IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ann/journl/v20y2017i4p51-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethics, Uncertainty, and Macroeconomics

Author

Listed:
  • Mariusz Maziarz

    (Wrocław University of Economics, Poland)

Abstract

In this article, I focus on the difference in moral judgment of macroeconomic interventions between the deterministic world of a thought experiment and the uncertain reality. The macroeconomic theory coined by Keynes is, in its most popular reading, deterministic and justifies interventionism. However, incorporating uncertainty into the analysis leads to the contrary result. Namely, if economic output is a random process, such as Gaussian white noise or a stochastic Markov chain, then intervening can bring either economic recovery or inflationary pressure and a next bubble. In the trolley‑problem philosophy, the one who pulls the lever instead of the trolley itself is believed to be guilty of the death of an innocent passer‑by standing on the side track. Similarly, if the Federal Reserve decided to intervene and failed (causing a bubble on the house market, instantiating), their monetary policy can be said to be a cause of the financial crisis. Therefore, governments should refrain from interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariusz Maziarz, 2017. "Ethics, Uncertainty, and Macroeconomics," Annales. Ethics in Economic Life, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, vol. 20(4), pages 51-63, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ann:journl:v:20:y:2017:i:4:p:51-63
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.annalesonline.uni.lodz.pl/archiwum/2017/2017_4_maziarz_51_63.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    2. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2011. "Rethinking Macroeconomics: What Failed, And How To Repair It," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 591-645, August.
    3. Robert B. Barsky & Lutz Kilian, 2002. "Do We Really Know That Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2001, Volume 16, pages 137-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Mariusz Maziarz, 2017. "The Reinhart-Rogoff controversy as an instance of the ‘emerging contrary result’ phenomenon," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 213-225, July.
    5. Alessandro Lanteri & Chiara Chelini & Salvatore Rizzello, 2008. "An Experimental Investigation of Emotions and Reasoning in the Trolley Problem," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 789-804, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Goda, 2017. "A comparative review of the role of income inequality in economic crisis theories and its contribution to the financial crisis of 2007-2009," Revista Finanzas y Politica Economica, Universidad Católica de Colombia, vol. 9(1), pages 151-174, February.
    2. David M. Ritzwoller & Joseph P. Romano, 2019. "Uncertainty in the Hot Hand Fallacy: Detecting Streaky Alternatives to Random Bernoulli Sequences," Papers 1908.01406, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    3. Shazia Ghani, 2011. "A re-visit to Minsky after 2007 financial meltdown," Post-Print halshs-01027435, HAL.
    4. Steininger, Lea & Hesse, Casimir, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 357, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    5. Auer, Benjamin R., 2013. "Can habit formation under complete market integration explain the cross-section of international equity risk premia?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 61-67.
    6. Marco Stringa & Allan Monks, 2007. "Inter-industry contagion between UK life insurers and UK banks: an event study," Bank of England working papers 325, Bank of England.
    7. Christiane Goodfellow & Dirk Schiereck & Steffen Wippler, 2013. "Are behavioural finance equity funds a superior investment? A note on fund performance and market efficiency," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(2), pages 111-119, April.
    8. Etienne, Xiaoli L., 2015. "Financialization of Agricultural Commodity Markets: Do Financial Data Help to Forecast Agricultural Prices?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205124, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Cagli, Efe Caglar & Taskin, Dilvin & Evrim Mandaci, Pınar, 2019. "The short- and long-run efficiency of energy, precious metals, and base metals markets: Evidence from the exponential smooth transition autoregressive models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Andrew Weinbach & Rodney J. Paul, 2009. "National television coverage and the behavioural bias of bettors: the American college football totals market," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 55-66, April.
    11. Plantinga, Andrew J. & Provencher, Bill, 2001. "Internal Consistency In Models Of Optimal Resource Use Under Uncertainty," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20712, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Growitsch Christian & Nepal Rabindra & Stronzik Marcus, 2015. "Price Convergence and Information Efficiency in German Natural Gas Markets," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 87-103, February.
    13. Das, Prashant & Füss, Roland & Hanle, Benjamin & Russ, Isabel Nina, 2020. "The cross-over effect of irrational sentiments in housing, commercial property, and stock markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    14. Oxelheim, Lars & Rafferty, Michael, 2005. "On the static efficiency of secondary bond markets," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 117-135, April.
    15. Baoqiang Zhan & Shu Zhang & Helen S. Du & Xiaoguang Yang, 2022. "Exploring Statistical Arbitrage Opportunities Using Machine Learning Strategy," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(3), pages 861-882, October.
    16. Bertrand, Philippe & Lapointe, Vincent, 2015. "How performance of risk-based strategies is modified by socially responsible investment universe?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 175-190.
    17. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "Factor volatility spillover and its implications on factor premia," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    18. Gaio, Luiz Eduardo & Stefanelli, Nelson Oliveira & Pimenta, Tabajara & Bonacim, Carlos Alberto Grespan & Gatsios, Rafael Confetti, 2022. "The impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on market efficiency: Evidence for the developed stock market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    19. Antonella Cavallo & Antonio Ribba, 2017. "Measuring the Effects of Oil Price and Euro-area Shocks on CEECs Business Cycles," Department of Economics 0111, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    20. Jezek, M., 2009. "Passive Investors, Active Traders and Strategic Delegation of Price Discovery," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0951, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    uncertainty; monetary policy; fiscal policy; recession; macroeconomics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ann:journl:v:20:y:2017:i:4:p:51-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joanna Dzionek-Kozlowska (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/welodpl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.