On December 2-3, 2022, the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (where I did my economics PhD) will be hosting a conference on “Global Inflation Today: What Is To Be Done?”1
I will be speaking on “Rethinking Supply Constraints,” a new project I am working on with Arjun Jayadev. Our argument is that we should think of supply constraints as limits on the speed at which production can be reorganized and labor and other resources can be reallocated via markets, as opposed to limits on the level of production determined by “real” resources. The idea is that this makes better sense of recent macroeconomic developments; fits better with a broader conception of the economy in terms of human productive activity rather than the exchange of pre-existing goods; and points toward more promising responses to the current inflation.
I was hoping to have a draft of the paper done for the conference, but that is not to be. But I do have a set of slides, which give at least a partial sketch of the argument. Feedback is most welcome!