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We investigate short-term futures oil pricing over the 2003-2019 time-period in order to analyze the bubble-like dynamics, which characterizes the 2007-2009 years according to a large body of recent literature. Our research, based on the LPPL methodology and a flexible three-agent model (hedgers, fundamentalist speculators and chartists), confirms the presence of a bubble price pattern, which we attribute to the strong destabilizing behavior of speculators. In our view, this can be related to incorrect interpretation of market signals (or to the inability of trading against the market), especially by fundamentalists, combined with imitation across different categories of agents. This sets of positive feedback reactions along with self-reinforced herding of the kind best detected by the LPPL methodology. Keywords: Oil pricing, Bubble, Speculation, Dynamic hedging, Logistic smooth transition, Multivariate GARCH, 1. INTRODUCTION Between 2003 and 2019, oil prices witness two major cycles, which straddle the 2009 global financial freeze. From 2003 to 2009, oil prices experience an extremely sharp upswing [...]

Modigliani considered himself a Keynesian economist, convinced that 'a private enterprise economy using an intangible money needs to be stabilized, can be stabilized, and therefore should be stabilized' (Modigliani [5], p. 1). In the intervening years, Modigliani was confronted with diverse research experiences, which Rancan reconstructs by paying particular attention to Modigliani's scientific network. Antonella Rancan's new book retraces the intellectual path of Franco Modigliani, from his early writings, including the famous article on Keynesian and classical economics (Modigliani [4]), to his contributions of the 1950s and 1960s.[1] In this way, Rancan offers relevant insights into the origins and development of the neoclassical synthesis of Keynesian macroeconomic thinking. [...] I resorted to the help of one of the most brilliant of the Keynesians here, Franco Modigliani [...] When Modigliani had finished sketching the outline of the Keynesian edifice I raised my objections. [Extracted from the article]

Attention to power structures pervades Money and Empire, with its focus on the hierarchy of financial centres and peripheries. Starting with Money and Empire and moving on from there, this paper explores how de Cecco addressed key questions on monetary sovereignty, power structures in international monetary relations and the changing shape of currency domains and relations. A thorough understanding of these issues requires an approach to the history of money and finance in the best tradition of International Political Economy, which combines attention to cross-country heterogeneity, conflicts of interest, financial structures and networks, and path-dependency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the 1860s, technological advancements in transport, communication and warehousing, contributed to the emergence of world markets for many staple commodities (e.g., cotton, wheat). At the same time, the economic needs of the companies involved in this commercial revolution stimulated the growth of markets for securities and shares. The growing complexity of global markets created propitious conditions for the emergence of a class of professional speculators. Initially, the frenzy that accompanied this process seemed to confirm traditional views, which identified speculation with gambling. With time, however, a new scientific literature emerged. Focussing on the last decade of the nineteenth century up to the early 1920s in the UK and US, our analysis brings to light how contributors to this new literature made the case for speculation against conventional wisdom. In so doing, they were not blind to the downside effects of speculation as a possible source of resource misallocation. Nevertheless, they chose to emphasise its constructive side, basing their arguments on the case of commodity markets, where the idea of a long-run equilibrium price to be attained by speculation appeared plausible. They employed the same arguments in the case of the stock exchange, downplaying differences between the two markets although they were well aware of them. Thus economists played a crucial role in convincing policymakers of the beneficial effects of the new speculative instruments, against the hostility of a large part of public opinion. Futures and their use for the purpose of short selling, the most controversial of the new trading practices, were gradually accepted and regarded as legitimate commercial transactions. On the other hand, options continued to attract suspicion for a long time and to be kept in a limbo between disreputable and acceptable operations. The paper expands the existing literature on the subject by providing the first systematic reconstruction of the shared analytical arguments that, in spite of differences between authors and contexts, contributed to making speculation gradually accepted in the UK and US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The appointment of a Committee on the Working of the Monetary System in 1957 (Radcliffe Committee) in the UK gave the occasion to debate innovative ideas in the field of monetary policy. Many prominent economists participated in the Committee’s works, which ended with the publication of the Radcliffe Report in 1959. Making an exception to the rule of not mentioning individual contributions, the Radcliffe Report claims to ‘follow Professor Kahn … in insisting upon the structure of interest rates rather than some notion of the “supply of money” as the centrepiece of monetary action’. As we reconstruct in the paper, Kahn based his proposals on a conceptual framework, emphasising the link between inflation, wages and aggregate demand and the importance of combining incomes policy and term-structure control in view of achieving external equilibrium, full employment and price stability. One finding of our research is that Kahn’s recommendations regarding term-structure control—with their relevance to the present day—are best understood in connection with his theory of liquidity preference as presented in Kahn (1954). We also find that the Radcliffe Committee, while espousing Kahn’s policy recommendations, surrounded them with so many caveats as to render them de facto inoperative. As we suggest in our reconstruction, this depends partly on institutional considerations and partly on differences of opinion between Kahn and the Radcliffe Committee regarding monetary policy transmission and the causes of inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marcello De Cecco (1939-2016) has been a prominent Italian economist and economic historian, who stands out for his scholarship and originality in combining Political economy, Economic history and the History of economic thought. As reconstructed in the present work, he deserves to be particularly remembered for his seminal study on the international monetary system between 1870 and 1914 (De Cecco, 1974) and for his important contributions to the analysis of Italy's economic development and monetary and financial history (e.g. De Cecco, 1990). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]