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Jan Kregel



Articles by Jan Kregel

The IMF as Deficit Owl? What’s Wrong with This Argument?

February 4, 2021

It seems the IMF aviary has turned on the hawks and embraced the deficit owls. Has the IMF joined the policy shift to MMT? Yes, in part, but it appears to be a viral form of MMT: according to Vitor Gaspar, the IMF’s head of fiscal policy, “Nations’ first priority should be vaccination, while the reduction of public debt is now far down the list of urgent actions… the main role of fiscal policy in the immediate future should be to be stimulative, to help restore economic growth, reduce unemployment and beat Covid-19.”
This is a big shift in IMF policy advice on post-crisis response, Chris Giles notes: “After the financial crisis a decade ago the fund recommended that countries should reduce their debt levels.”
But the pervasive pandemic is not the real reason for the change in

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The IMF as Deficit Owl? What’s Wrong with This Argument?

February 4, 2021

It seems the IMF aviary has turned on the hawks and embraced the deficit owls. Has the IMF joined the policy shift to MMT? Yes, in part, but it appears to be a viral form of MMT: according to Vitor Gaspar, the IMF’s head of fiscal policy, “Nations’ first priority should be vaccination, while the reduction of public debt is now far down the list of urgent actions… the main role of fiscal policy in the immediate future should be to be stimulative, to help restore economic growth, reduce unemployment and beat Covid-19.”
This is a big shift in IMF policy advice on post-crisis response, Chris Giles notes: “After the financial crisis a decade ago the fund recommended that countries should reduce their debt levels.”
But the pervasive pandemic is not the real reason for the change in

Read More »

Jiu-Jitsu Comes to the Stock Market

January 29, 2021

The core philosophy of this Japanese defensive art used by the weak against the stronger Samurai is to mobilize the opponent’s greater force to your own advantage. Many have criticized the run-up in the quotation of the GameStop shares as a violation of market principles or regulations. Far from it, it simply represents the fact that day traders may be dumb money, but they have understood how to apply jiu-jitsu.
If the intent was simply to profit from trading the stock, no retail trader could ever compete with the institutions. To attempt to directly manipulate the price of the stock through outright purchase or sale would be impossible. The strategy that was used was simply to recognize, as Softbank had done earlier in the year, the nature of market hedging.
There is a myth that

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Jiu-Jitsu Comes to the Stock Market

January 29, 2021

The core philosophy of this Japanese defensive art used by the weak against the stronger Samurai is to mobilize the opponent’s greater force to your own advantage. Many have criticized the run-up in the quotation of the GameStop shares as a violation of market principles or regulations. Far from it, it simply represents the fact that day traders may be dumb money, but they have understood how to apply jiu-jitsu.
If the intent was simply to profit from trading the stock, no retail trader could ever compete with the institutions. To attempt to directly manipulate the price of the stock through outright purchase or sale would be impossible. The strategy that was used was simply to recognize, as Softbank had done earlier in the year, the nature of market hedging.
There is a myth that

Read More »

Remembering Nina Shapiro

March 15, 2019

Jan Kregel | March 15, 2019

We are grieved to announce that Nina Shapiro, Professor of Economics Emeritus at St. Peter’s College, passed away on March 6. Nina was one of the first Levy Institute Visiting Scholars and a major contributor to the field of post-Keynesian economics. She passed away last week at the age of 71 from complications due to cancer.
Nina was best known for her work on the post-Keynesian theory of the firm and innovation, as well as the history of economic thought and macroeconomic theory. Her work was rooted in the tradition of Marx, Keynes, Kalecki, and Steindl. She was a deeply creative thinker who connected Marxian and Marshallian ideas on competition with the macroeconomics of Keynes and

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Minskyan Reflections on the Ides of September

September 14, 2018

The 10th anniversary of the September collapse of the US financial system has led to a number of commentaries on the causes of the Lehman bankruptcy and cures for its aftermath. Most tend to focus on identifying the proximate causes of the crisis in an attempt to assess the adequacy of the regulations put in place after the crisis to prevent a repetition. It is interesting that while Hy Minsky’s work became a touchstone of attempts to analyze the crisis as it was occurring, his work is notably absent in the current discussions.
While it is impossible to discern how Minsky might have answered these questions, his work does provide an indication of his likely response. Those familiar with Minsky’s work would recall his emphasis on the endogenous generation of fragility in the financial

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