance, Credit, and Financialisation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. The Monetary Theory of Kalecki and Minsky

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The monetary theory of Kalecki and Minsky is usually placed within the Post-Keynesian tradition, deriving from the monetary analysis of John Maynard Keynes. The paper argues that Kalecki and Minsky shared a common inheritance in Swedish and German monetary theory, rather than the Marshallian tradition. Thus the monetary analysis of Kalecki and Minsky emphasises the endogeneity of money through capitalist reproduction, rather than through the mechanisms connecting central bank money to credit creation in the banking system. This provides the link between the monetary theory of Kalecki and Minsky and modern circuit theory.
Topic:
Monetary Policy, Banks, Economic Theory, and Keynes
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. A Theory of Capital Rationing

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper revisits some of the issues originally put forward by the author as the theory of capital market inflation, in the book The End of Finance (Toporowski 2000). The paper makes much clearer the key assumptions and relationships between the operations of the capital market dominated by institutional investors, and the balance sheets of companies. In this way, it presents a theory of how macroeconomic dynamics may be affected by disequilibrium in the capital market. The first part of the paper examines the demand for new equity issues by institutional investors, namely insurance companies and pension funds. In the second part of the paper it is argued that the tendency of pension funds to mature may be a factor in forcing companies into debt and thus discouraging their investment and restricting their cash flow. The tendency towards forced indebtedness may be reinforced by an inelastic demand for capital by banks. The third part of the paper argues that the inelastic supply of capital in the capital market gives rise to processes of capital market inflation or deflation. The first of these may make banks more fragile. The second may contribute to deflationary processes in the macroeconomy. A fourth section argues that further instability is added by international capital market integration.
Topic:
Debt, Markets, Banks, and Investment
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Niebyl, Money and Development

Author:
Daniela Tavasci, Jan Toporowski, and Radha Upadhyaya
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper examines Karl Niebyl’s critique of monetary theory against the typology of equilibrium, reflective and critical theories of money. It argues that despite fundamental criticisms of monetary theory, his analysis of money in capitalist development is essentially a reflective one. The paper goes on to show how the development of the capitalist firm in the twentieth century may give a more critical, disequilibrium, role to money and finance. The introduction presents a categorisation of theories of money. The second section shows the reflective nature of Niebyl’s theory of money comparing it to more recent disequilibrium or critical theories. As Niebyl’s work focuses to the changing function of money with the emergence of industrial capitalism, the next section deals with possible lessons for understanding money in a context of capitalist development. The fourth section reflects on Niebyl’s considerations on methodology.
Topic:
Development, Monetary Policy, Capitalism, and Industrialization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. The Economics and Culture of Financialisation

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper examines some of the social, economic and political consequences of financial inflation for the activities of companies and the operations in debt markets of an increasingly financial middle class. In this paper ‘financialisation’ is broadly defined as the inflation of capital markets. The first section of the paper explains the Kalecki-Steindl theory of enforced company indebtedness in a middle-class society. The second section of the paper shows how financial inflation makes companies over- capitalised, resulting in a decline in the trend of long-term investment. The third section shows how forced company indebtedness is modified when the middle classes start to operate in inflating asset markets. A conclusion sketches out some of the consequences of this financialisation for politics, social policy, and moral and cultural attitudes.
Topic:
Culture, Finance, Social Policy, and Middle Class
Political Geography:
Global Focus