Michael Beenstock – författare

In the 'New Normal' central banks set their interest rate to zero and print money through massive quantitative easing, while finance ministries run huge fiscal deficits. Yet inflation remains minimal. Zero Interest Policy and the New Abnormal explains why. It also explains why the New Normal is really the New Abnormal, and why it can't last. This study traces the academic roots of the New Abnormal to a conceptual confusion about the 'natural rates of interest', and postmodernism in macroeconomics, exemplified by the DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) movement.It develops a theory of 'existential risk' which is concerned with the collapse of political economies such the Bretton Woods system and the New Abnormal. The book demonstrates that existential risk expresses itself in the growing gap between the natural rate of interest, measured by the rate of return on capital, and the real rate of interest, as well as in the development of cryptocurrencies. Beenstock develops a theory of 'kinetic inflation' based on Keynes' liquidity trap, which accounts for the absence of inflation in the New Abnormal, and predicts its outbreak when zero interest policy ends. He also explores the adverse social consequences of the New Abnormal for fertility, pensions, house prices, economic inequality, and intergenerational equity and establishes a causal link from the New Abnormal to Covid-19 mitigation policy, and from the latter to the intensification of the New Abnormal.Finally, it assesses the prospects for ending the New Abnormal, and an orderly return to the Old Normal. The alternative is to crash-out of the New Abnormal chaotically.

First published in 1987. The reform of the welfare state in the United Kingdom is high on the agenda of all political parties and the proposals for reform, both official and private, are numerous. In this book, Professor Beenstock and his colleagues took a comprehensive account of the social security of the 1980s, as well as the tax system, as it had evolved over the Beveridge era and how it affected our incentive to work. The book describes the theory of labour supply decisions in their relationship to the tax benefit system. It illustrates how tax and social security arrangements affected labour supply decisions as well as monitoring how these decisions had evolved over the post-war period. It also considers retirement decisions in the UK as well as the government’s plans to reform the social security system.

First published in 1987. The reform of the welfare state in the United Kingdom is high on the agenda of all political parties and the proposals for reform, both official and private, are numerous. In this book, Professor Beenstock and his colleagues took a comprehensive account of the social security of the 1980s, as well as the tax system, as it had evolved over the Beveridge era and how it affected our incentive to work. The book describes the theory of labour supply decisions in their relationship to the tax benefit system. It illustrates how tax and social security arrangements affected labour supply decisions as well as monitoring how these decisions had evolved over the post-war period. It also considers retirement decisions in the UK as well as the government’s plans to reform the social security system.

First published in 1986, Insurance for Unemployment proposes a radical approach to the reform of unemployment and social insurance. The book develops the ethical, economic and actuarial case for the proposed reforms, whereby the individual pays the contributions which reflect the unemployment risk that he wishes to insure. Such ideas provide a libertarian alternative to the social security systems that have been adopted by most countries in the world based on Beveridge’s conception of social insurance, and the book provides an original basis for privatising unemployment insurance. Conventional acceptance of the welfare state is challenged, while the book stands as a landmark in relating market principles to issues of social policy.

First published in 1984, Michael Beenstock develops in The World Economy in Transition an original, stimulating and accessible analysis of the world economy in its many aspects, and this second edition includes a chapter on the International Banking Crisis in line with the author’s Transition Theory. The book embraces numerous strands of economic debate as the author provides a powerful and original thesis which focuses on the changing economic relationship between developed and developing nations as well as between manufacturing and primary producing sectors. The analysis also extends to international trade, commodity markets, international finance, energy and economic history. The book discusses, in addition to Transition Theory, other global approaches to the subject, including technology diffusion, long waves, commodity price effects and the oil price hikes, and the insights of Transition Theory are also applied to the historical experience of the British economy, concluding with an evaluation of policy implications.

First published in 1986, Insurance for Unemployment proposes a radical approach to the reform of unemployment and social insurance. The book develops the ethical, economic and actuarial case for the proposed reforms, whereby the individual pays the contributions which reflect the unemployment risk that he wishes to insure. Such ideas provide a libertarian alternative to the social security systems that have been adopted by most countries in the world based on Beveridge’s conception of social insurance, and the book provides an original basis for privatising unemployment insurance. Conventional acceptance of the welfare state is challenged, while the book stands as a landmark in relating market principles to issues of social policy.

First published in 1984, Michael Beenstock develops in The World Economy in Transition an original, stimulating and accessible analysis of the world economy in its many aspects, and this second edition includes a chapter on the International Banking Crisis in line with the author’s Transition Theory. The book embraces numerous strands of economic debate as the author provides a powerful and original thesis which focuses on the changing economic relationship between developed and developing nations as well as between manufacturing and primary producing sectors. The analysis also extends to international trade, commodity markets, international finance, energy and economic history. The book discusses, in addition to Transition Theory, other global approaches to the subject, including technology diffusion, long waves, commodity price effects and the oil price hikes, and the insights of Transition Theory are also applied to the historical experience of the British economy, concluding with an evaluation of policy implications.

This monograph deals with spatially dependent nonstationary time series in a way accessible to both time series econometricians wanting to understand spatial econometics, and spatial econometricians lacking a grounding in time series analysis. After charting key concepts in both time series and spatial econometrics, the book discusses how the spatial connectivity matrix can be estimated using spatial panel data instead of assuming it to be exogenously fixed. This is followed by a discussion of spatial nonstationarity in spatial cross-section data, and a full exposition of non-stationarity in both single and multi-equation contexts, including the estimation and simulation of spatial vector autoregression (VAR) models and spatial error correction (ECM)  models. The book reviews the literature on panel unit root tests and panel cointegration tests for spatially independent data, and for data that are strongly spatially dependent. It provides for the first time critical valuesfor panel unit root tests and panel cointegration tests when the spatial panel data are weakly or spatially dependent. The volume concludes with a discussion of incorporating strong and weak spatial dependence in non-stationary panel data models. All discussions are accompanied by empirical  testing based on a spatial panel data of house prices in Israel.

It is generally agreed that the operation of the labour market lies at the heart of macroeconomic activity. Following Keynes' attack on the postulates of the classics in The General Theory a number of labour market paradigms have been proposed including the Phillips curve, new classical and union bargaining models. These paradigms usually form the centrepiece of any good text on macroeconomic theory. Our purpose in this volume is not to restate these paradigms but to explore the extent to which they might be empirically modelled. To this end the volume includes a set of econometric models of the UK labour market where each contribution relates very closely to one of the principal paradigms. The purpose of this collection is threefold. First and foremost we wanted to present an integrated set of case studies in applied econometrics with reference to labour market modelling. In doing so we hope the volume will appeal to third year undergraduates and postgraduate students studying applied econometrics and labour economics. Secondly, the contributions have been carefully selected to illustrate the main paradigms since each contribution is intellectually self­ contained. It is arguable that this may be disadvantageous as far as the truth is concerned if eclecticism is preferable. On the other hand it has pedagogic advantages in drawing sharp distinctions between the various approaches.