Autor: Bruce, Anderson and McShane, Philip

Buch: Beyond Establishment Economics

Titel: Beyond Establishment Economics

Stichwort: Lonergan, Mankiw: unterschiedliche Fragestellung als Ausgang der Analysen

Kurzinhalt: By contrast, for Mankiw the primary problem is How can we ensure that GDP grows over the long-run?

Textausschnitt: 6.2.1 First We Understand versus First We Act

118a The overarching concerns and problems that shape the inquiries of Lonergan & Mankiw are different. For Lonergan the important question is How does an economy work? The short answer is that the monetary circulation in an economy must keep pace with the dynamic rhythms of production. He believes that it is only after understanding how an economy ought to work, and in fact is working, that can we go on to take suitable actions in particular situations. (Fs)

On this model, circulation analysis raises a large superstructure of terms and theorems upon a summary classification and a few brief analyses of typical phenomena. Classes of payment quickly become rates of payment standing in the mutual conditioning of a circulation. To this mutual and, so to speak, internal conditioning there is immediately added a distinction between different types of circulation and their mutual conditioning through transfers from each to the other. This two-fold conditioning in the monetary order is correlated with the conditioning constituted by productive rhythms of goods and services, so that positive, zero, and negative changes in rates of payment are concomitant with various dynamic configurations in the productive process. There results a closely knit frame of reference that can envisage any total movement of an economy as a function of a sequence of changes in rates of payment, and that define the conditions of desirable movements as well as exhibit the causes of breakdowns. Finally, through such a frame of reference one can formulate the mechanism to which such a classical precept as thrift and enterprise is only partially adapted; and through it again one can formulate the fuller adaptation that has to be attained.1 (Fs)

119a By contrast, for Mankiw the primary problem is How can we ensure that GDP grows over the long-run? The answer is to increase productivity. For him the secondary problem is How can we avoid recessions in the short-run? He gives two answers: either we leave the economy alone or we stabilize or smooth out economic activities by manipulating aggregate demand or aggregate supply. (Fs) (notabene)

119b I want to stress that the fundamental differences in the analyses of Lonergan & Mankiw are related to the way they frame their key questions. Lonergan, first & foremost, is concerned with correctly understanding & explaining how an economy works. It is only after understanding how an economy actually works that we can begin to tackle the challenge of how to run it properly. By contrast, the search for understanding does not dominate Mankiw's frame of reference. His starting point is the GDP and his overriding concern is How do we make it grow? (Fs)

119d In order to avoid any confusion it is worth stating that of course Lonergan wants people everywhere to enjoy a better standard of living and that it helps if we avoid recessions & depressions. In fact, his explanation of how an economy actually works grounds an analysis of why things go wrong and what we should do to avoid them. Recessions & depressions are part of that discussion. The point I am trying to communicate is that Lonergan's concerns and the scope of his inquiry are far more comprehensive than those of Mankiw. Lonergan's stance is that in order to run an economy properly you have to know how it is working, and how it ought to work. The limitation of Mankiw's position is evident in his final chapter where his perspective is unable to shed any light on which side to take in the five policy debates. (Fs)