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Stephanie Kelton — Modern Monetary Theory Is Not a Recipe for Doom

Summary:
In this post, Stephanie Kelton takes on Paul Krugman. She appears to agree with Paul Krugman's assumption that monetary policy that is built on raising interest rates to address inflation is not backwards. Actually, central bank interest rate setting is a form of price setting, the policy rate being a variable that sets the cost of borrowing (price of money). Higher interest rates are also inflationary to the degree that increase the income of holders of securities, as Warren Mosler has observed. Instead she addresses the interest rate simply as a policy variable under central bank control, so the central bank can always insure that "r" is less than "g" to prevent interest on government debt from growing faster than the economy. While that is true, wouldn't it be preferable to show

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In this post, Stephanie Kelton takes on Paul Krugman. She appears to agree with Paul Krugman's assumption that monetary policy that is built on raising interest rates to address inflation is not backwards. Actually, central bank interest rate setting is a form of price setting, the policy rate being a variable that sets the cost of borrowing (price of money). Higher interest rates are also inflationary to the degree that increase the income of holders of securities, as Warren Mosler has observed.

Instead she addresses the interest rate simply as a policy variable under central bank control, so the central bank can always insure that "r" is less than "g" to prevent interest on government debt from growing faster than the economy. While that is true, wouldn't it be preferable to show how Krugman's assumption about monetary is more fundamentally mistaken.  This is especially germane since it is not just Krugman's mistake. It is the most commonly held assumption.

Note that Stephanie Kelton does mentions the expansionary impact of higher interest rates directly to Krugman in Paul Krugman Asked Me About Modern Monetary Theory. Here Are 4 Answers. However, it is mentioned in passing rather than being elaborated, as it really need to be in order to finally bury monetarism in any form, strong or weak.

Stephanie Kelton finally addresses this point in another response to Krugman, The Clock Runs Down on Mainstream Keynesianism.

My suggestion is for the MMT economists to put together an elevator speech on this, along with a more complete explanation that is accessible to non-economists and a tightly argued paper for economist and financial types. It's all there in the MMT literature but it needs to be more tightly co-ordinated.

Stephanie Kelton | Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, formerly Democrats' chief economist on the staff of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and an economic adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders
Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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