PEGFA Past Events | 2023

5th December: PEGFA Research Seminar with Rafael Wildauer & Navjot Sangwan

1pm - 2:30pm, QA010, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich

The final PEGFA Research Seminar of 2023 featured PEGFA experts Dr Rafael Wildauer ,  Dr Alexander Guschanski and Dr Navjot Sangwan.

Dr Wildauer and Dr Guschanski discussed "Wealth taxes as green transition tools: How effective are they?"

Dr Navjot Sangwan presented "Rental Discrimination in London: A Correspondence Study of Online Apartment Listings".

The seminar series was held in-person, with an option for online attendance via Teams available.

23rd November: PEGFA Research Seminar with Rob Jump & Vicky Lee

5.00 - 6.30pm, QA010, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich

The fourth seminar of the PEGFA Research Seminar Series 2023 / 2024 featured PEGFA experts Dr Rob Jump and Dr Vicky Lee.

Dr Jump's presentation focused on "Revisiting the role of profits in the collapse of Britain’s post-war consensus"

Please see the abstract here:

It is widely assumed that British companies suffered a collapse in profits in the late 1960s. This proposition was first advanced by Andrew Glyn and Bob Sutcliffe in 1971, and influenced various interpretations of post-war British history from the 1970s onwards. Most importantly, it supported the widespread view that organised labour used its bargaining power to erode the long-term viability of British capitalism in the 1960s, which continued into the 1970s and contributed to the breakdown of the post- war consensus. In this paper I argue that, although profitability did decline over the broad sweep of the post-war consensus, this process had stopped by 1966. Interestingly, this falsification of Glyn and Sutcliffe’s hypothesis does not rely on any inadequacy in their empirical work. Instead, it relies on data revisions that were only incorporated into the British national accounts from 1976 onwards. As stagflation and industrial unrest only became serious problems after 1966, I argue that declining profitability played very little role in the collapse of Britain’s post-war consensus.

The working paper can be found here.

Dr Lee discussed "The fire sale enigma: revealing long-term benefits of divestiture amid financial turmoil"

Please see the abstract here:

This study examines the impact of divestiture on financially distressed firms during the 2008 global financial crisis, with a focus on its role in promoting long-term performance recovery. In contrast to the prevailing fire sale theory, which posits that divestiture in periods of economic crisis leads to value destruction, our results reveal a positive association between divesting firms and their long-term performance recovery. Over a 3-year post-divestiture period, firms significantly improve their long-term operating performance compared to non-divesting benchmarks, by easing financial constraints and maintaining pre-crisis investment levels. Moreover, firms with divestiture outperform those using other restructuring strategies that prioritize short-term cash flow enhancements and cost-cutting measures. Our findings provide valuable insights into the long-term implications of corporate divestiture during economic downturns.

The working paper can be found here.

7th November: PEGFA Research Seminar with Cem Oyvat & Faith Adobamen

1:00pm - 2:30pm, QA020, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich

The third seminar of the PEGFA Research Seminar Series 2023 / 2024 featured PEGFA experts Dr Cem Oyvat and Dr Faith Adobamen.

Dr Cem Oyvat presented "Minimum wage, aggregate demand and employment: a demand-led model".

Please see the abstract here:

This paper aims to examine the impact of minimum wages on aggregate demand and employment using a demand-led post-Kaleckian growth model. Benefitting from previous empirical work on wage- and profit-led growth and minimum wages, the model considers the impact of minimum wages on consumption, investment, and net exports through its effects on informality, prices, labour productivity, and distribution between workers and capitalists.The paper shows that higher minimum wages could lead to higher aggregate demand in the short run through higher consumption and investments in labour-saving technologies, which could reduce the possible negative effects of minimum wages on employment or create additional employment. If higher minimum wages have a strong impact on informality, then the impact of minimum wages on consumption and net exports is less positive and less negative, respectively. Higher minimum wages are also likely to increase labour productivity in both the short and medium run, which would have further effects on aggregate demand, employment, and prices. Finally, higher minimum wages are likely to affect aggregate demand and employment in small open economies more negatively or less positively.

The working paper can be found here.

Dr Faith Adobamen presented "The spatial dimensions of knowledge spillovers on regional productivity".

Please see the abstract here:

The impact of regional R&D on productivity, as well as the comparative productivity effects of R&D from the business, government and higher education sectors remains understudied. I investigate the indirect effects of business, government, and higher education R&D on regional productivity using a panel dataset of 35 UK NUTS-2 regions from 2005 to 2016. This study examines the spatial dimension of R&D spillovers in the UK. The objective of this research evaluates whether regional productivity is correlated between regions and how R&D spillovers affects regional productivity indirectly.
Studies on spatial economics indicates that there exists a positive effect of spatial R&D spillovers and the importance of geographical proximity within the region maters. However, these studies are focused on patent data (e.g., as demonstrated by Paola Cardamone, 2017; Audretsch, 2003). This research explores the spatial dimension of R&D spillovers. The Moran test is applied to examine whether spatial autocorrelations exist. There is evidence of spatial autocorrelations arising from productivity, capital, employment, and all R&D types except government R&D. There is however no evidence of spatial autocorrelations from the residuals. Spatial autoregression and Spatial Durbin regressions are estimated using a quasi-maximum likelihood estimator. The results show evidence of spatial effects from productivity, Total R&D and R&D from the Business sector. The results indicate that proximity matters for R&D spillovers to occur. In other words, regional productivity in one region is positively correlated with productivity and (particularly business sector) R&D from neighbouring regions.

26th October: PEGFA Research Seminar with Mehmet Ugur & Adeyemi Aderin

5:00pm - 6:30pm, QA044, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich

The second seminar of the PEGFA Research Seminar Series 2023 / 2024 featured PEGFA experts  Prof. Mehmet Ugur and Dr Adeyemi Aderin.

Prof. Mehmet Ugur presented "Effects of innovation and markups on wage share and employment: Evidence on direct and mediating effects in OECD industries"

Please find the abstract here:

This paper aims to address two issues that have been overlooked in empirical investigations of how technological innovation or market power affects wage share and employment: (i) the need to control for both innovation and market power at the same time; and (ii) the extent to which both determinants attenuate or exacerbate the effects of each other. We address both issues by drawing on first-order conditions from a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function and EU-KLEMS data on 32 industries in 12 OECD countries observed from 1995-2019. We report the following findings: (i) the effects of market power on wage share and employment are always negative and large, irrespective of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour; (ii) the effects of technological innovation are conditional on the magnitude of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour, and tend to be positive but small; and (iii) the adverse effects of market power are exacerbated by innovation, whereas the small but positive effects of innovation are attenuated and eventually reversed as innovation increases. Hence, we conclude that the main driver of the decline in wage share and/or employment is not technological innovation as such but the level of rents that innovating firms are able to extract. Our findings support calls for stronger labour-market institutions and competition policies that would reduce the wage and price wedges that firms can exploit under market power.

Dr Adeyemi Aderin presented "Modelling financial distress in the Nigerian banking sector"

Please find the abstract here:

The study explores the possibility of developing an adequate model for the prediction of financial distress in the Nigerian banking sector. The study utilises an inductive philosophical approach embed with an exploratory research strategy. The sample set is limited due to population constraints and consists of fourteen (14) banks segmented into two equal groups of seven (7) healthy and seven (7) distressed banks for five years (2004-2008). The analysis involves the use of the multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) in developing a concise model for the accurate prediction of financial distress among Nigerian listed banks. The study achieves its goal of model estimation by developing a concise model that can adequately predict financial distress among Nigerian banks. The model was able to accurately predict 91.4% of distress cases and also has high predictive ability for long range distress forecasts extending beyond five years. It is recommended that the relevant regulatory authorities should experiment this new model in testing the health status of banks at the end of every financial year in order to ascertain their true state of affairs. This will assist the relevant authorities in taking proactive measures to guide against any form of inherent anomalies which could snowball into disastrous outcomes.

The working paper can be found here.

11th October: PEGFA Research Seminar with Alberto Botta & Adotey Bing-Pappoe

1.00pm - 2.30pm, QA075, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich

Our first seminar of the PEGFA Research Seminar Series 2023 / 2024 featured PEGFA experts Dr Alberto Botta and Dr Adotey Bing-Pappoe.

Dr Alberto Botta presented "Same old song: On the macroeconomic and distributional effects of leaving a Low Interest Rate Environment".

Please find the abstract here:

This paper analyses the macroeconomic and distributional implications of central banks’ decisions to raise interest rates after a prolonged period at near the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB). The main goal of our study is to assess the interaction between monetary policy, inequality, and financial fragility, in a financialized economic system. Financialization is here portrayed as the presence in the economy of complex financial products, i.e., asset-backed securities, produced via the securitization of banks’ loans. We do so in the context of a hybrid Agent-Based Model (ABM). We first compare the prevailing macroeconomic and financial features of a low interest rate environment (LIRE) with respect to a “Great Moderation”(GM)-like setting. As expected, we show that LIRE tends to stimulate faster growth and higher employment, and to reduce income and wealth inequality, as well as (poor) households’ indebtedness. Consistent with existing empirical literature, this comes at the cost of higher inflation and some signs of financial system’s fragility, i.e., lower banks’ profitability and Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), and higher “search for risk” given by credit extension to poorer households. We then show that increases in the central bank’s policy rate, as motivated by the central bank’s willingness to reduce inflation, effectively curb price dynamics and accomplish with central bank’s inflation targeting mandate. Higher interest rates also improve commercial banks’ CAR and profitability. However, they also cause a pronounced increase in non-performing loans (stronger than what possibly observed in a GM scenario) and some worrisome macro-financial dynamics. In fact, higher interest rates give rise to higher households’ and overall economy indebtedness as allowed by wealthier households’ demand for high-yield complex financial products and mounting securitization. We finally show how financialization structurally changes the functioning of the economy and the behaviour of central banks. Financialization actually contributes to create a (private sector) debt-led economy, which becomes structurally more resistant to central bank’s attempts to control inflation. Central bank’s reaction in terms of higher interest rates could likely come with perverse distributional consequences.

Please find the working paper here.

Dr Adotey Bing-Pappoe presented "Promoting Cooperatives in Africa -  Researching the Enabling and Inhibiting factors Impacting cooperative development in Africa".

This presentation describes the initial stages of a research project to understand the enabling and inhibiting factors impacting cooperative development in Africa while promoting cooperative formation. The discussion covers the first steps and challenges encountered in setting up the project, the process of designing the research approach for the studies to be undertaken, the steps taken to identify and adopt a financing mechanism to support cooperatives, and finally we present an overview of the cooperative development landscape in Africa at the present moment.

7th September: Austerity and Deprivation: A Day of Discussion

9:30am - 5pm, Stockwell Street Building 11_0004, Greenwich Campus

Deprivation and poverty are a blight on society, which the cost-of-living crisis and return to austerity will only exacerbate. In this one-day conference, Danny Dorling (University of Oxford), Harry Konstantinidis (UMass Boston), Victoria Stadheim (University of Winchester) and others, will discuss the intersection between austerity and deprivation in the UK and across Europe. The day's discussion will start at 9.30 and finish at 17.00, with refreshments provided. The event is supported by the Association for Social Economics and Review of Social Economy, and will engage in a wide-ranging interrogation of the effects of, and alternatives to, austerity.

21 - 23 June: 12th Post-Keynesian Economics Society Summer School

Greenwich Campus

The 12th annual PKES summer school on post-Keynesian Economics and Political Economy is back with a renewed focus. Spend three days discussing topics in heterodox economics with leading economists and a group of peers with likeminded research interests. This year’s summer school offers a topics-based introduction to post-Keynesian economics and Political Economy, including: growth and distribution, fiscal policy and austerity, ecological and environmental macroeconomics, money and finance, development, feminist economics, income distribution, and current debates around inflation and the cost of living crisis. Please find the programme here.

The school is aimed at undergraduate students and is an ideal basis for those wishing to continue postgraduate study on the aforementioned topics. We will however also consider applications from postgraduate students. The summer school will be held from 21 to 23 June 2023 at the University of Greenwich’s fantastic campus in London.

Registration is open and places are available, with and without accommodation, prices start at £35. There is a limited number of spaces which will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

Members of the Post-Keynesian Economics Society pay a reduced fee. Membership for students is £10/year and includes online access to all issues of European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention and Review of Keynesian Economics. Further benefits and info about PKES membership can be found here: https://www.postkeynesian.net/membership/ .

The summer school is jointly organised by the Post-Keynesian Economic Society and the Institute of Political Economy Governance Finance and Accountability (PEGFA) at the University of Greenwich. We would like to thank the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust and PEGFA for their generous financial support.

If you have any questions regarding the summer school please get in touch with a member of the organising committee:

• Dr Ben Tippet B.M.Tippet@greenwich.ac.uk
• Dr Adam Aboobaker aa226@soas.ac.uk
• Dr Alex Guschanski alexander.guschanski@greenwich.ac.uk

20 June: Ukraine’s (post)War Economy: Sustainability, International Relations, and EU Integration

6pm - 8pm in Room QA280, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich, Park Row, SE10 9LS, London

Organised by the Greenwich Business School (GBS), University of Greenwich (UoG) Centre of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA) in collaboration with FEPS and LSE:

Public roundtable and Europe and the war in Ukraine: From Russian aggression to a new eastern policy (FEPS) Book launch

The Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 shook the world and has caused immense suffering and destruction in the invaded country. Aggravating the damage caused since the invasion of 2014, adding to the pre-existing economic problems, pandemic socio-economic damages, the war drags on and with it grows the scope of destruction of human life, livelihoods, and future prospects. How does Ukraine link building an economy to secure victory in the war with long-term goal of sustainable development and strengthening the resiliency of its democracy? How can its EU candidate status be leveraged by Ukrainian opponents of neoliberal frameworks and policies? The economic reform and their nature and the role of the EU do and will play a crucial role in determining the shape of Ukraine to come. The new important volume published by FEPS aims to answer many of those fundamental questions. As the London Ukraine Recovery conference is upon us, we will build on the book and beyond in the discussion of Ukraine’s losses, prospects, proposals on the table and those that are lacking. Whither Ukraine and/in Europe? Our roundtable will aim to deliver some crucial answers and set out trajectories for the future. Please find more information about the book here.

SPEAKERS:

Uwe Optenhögel is the Vice President of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies.

Tasha Lomonosova is a Senior Policy Advisor at Cedos and member of the Social Movement/Sotsialny Rukh, UA

Yuliya Yurchenko is Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Greenwich.

Edward Knudsen is a Doctoral Researcher in International Relations at the University of Oxford.

Luke Cooper is Director of PeaceRep's Ukraine programme at the LSE.

Bohdan Ferens is the Founder of the Social-Democratic SD Platform of Ukraine.

With an introduction by PEGFA co-director, Prof Ozlem Onaran

This will be a hybrid event with options for both online and in-person attendance. Admission is free, but please register here.

Please find the event leaflet with further information here.

15 June: Was Robert Gibrat right? Presentation by Marco Vivarelli

5pm - 7pm

QA280, Queen Anne Building, University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, SE10 9LS, London

The Centre for Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability invites you to Visiting Scholar Marco Vivarelli's presentation Was Robert Gibrat right? A test based on the graphical model methodology.

Please find the abstract here:

Using both regression analysis and an unsupervised graphical model approach (never applied before to this issue), we confirm the rejection of the Gibrat’s law when our firm-level data are considered over the entire investigated period, while the opposite is true when we allow for market selection. Indeed, the growth behavior of the re-shaped (smaller) population of the survived most efficient firms is in line with the Law of Proportionate Effect; this evidence reconciles early and current literature testing Gibrat’s law and may have interesting implications in terms of both applied and theoretical research.

10 June: Progressive Economics 2023

full-day event from 9am-6.30pm

University of Greenwich, 10 Stockwell Street, SE10 9BD

The Progressive Economy Forum (PEF) and the University of Greenwich research Centre of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability bring you Progressive Economics 2023 – a conference of debate and education at a vital moment in the UK to debate the policies to tackle the alarming economic challenges of austerity, inequalities, Brexit, Covid-19, cost-of-living crisis, global supply problems, the war in Ukraine, care crisis and environmental collapse. What are the solutions and how to persuade the policy makers to implement them? There will be panels on green caring just transition, inequalities, cost-of-living crisis, economics of the commons, Brexit, fiscal policy, monetary policy, industrial policy and macroeconomic policy coordination with MPs, academics, and researchers from think-tanks and civil society organisations.

Speakers include John McDonnell MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Lord Robert Skidelsky, Patrick Allen (PEF), Ann Pettifor (Prime), Stephany Griffith-Jones (Banco Central de Chile), Carys Roberts (IPPR), Rebekah Diski (NEF), Molly Scott Cato (Green Party, Economy Spokesperson and University of Roehampton), Faiza Shaheen (PEF), Will Hutton (The Observer), Peter Holmes (Trade Policy Observatory), Geoff Tily (TUC), Danny Dorling (University of Oxford), Michael Jacobs (University of Sheffield), Guy Standing (SOAS), Susan Himmelweit (Open University), Özlem Onaran (University of Greenwich), Maria Nikolaidi (University of Greenwich), Stewart Lansley (University of Bristol), James Meadway (PEF), Fran Witt (Recourse), Mehmet Ugur (University of Greenwich), Jo Michell (UWE Bristol), David Barmes (Positive Money), Gerhard Schneider (Loughborough University), Lorena Lombardozzi (Open University), Katie Kedward (UCL), Shreya Nanda (Social Market Foundation), Jan Toporowski (SOAS), Rob Calvert Jump (University of Greenwich), Janet Williamson (TUC), Ben Tippet (University of Greenwich), and Alex Guschanski (University of Greenwich), among others.

Please find the programme of the conference here. More information about our wonderful speakers can be found here.

The venue of this conference is 10 Stockwell Street, SE10 9BD, rooms 11_0003 and 11_0004 (ground floor) and Stephen Lawrence Building room SL101 (building no. 6 on the map). A campus map can be found here.

The recordings of the highly successful Progressive Economics 2022 conference with 500 delegates are here.

5 - 9 June: Beyond The Optimising Agent - Summer School in Advanced Methods for Economics and Political Economy

This summer school provides advanced training in methods for Economics and Political Economy with practical applications. It focusses on theoretical and empirical methods beyond constrained optimisation that capture features such as uncertainty, instability, complexity, institutions, and historical change. In this way, the school provides methods that receive less attention in standard economics programmes but are essential to analyse real-world issues such as financial cycles, climate change, income and wealth inequality, and much more. Please see the Call for Applications, including the programme, here.

What will be covered?

The school covers both analytical foundations in the form of lectures as well as applications in the form of hands-on computer-lab exercises and interactive group work. A variety of different methods are introduced, both quantitative and qualitative (see programme below). Concrete applications illustrate how participants can apply these methods in their own research.

Who can participate?

The summer school is targeted at PhD students (or PGRs) and Early Career Researchers (up to 3 years since completion of PhD). In exceptional cases, we will also consider applications from postgraduate students.

Organising Team and Support

The summer school is jointly organised by the Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA) at the University of Greenwich and the Department of Economics at the University of Leeds. We are grateful for financial support from the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI) at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).

Coordinator Greenwich: Rafael Wildauer (r.wildauer@gre.ac.uk)

Coordinator Leeds: Karsten Kohler (k.kohler@leeds.ac.uk)

How to apply

Send a CV and a 1-page motivation letter (covering, e.g., research interests / PhD topic, supervisors if applicable, methods used, and how you would benefit from attending) to beyondoptimization@gmail.com. We will notify successful candidates by 12 April 2023.

Costs

• Participation fee with accommodation (5 nights, Avery Hill Campus): GBP 150
• Participation fee without accommodation: GBP 80
• Lunch and coffee will be provided.

Tickets with accommodation include a room in the student accommodation at Avery Hill Campus, including breakfast. Each room includes a single bed, desk and a sink. Toilets and showers are separate but shared between 5 rooms which also share a communal kitchen. Avery Hill campus is a 40min bus ride away from Greenwich Campus, where all sessions will take place. See details about Avery Hill Campus here.

Deadlines

• Application deadline: 5 April
• Acceptance notification: 12 April
• Registration and payment: 30 April