Tag Archives: fiscal policy

Make no mistake, yesterday’s increase in interest rates was a big deal. Painful as it might be for a good share of the population, the real point is that the Bank is signalling the end of a particular phase of monetary policy. Since 2010 the counterpart to self-defeating austerity policies has been expansionary monetary policies. These have inflated assets - enriching the already-rich, while failing to stimulate wider economic recovery. Yesterday the Bank of England’s Monetary...

Today at the New School, L. Randall Wray and Stephanie Kelton take part in a public workshop organized by the National Jobs for All Coalition that is focused on developing a “A New ‘New Deal’ for NYC and the USA.... Multiplier EffectWatch Live: A New New Deal and the Job GuaranteeMichael Stephens

Zhou Xiaochuan, President of the People’s Bank of China, said that the nation will continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, and continue to fight shadow banking, the real estate bubble and other risks, China Securities Journal reported.“China’s price level has remained stable, the foreign exchange market has ran smoothly and cross-border capital flows were balanced,” Zhou said. “China will further expand the financial industry, actively use new...

I came across this article by Kevin Warsh that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last August, 2016. The article was re-posted by GATA.ORG.As you may know, Warsh is the currently the favorite to take over as Fed Chair when Janet Yellen's term expires next February.If you read the article you will find that Warsh sort of understands that Fed policy is confused and focused on either the wrong things or, things which the Fed has no set of tools to accomplish. On the other hand he seems to lack...

The Vice President of the European Central Bank, Vítor Constâncio, gave the opening speech – Developing models for policy analysis in central banks – at the Annual Research Conference, Frankfurt am Main, on September 25, 2017. Last time I heard Constâncio speak in person, in Florence 2015, he was in typical Europhile central bank denial. He thought the Eurozone was fine, a great success given the low inflation, inferring that the ECB’s conduct had something to do with that. He didn’t talk...

MMT itself is just a description of how the monetary system works in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, the EMU – everywhere there is a monetary economy. I dislike quibbling, but MMT is prefaced by an operational description of how monetary systems work, paying particular attention to the existing monetary system. This analysis reveals the policy space associated with policy choice regarding the monetary system and monetary operations. MMT is based on this analysis of policy space....

... a government’s monetary sovereignty creates a potential for meaningful social progress. But it is only a potential, and can only be fulfilled through genuine democracy conducted by an informed citizenry. Right now, it is perhaps fair to say that an informed citizenry and, as a consequence, genuine democracy, are almost entirely lacking in the specific area of macroeconomics. At minimum, an informed citizenry would understand that, due to monetary sovereignty:If we can do it, we can...

There is a psychological bias to believe that exceptional events eventually give way to a return to “normal times.” But the world economy is far from a return to pre-2008 normality, with most of the obstacles to more robust recovery to be found on the demand side. Project Syndicate The Normalization DelusionAdair Turner

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has just hosted its annual Economic Policy Symposium at Jackson Hole in Wyoming where central banks, treasury officials, financial market types and (mainstream) economists from the academy and business gather to discuss economic policy. As you might expect, the agenda is set by the mainstream view of the world and there is little diversity in the discussion. A Groupthink reinforcing session. One paper that was interesting was from two US Berkeley...

Government spending in a recession can boost a country’s economy without permanently bloating its public debt, even if the debt is already quite large, researchers told an influential group of central bankers in Jackson, Wyoming, on Saturday. “Expansionary fiscal policies adopted when the economy is weak may not only stimulate output but also reduce debt-to-GDP ratios,” University of California, Berkeley, professors Alan Auerbach and Yuriy Gorodnichenko said in a paper presented at the...