Unemployment, income distribution and debt-financed investment in a growth cycle model

As recent experience suggests, the most significant economic fluctuations are those that combine real and financial factors. This paper works out a simple model that couples a version of Goodwin׳s (1967) growth cycle model of real fluctuations with insights drawn from a model of financial fluctuations based on Minsky׳s financial instability hypothesis (Vercelli, 2000, Sordi and Vercelli, 2006, Sordi and Vercelli, 2012). The model suggested substantially modifies that of Keen (1995), who combined insights from Goodwin and Minsky within a model of fluctuating growth. In the real part of the model we introduce the possibility of disequilibrium in the goods market and formalize a mechanism of output adjustment based on the conventional dynamic multiplier. The model so obtained may exhibit persistent dynamics and provide insights to enable better understanding of the nature of real-world fluctuations.