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To meet the future energy and climate targets in 2030 and 2050 in Austria, it is absolutely necessary to apply extensive measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels. By then, Austria will have to realize a 36% decrease (from 2005 levels) for emission sources outside the European Emission Trading System. The transport sector is a key driver of recently increasing greenhouse gas emissions in Austria. Hence, we examine the macroeconomic and ecologic impacts of an environmental tax reform in Austria from 2020 to 2030. We implement a revenue-neutral tax reform that raises revenues via an increase of the mineral oil tax on diesel and petrol consumption and redistributes these fiscal revenues to the industry and households. In addition, increased fossil fuel taxing would enhance revenues for green investments in e-mobility and thermal refurbishment that stimulate the Austrian economy. The simulation analyses focus on central macroeconomic variables as gross domestic product, employment, investment and private consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. We find that the proposed environmental tax reform generates a triple dividend, leading simultaneously to economic growth and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions while low-income households can be fully compensated.

In the context of the increasing depletion of finite natural resources and associated environmental and social problems, it is vital for societies to understand the drivers of resource demand and develop strategies to reduce its negative impacts. One such strategy is the move towards a circular economy, in which linear industrial systems are turned into circular systems where former waste streams from one part of the system can act as inputs in other parts. This includes the substitution of primary with secondary materials, thus reducing some of the negative impacts of primary production. The extent to which this is possible depends on the amount of retired material stocks that are made available for re-use. This article develops a methodology for analyzing material flows in relation to the wider economic system for the special case of copper. For this, a macroeconomic simulation model and a substance flow model are coupled to determine sectoral copper demand on the one hand, and the availability of secondary copper on the other hand. A number of scenarios aimed at reducing primary copper demand or increasing the supply of secondary copper are modeled. The results vary considerably between scenarios, depending on which material efficiency measure is analyzed. Due to delays in the retirement of copper stocks, trade-offs can be observed between reductions of original material demand and the availability of secondary material.

This paper asks why modern finance theory and the efficient market hypothesis have failed to explain long-term carry trades; persistent asset bubbles or zero lower bounds; and financial crises. It extends Keen (Solving the Paradox of Monetary Profits, 2010) and the Theory of the Monetary Circuit to give a mathematical representation of Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis. In the extended model, the central bank rate is not neutral and the path is non-ergodic. The extended circuit has survival constraints that include a living wage, a zero interest rate and an upper interest rate. Inflation is everywhere. The possibility of a high interest rate, hedge economy emerges, where powerful banks invest surplus loan interest. With speculation, banks lobby to enter investment markets and the system is precariously liquid/illiquid. The paradox of a Ponzi economy, where loans never get repaid, is that private banks must speculate to increase reserves and rely on systemic crises to rebuild their balance sheets. Estimating model parameters for the US gives a scissor-graph like the The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, 2011) with other nuances, namely i) a 'heart attack' in 1973-1974 that corresponds to the collapse of Bretton Woods ii) an accelerated decoupling of household wages and loans after the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Simulating bank bailouts, household bailouts and a Keynesian boost suggests that bank bailouts are the least effective intervention, with downward pressure on wages and household spending. Bailing out hedge households is a form of monetary contraction, and boosting hedge business loans is a form of monetary expansion. The appropriate policy choice would seem to depend on the external balance and inflation concerns. The paper concludes that, with international Ponzi sectors, viable resolution mechanisms include reparations (dL < 0), turning Ponzi debt into equity or 'junk' debt (dL → ∞), household bailouts and a Keynesian boost.

This paper asks why modern finance theory and the efficient market hypothesis have failed to explain long-term carry trades; persistent asset bubbles or zero lower bounds; and financial crises. It extends Keen (Solving the Paradox of Monetary Profits, 2010) and the Theory of the Monetary Circuit to give a mathematical representation of Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis. In the extended model, the central bank rate is not neutral and the path is non-ergodic. The extended circuit has survival constraints that include a living wage, a zero interest rate and an upper interest rate. Inflation is everywhere. The possibility of a high interest rate, hedge economy emerges, where powerful banks invest surplus loan interest. With speculation, banks lobby to enter investment markets and the system is precariously liquid/illiquid. The paradox of a Ponzi economy, where loans never get repaid, is that private banks must speculate to increase reserves and rely on systemic crises to rebuild their balance sheets. Estimating model parameters for the US gives a scissor-graph like the The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, 2011) with other nuances, namely i) a heart attack in 1973-1974 that corresponds to the collapse of Bretton Woods ii) an accelerated decoupling of household wages and loans after the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Simulating bank bailouts, household bailouts and a Keynesian boost suggests that bank bailouts are the least effective intervention, with downward pressure on wages and household spending. Bailing out hedge households is a form of monetary contraction, and boosting hedge business loans is a form of monetary expansion. The appropriate policy choice would seem to depend on the external balance and inflation concerns. The paper concludes that, with international Ponzi sectors, viable resolution mechanisms include reparations (dL < 0), turning Ponzi debt into equity or junk debt (dL → ∞), household bailouts and a Keynesian boost.

South Africa has rapidly reduced trade barriers since the end of Apartheid, yet agricultural production and exports have remained sluggish. Also, poverty and unemployment have risen and become increasingly concentrated in rural areas. This paper examines the extent to which remaining price distortions, both domestic and foreign, are contributing to the underperformance of the agricultural sector vis-a-vis the rest of the economy. The author draws on a computable general equilibrium (CGE) and micro-simulation model of South Africa that is linked to the results of a global trade model. This framework is used to examine the effects of eliminating global and domestic price distortions. Model results indicate that South Africa's agricultural sector currently benefits from global price distortions, and that removing these will create more jobs for lower-skilled workers, thereby reducing income inequality and poverty. The author also fined that South Africa's own policies are biased against agriculture and that removing domestic distortions will raise agricultural production. Job losses in nonagricultural sectors will be outweighed by job creation in agriculture, such that overall employment rises and poverty falls. Overall, the findings suggest that South Africa's own policies are more damaging to its welfare, poverty and inequality than distortionary policies in the rest of the world. Existing national price distortions may thus explain some of the poor performance of South Africa's agricultural sector and rural development.

Although Mozambique has considerable agricultural potential, rural poverty remains extremely high. This paper examines the extent to which global and domestic price distortions affect agricultural production and national poverty. The author develops a computable general equilibrium (CGE) and micro-simulation model of Mozambique that is linked to the results of a global model. This framework is used to examine the effects of eliminating global and national price distortions. Model results indicate that agriculture is adversely affected by current trade distortions due to policies in the rest of the world. While a removal of all merchandise trade distortions will reduce import prices, it will also raise agricultural production and reduce poverty. By contrast, removing only agricultural price distortions abroad will have little effect on Mozambique's agricultural sector. Model results indicate that Mozambique's own distortions are also biased against agriculture, with producers of processed agricultural products enjoying high protection levels. Removing these distortions causes a significant expansion of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a reduction in both poverty and inequality. The findings therefore suggest that removing own-country and rest-of-world distortions will have positive implications for agriculture and for the overall economy in Mozambique, and in particular it will reduce its poverty and inequality.

The mathematical models used in intermediate macroeconomics have become increasingly more sophisticated and challenging for students to learn. This paper demonstrates how mathematics software, such as Maple, can be used to design a simulation as a pedagogical aid. The paper proceeds by developing a system of equations to model the economy, simulating the system with Maple, and illustrating the impacts of fiscal and monetary policy changes. A pilot test of the simulation was performed to see if higher levels of mathematical rigor could be introduced in a principles course. The results indicate that symbolic mathematics software can be an effective teaching and student learning tool.

The Swedish National Debt Office (SNDO) is the Swedish Government’s financial administration. It has several tasks and the main one is to manage the central government’s debt in a way that minimizes the cost with due regard to risk. The debt management problem is to choose currency composition and maturity profile - a problem made difficult because of the many stochastic factors involved. The SNDO has created a simulation model to quantitatively analyze different aspects of this problem by evaluating a set of static strategies in a great number of simulated futures. This approach has a number of drawbacks, which might be handled by using a financial optimization approach based on Stochastic Programming. The objective of this master’s thesis is thus to apply financial optimization on the Swedish government’s strategic debt management problem, using the SNDO’s simulation model to generate scenarios, and to evaluate this approach against a set of static strategies in fictitious future macroeconomic developments. In this report we describe how the SNDO’s simulation model is used along with a clustering algorithm to form future scenarios, which are then used by an optimization model to find an optimal decision regarding the debt management problem. Results of the evaluations show that our optimization approach is expected to have a lower average annual real cost, but with somewhat higher risk, than a set of static comparison strategies in a simulated future. These evaluation results are based on a risk preference set by ourselves, since the government has not expressed its risk preference quantitatively. We also conclude that financial optimization is applicable on the government debt management problem, although some work remains before the method can be incorporated into the strategic work of the SNDO.