Tag Archives: political economy

The top 1%

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John Kay’s column in the FT on 6 January 2015 is headed: “Rise in US and UK inequality principally due to financialisation and executive pay.” He says: “The rise in inequality in some western countries is principally the result of two interrelated causes: the growth of the finance sector; and the explosion of the remuneration of senior executives. The people who ran big companies were always relatively well paid, but the meaning of “relatively well paid” is now altogether different.” (John’s new book, Other People’s Money, will be published by Profile later this year.)

This is from Ralph Milliband in [amazon_link id=”0850366887″ target=”_blank” ]The State in Capitalist Society[/amazon_link] (1973):

“The most important political fact about advanced capitalist societies…is the continued existence in them of private and ever more concentrated economic power. As a result of that power, the men –owners and controllers –in whose hands it lies enjoy a massive preponderance in society, in the political system, and in the determination of the state’s policy and actions.”

[amazon_image id=”0850366887″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The State in Capitalist Society[/amazon_image]

As Orazio Attanasio said at the recent CEPR/Bank of England conference on [amazon_link id=”B00I2WNYJW” target=”_blank” ]Thomas Piketty’s book[/amazon_link], there are two inequality problems, the bottom 10% and the top 1%. The latter are mainly the bankers and CEOs.

Inequality, economics and politics – Thomas Piketty at the Bank of England

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On Friday I attended an excellent conference at the Bank of England (organised by the Centre for Economic Policy Research) at which four speakers – Peter Lindert, Jaume Ventura, Orazio Attanasio and Tim Besley – gave presentations on aspects of [amazon_link id=”067443000X” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the 21st Century[/amazon_link], and Thomas Piketty responded to their comments and critiques. The presentations are due to go on the Bank’s website at some stage, although aren’t there yet.

[amazon_image id=”B00I2WNYJW” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Capital in the Twenty-First Century[/amazon_image]

Peter Lindert drew on material from his forthcoming book with Jeffrey Williamson (and also has a working paper on the Piketty book), to characterise the long-run trends in inequality as the result of ‘lucky’ historical accidents that wipe out concentrations of wealth, combined with policies that help the society stay equal. The period 1910 to the 1970s was the ‘great levelling’, due to wars, and there has subsequently been a fanning out in countries’ experience but in many cases a rise in top incomes. In this, he agrees with Piketty’s book; but disagrees with the famous ‘r>g means rising inequality’ prediction. Demography, technology and politics (mainly education and inheritance tax) – with a role for geography in the case of frontier societies – are his favoured explanations. South Korea, for example, has an inheritance tax of 50%: in principle the heirs of the ailing Lee Kun-Hee of Samsung will be due to pay £4bn in tax when he dies.

Jaume Ventura focussed on the dynamics of economic growth that might explain inequality trends: a u-shaped long-run evolution in the capital-income ratio; the changing components of wealth, with land playing a decreasing part; a not-quite-u-shaped evolution in capital-labour shares (the capital share has risen but is not back to its historic highs); and a stable return to capital of 4-5%. Like Prof Lindert, Prof Ventura does not think the model implied in [amazon_link id=”B00I2WNYJW” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the 21st Century[/amazon_link], and the r>g inequality, stacks up. He argued that the assumptions in the book imply a world of multiple equilibria and cycles or chaotic dynamics, and also that the growth model ignores all the lessons of endogenous growth. He said: “There has been a change in the deep structure of capital in the 21st century.” Bubble-like capital gains now play a large part.

The two final papers moved on from diagnosis to solutions. Orazio Attanasio described the recent research confirming the importance of people’s early years, before the age of 3 and certainly before 10, for their lifetime earnings. Parents’ status and income is important but works through the early effects on a child’s cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. Early experiences even have epigenetic effects. He concluded that the biggest policy problem is the bottom 10% in society, not the top 1%. But also – optimistically – that individuals’ life outcomes can be changed by appropriate early interventions.Prof Attanasio also discussed the optimal level of the top tax rate – recent estimates range from 42% to 86% as the rate that would maximise revenue – to which Thomas Piketty replied that top tax rates should be seen as pollution taxes, the aim being to stop behaviour imposing an externality rather than maximising revenue. However, as 25% of UK income tax comes from the richest 1% (54% from the richest 10%), it would be a bold government that ignored tax revenues.

Tim Besley gave a fascinating talk about the political economy of inequality, referring to his most recent book with Torsten Persson, [amazon_link id=”0691158150″ target=”_blank” ]Pillars of Prosperity[/amazon_link]. He asked, does inequality undermine effective governance? In democracies there is normally thought to be a compact where the rich trade some redistribution in return for security of their property rights. But people don’t mind some kinds of high incomes – footballers vs bankers. And there is no link (looking across countries) between either top (marginal) tax rates and inequality. Quoting Lenin’s [amazon_link id=”014018435X” target=”_blank” ]The State and Revolution[/amazon_link], Prof Besley said there is no empirical support for the frequent claim that the median voter is decisive in political choices: “Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society.” He went on to show evidence that inequality limits the demands for social action, which over time reduces the capacity of the state to act – its legal capacity, fiscal capacity, and capacity to deliver public goods. Finally, he said, there is also evidence that from time to time the values of citizens shift markedly – after the war, for instance, in the overwhelming support for the NHS and welfare state. I couldn’t agree more with his final comment that there are three kinds of economics – the positive, the normative, and political economy.

When I read [amazon_link id=”B00I2WNYJW” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the 21st Century[/amazon_link], I found it hard to work out the growth model implicit in the book, so was reassured that much cleverer economists than me found fault with them. However, as several of the speakers said, that doesn’t make it any less important a book. It has changed the public debate and climate of opinion about inequality, in large part through the long years of hard work giving us the first ever (open) data base of historical figures, the World Top Incomes Database. Jaume Ventura said his advanced macro students have to read it, along with Angus Maddison’s [amazon_link id=”9264022619″ target=”_blank” ]The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective.[/amazon_link] I was also most impressed by Prof Piketty’s openness to the critiques: “Every conclusion in the book is a temporary conclusion, and subject to discussion,” he said.

[amazon_image id=”9264022619″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Development Centre Studies The World Economy: Volume 1: A Millennial Perspective and Volume 2: Historical Statistics: v. 1 & 2 combined[/amazon_image]

Cybernetic dreams

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I read Eden Medina’s [amazon_link id=”0262525968″ target=”_blank” ]Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics[/amazon_link] in Allende’s Chile because I spotted the fuss on Twitter about Evgeny Morozov’s New Yorker piece, The Planning Machine: Project Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation. I’m not all that interested in the fuss but was very intrigued by what people were saying about the book.

It is indeed a completely fascinating history and reflection on the interaction between technology and politics, and I highly recommend it. The cover photograph gives a good flavour of the weirdness of this episode. It is the control room built in Santiago in late 1972 under the guidance of British cybernetician Stafford Beer. The control room, that is, for the economy, linking a network of telex machines in factories around the country to a mainframe computer in the capital.

[amazon_image id=”0262016494″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile[/amazon_image]

While not a fully planned economy, the Allende government had nationalised substantial sections of industry and, as time went on and the American-led sanctions began to bite, planned to control key prices. It also had to contend with a nationwide strike led by businesses opposed to the leftist government. The aim with Project Cybersyn, as the cybernetic plan was labelled, was to deliver to the central authorities ample real-time information on production while allowing individual factories the freedom to make their own decisions. Government policy could be adapted quickly in response to the trends identified. In other words, it was meant to avoid the pitfalls of central planning while enabling the co-ordination benefits. As Medina puts it: “Connecting the State Development Corporation to the factory floor would … allow the government to quickly address emergencies such as shortages of raw materials and adapt its policies quickly. Up-to-date production data would also allow Chile’s more experienced managers to … identify problems in factories and change production activities in the enterprise when necessary to meet national goals.”

Apart from the obvious practical difficulties (eg only one mainframe and very few programmers), one challenge was actually modelling the economy. It is unclear what kind of relationships were written in to the code, but they must have been something similar to those embodied in the simple linear model of the Phillips Machine. For all that it was a project about managing the economy, there was just one economist on the team, according to the book. However, Medina emphasises the intended flexibility of Project Cybersyn: “The model would not function as a predictive black box that gave definitive answers about future economic behaviour. Rather, it offered a medium in which economists, policy makers and model makers could experiment and, through this act of play, expand their intuition about [the economy].” The structure embodied the cybernetic emphasis on responding to the information contained in feedback. I must say I didn’t understand Beer’s cybernetic models at all, as the language and concepts are so different from anything I’m familiar with – but then cybernetics itself comes across as rather futuristic-retro.

Beer also hoped to have a method of getting real-time feedback from the people to the government by installing ‘algedonic meters’, or dials indicating their happiness or dissatisfaction, that would be installed in community centres or public places. This part of his plan was never taken up. However, he was keen on getting public engagement with the project and even persuaded Chile’s most famous folk singer Angel Parra to write a Project Cybersyn song.

One of the divisions within the project, well-described in the book, was between the technocrats who saw it as a tool for managing the economy more effectively, and those who saw it as a means of reverse engineering politics and society on the ground. The latter group hoped workers in the factories would develop their own sense of autonomy through inputting information into the telex, and understanding in this way the part they played in the whole. “[Beer] believed that engineering a technology also provided opportunities to engineer the social and organizational relationships that surrounded it.” The technocrats tended to dominate, though, largely because of the growing difficulty Allende’s government had in sustaining its coalition. Politics didn’t co-operate with the technology.

One of the interesting aspects of Project Cybersyn is that the technologies it used were not the most advanced. The US blockade largely prevented Chile from importing more computers or sophisticated equipment. Aside from the one mainframe and the telexes, the futuristic control room used slide projectors and hand drawn slides. The fibreglass control chairs, based on Italian designs, were one of the most cutting-edge aspects of the control room. And yet the project was the most ambitious cybernetics project ever (partially) implemented.

The project Cybersyn control room

It’s hard to decide whether the people behind Project Cybersyn were crazy dreamers or just 50 years ahead of their time – what would they have made of the possibilities of the web and ‘big data’? The basic cybernetic question the project poses remains valid: can policymakers do a better job with rapid real-time feedback on economic indicators – or is the economy as a dynamic, complex system simply beyond the kind of mapping implicit in any such project? Can what is measured about the economy reshape the economy or underlying social order in turn – and what does that imply for the indicators one might try to include in a Project Cybersyn 3.0?

Fascinating questions, and a fascinating book.

PS After finishing the book, I read the Morozov column. It is a precis of the story told in Medina’s book, with a handful of extra paragraphs woven in that give his own reflections on the issues raised – including, for example, exactly the obvious ‘what could we do in the era of the internet of things’ question. If the column had actually been billed as a review of [amazon_link id=”0262525968″ target=”_blank” ]Cybernetic Revolutionaries[/amazon_link], I don’t think there would have been any fuss. While not plagiarism, as the book is the only source mentioned, for Morozov to have given it just one passing mention in the ‘Critic at Large’ section seems ungenerous.

Who is nudging whom?

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Cass Sunstein has been visiting the UK and last week I attended a breakfast at which both he and the LSE’s Paul Dolan spoke. Prof Sunstein’s latest book (which I have read) is [amazon_link id=”1476726620″ target=”_blank” ]Why Nudge?[/amazon_link], and Prof Dolan’s (which I haven’t yet) is [amazon_link id=”0241003105″ target=”_blank” ]Happiness by Design[/amazon_link].

 [amazon_image id=”0300197861″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Why Nudge?: The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism (The Storrs Lectures)[/amazon_image]    [amazon_image id=”0241003105″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life[/amazon_image]

As ever, the evidence about the effectiveness of various nudges is impressive. Nor is there any answer to the point that some choice architecture is inevitable, the only issue is whether you want it to be the status quo or something that can achieve better outcomes. But neither speaker could answer the question I have about the legitimacy of nudging: who decides what is ‘better’? Is it the (largely) white, male, middle class experts who work in the policy world? What will the wider consequences be of adopting nudges that get ordinary people to pay more income tax and cheat less on benefits, without looking for nudges that get bankers to pay themselves lower bonuses or extract more corporate tax revenues from big companies?

Both speakers made some interesting points, though, about the research agenda. There are conflicting behavioural findings to be somehow reconciled, more needs to be understood about how context makes a difference to outcomes, and there is a straightforward need for much more evidence from RCTs.

Fascinating stuff. Surely the fact that we can’t not nudge in some way makes the legitimacy question all the more urgent.

Market failures and government failures

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It’s lecture preparation time of week again, and the general theme for next week is the state as a producer: nationalisation and privatisation, PFIs and PPPs, contracting out and industrial policy.

This is one of those areas where there is a vast amount written, but much of it furiously ideological, or else at the wrong focal length for undergraduate students – far too specific or detailed. However, courtesy of Alex Marsh, I have found [amazon_link id=”0801487625″ target=”_blank” ]You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatisation[/amazon_link] by Elliott Sclar.

[amazon_image id=”0801487625″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]You Don’t Always Get What You Pay for: The Economics of Privatization (Century Foundation Book)[/amazon_image]

This refers to privatisation in the US meaning of contracting out, rather than the UK sense of the sale of state assets. It starts by situating the debate in the context of the shifting tides of political beliefs over the 20th century, towards planning and the role of government as an agent of social change, and then back towards “free” markets and individual action. It then has a few chapters on the basics of markets versus administered or planned services and market failures, and also the basics of writing contracts and how hard or easy it is to specify the service and level of quality to be provided. This part has some very good and clear examples about how difficult it can be to get the incentives right in such contracts – indeed, how often there are perverse incentives due to contract structure.

The book goes on to market structures and competition, and organisational theory – the distinction between exchange in a market and a continuing relationship between individuals or organisations. The book ends with a plea for a less ideological debate about the issue, in favour of one more informed by economic and institutional analysis, by the realities of information asymmetries, moral hazard, principal-agent problems and the like. I wholly sympathise, for of course markets and governments fail in the same places for similar reasons – and this is why [amazon_link id=”0521405998″ target=”_blank” ]Elinor Ostrom[/amazon_link]’s study of the idiosyncrasies of non-market, non-state collective institutions is so interesting. But am not optimistic about shedding the ideology.

There’s no doubt what Prof Sclar’s views about contracting out are, so this is in that sense a partisan book. However, it is carefully reasoned and the economic issues are set out clearly. The writing is lively with loads of examples (albeit all American), and the book is extremely clear – perhaps it helps that Prof Sclar is an urban planner rather than in an economics department!

It’s too long, and perhaps a bit too demanding, for 2nd year undergraduates though. (One of the things I’m learning in delivering my course is that my idea of a reading list is far longer than others like the look of.) If anybody knows of anything alternative (short-ish) readings that shed more light than heat, I’d be glad to know, especially UK-centric ones.