The author surveys shifts in macro-economic policy and thought from Keynes and Kalecki to the present, tracking the changing climate of economic opinion. As Kalecki foresaw, the success of Keynesian demand management was undermined when, in an era of full employment, the power of labour threatened industrialists’ authority over the economy. From the 1970s, this led governments to introduce pro-capitalist measures. Countering recessions with budget deficits was now seen as irresponsible. The rise of globalisation meant that domestic demand management became less effective, especially in economies highly dependent on imports. Opening up economies meant that their exchange rates and stock markets became more vulnerable to capital flights. As the reach of finance became increasingly global, those private credit rating agencies became the game changers. Today private credit agencies, through their rating of the investment climate and sovereign risk of a country, in effect rate the quality of its government. Capitalist democracies are now dominated by private finance. Management of the investment climate is increasingly done through the virtual rather than the real economy, creating artificial financial asset and housing market bubbles. At the same time, in the neglected real economy, inequality and unemployment have increased, and living standards are falling.

Incorporation of the informal sector in the general Kaleckian framework of agriculture–industry linkage is the primary target of this article. We show that the agriculture–informal sector interaction is distinctly different from the agriculture–formal sector relationship. Although agriculture supports the formal sector only from the supply-side, it helps the informal sector by providing both demand- and supply-side inducements. Next, contrary to the general perception of formal–informal complementarities, we rather propose a fundamental conflict. This conflict arises in the presence of the food supply-constraint or the generic resource-constraint. Subsequently, with these theoretical perspectives, we show that policies that are beneficial for the formal sector, in fact, constrict the informal economy.

Green New Deals are being widely discussed as both a means to confront climate change and to improve aspects of social well-being. An important facet of the discussion is how they should be financed. The negative impacts of Covid-19 on national budgets and sovereign debt question whether the implementation of Green New Deals is feasible if austerity needs to be introduced to achieve sustainability. This article assesses whether a wealth tax based upon the work of Michal Kalecki could help avoid austerity measures and facilitate the introduction of Green New Deals. While wealth taxes have traditionally been defined on net worth or assets to reduce wealth inequality, the formulation is meant to be equitable by applying to gross wealth or assets. Estimates are calculated for the United States and turn out to be quite modest. The approach not only generates revenue to cover expected net interest outlays on national debt, but additional revenue to pay down portions of it and/or support green initiatives, such as Biden’s de-carbonisation policy. The article concludes with a discussion of challenges for the tax’s effectiveness.

This essay is a review of and tribute to the life and contributions of Nina Shapiro, who passed away this year. Shapiro was an American Post-Keynesian economist, who was a bridge figure in radical economics, connecting Marx to Keynes, Schumpeter to Kaldor, the behavior of the firm to the dynamics of the macroeconomy, and the process of innovation to the organization of production and accumulation. She was seminal to important moments in the history of radical economics in the US, including the formation of the Hegel-inspired journal Social Concept in the 1980s and the Rutgers University’s Post-Keynesian circle in the 1980s and 1990s. Shapiro’s deeply philosophical and dialectical approach to firm behavior, innovation, and business cycles led her to theorize the “revolutionary character” of Post-Keynesian economics and to formulate a critique of the competitive neoclassical firm which, she argued, is at odds with the logic of capitalism in which firms seek to make profit and grow.

Australia’s carbon pricing scheme protects the profits of polluters and, as a consequence, has a negligible impact on the carbon emissions emanating from Australian industries. I concentrate on the assistance given to emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries and use a post Keynesian approach to explain that, despite the rhetoric, industries and firms will not move offshore under a carbon price and industry assistance is unnecessary. When assistance is given, profits are protected and could increase in certain industries, which occurred in the comparable European emissions trading scheme. In orthodox economic theory, despite this negligible impact on profits, any method of pricing carbon causes a reduction in emissions because firms seek to adjust technology and factor inputs at the margin and abate until marginal abatement costs equal the carbon price. However, from a post Keynesian perspective, the government’s prediction of a transformed economy and clean energy future will not occur unless the carbon pricing policy reduces the corporate profits of emitting firms. Thus, complementary policies are required to take the burden of reducing emissions off the more symbolic carbon market established. I further argue that a carbon tax without any industry assistance is a preferred approach and that where plant shutdown does occur, carbon emissions around the world will fall and workers could be compensated at a far smaller cost than the adjustment assistance given to industries in the policy’s current form.