Hiroshi Yoshikawa - Böcker

This book proposes a new approach to macroeconomics which draws upon the experience of the Japanese economy. the approach is similar to the Old Keynesian view: it rejects the Walrasian approach, and singles out real demand as the fundamental determinant of output in the economy as a whole. However, by maintaining that real demand constrains are important not only in the short-run, but in the long-run, it goes beyond what is normally understood as the Keynesian approach. This book is also very different from the New Keynesian Economics. In particular, it regards the rigidity of nominal wages/prices as of secondary importance. _ To show that a new approach is called for, Professor Yoshikawa provides both theoretical exercises and numerous empirical analyses of the Japanese economy. His arguments are extensivley illustrated by almost 200 figures and tables of data.

In this book, the authors treat macroeconomic models as composed of large numbers of micro-units or agents of several types and explicitly discuss stochastic dynamic and combinatorial aspects of interactions among them. In mainstream macroeconomics sound microfoundations for macroeconomics have meant incorporating sophisticated intertemporal optimization by representative agents into models. Optimal growth theory, once meant to be normative, is now taught as a descriptive theory in mainstream macroeconomic courses. In neoclassical equilibria flexible prices led the economy to the state of full employment and marginal productivities are all equated. Professors Aoki and Yoshikawa contrariwise show that such equilibria are not possible in economies with a large number of agents of heterogeneous types. They employ a set of statistical dynamical tools via continuous-time Markov chains and statistical distributions of fractions of agents by types available in the new literature of combinatorial stochastic processes, to reconstruct macroeconomic models.

The concepts of statistical physics and big data play an important role in the evidence-based analysis and interpretation of macroeconomic principles. The techniques of complex networks, big data, and statistical physics are useful to understand theories of economic systems, and the authors have applied these to understand the intricacies of complex macroeconomic problems. Recent research work using tools and techniques of big data, statistical physics, complex networks, and statistical science is covered, and basic graph algorithms and statistical measures of complex networks are described. The application of big data and statistical physics tools to assess price dynamics, inflation, systemic risks, and productivity is discussed. Chapter-end summary and numerical problems are provided to reinforce understanding of concepts.

In this book, the authors treat macroeconomic models as composed of large numbers of micro-units or agents of several types and explicitly discuss stochastic dynamic and combinatorial aspects of interactions among them. In mainstream macroeconomics sound microfoundations for macroeconomics have meant incorporating sophisticated intertemporal optimization by representative agents into models. Optimal growth theory, once meant to be normative, is now taught as a descriptive theory in mainstream macroeconomic courses. In neoclassical equilibria flexible prices led the economy to the state of full employment and marginal productivities are all equated. Professors Aoki and Yoshikawa contrariwise show that such equilibria are not possible in economies with a large number of agents of heterogeneous types. They employ a set of statistical dynamical tools via continuous-time Markov chains and statistical distributions of fractions of agents by types available in the new literature of combinatorial stochastic processes, to reconstruct macroeconomic models.

This book systematically provides a prospective integrated approach for complexity social science in its view of statistical physics and mathematics, with an impressive collection of the knowledge and expertise of leading researchers from all over the world.

This book systematically provides a prospective integrated approach for complexity social science in its view of statistical physics and mathematics, with an impressive collection of the knowledge and expertise of leading researchers from all over the world.

This book explains how standard micro-founded macroeconomics is misguided and proposes an alternative method based on statistical physics. The Great Recession following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2015 amply demonstrated that mainstream micro-founded macroeconomics was in trouble. The new approach advanced in this book reasonably explains important macro-problems such as employment, business cycles, growth, and inflation/deflation. The key concept is demand failures, which modern micro-founded macroeconomics has ignored.“It (Chapter 3) captures analytically a good part of the intuition that underlies the Keynesian economics of people like Tobin and me.”Robert Solow, Emeritus Institute Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1987“Professor Hiroshi Yoshikawa provides a unique synthesis of statistical physics and macro-economic theory in order to confront the dismal failure in economics and in finance to understand how an economy or a financial market works, given the heterogeneous decision making of many different individual interacting actors. Economics has failed in this regard with the naive and often misleading concept of “representative agents.” The author presents many insights on the historical development, concepts, and errors made by the most illustrious economists in the past. This book should be essential readings for any economics students as well as academic researchers and policy makers, who should learn to bring back good-sense thinking in their impactful decisions.”Didier Sornette, Professor on the Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich)