Tag Archives: MMT

Perhaps the two greatest current macroeconomic problems are   a failure to optimally use resources (including people) the design and/or manipulation of the financial system to divert real resources from producers to a financial class The logical approaches to these problems are functional finance in the first case and changes in and/or enforcement of regulation of the financial system in the second case. Two groups that have gained visibility (academic, policy, and/or popular) on these...

Breaking into the big time!The New York Times | OpinionHow We Think About the Deficit Is Mostly WrongStephanie Kelton | former chief economist for the Senate Budget Committee Democratic staff and professor of public policy and economics at Stony Brook University

As I said, Italy, is now experimenting with paying for public services with tax credits. Presumably, this is happening because Italy doesn’t possess enough Euros to pay its citizens to provide all the goods and services needed to maintain and run the public sector of its social economy. And Italy can’t “create” the additional Euros it needs because that prerogative is the exclusive right of the EU Central Bank which Italy, even as a sovereign member of the EU, has no control over. But, as...

In a previous article, I explained why I am complacent about the state of economic theory in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This matters for someone like myself, who is attempting to write primers explaining various economic concepts. However, for many followers of MMT, the more important question is how its theoretical concepts get translated into a new policy framework. This raises the question of political economy, which I largely shy away from. However, I will offer my eccentric...

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been in the news quite a bit in the last few weeks.¹ It’s refreshing to see this considering how bad the state of macroeconomics is. I say this as someone who has been very critical of MMT for many years. I think they overreach on some items, but as a general theory I think they provide a much clearer and more useful picture of the macroeconomy than most mainstream economic schools do. Among the important things they get right: Pragmatic CapitalismWhy MMT is...

I am now in Helsinki where the weather is distinctly cooler (did I say colder) than it has been down in Southern Europe the past week. I don’t have much time for writing today. Tomorrow, we will be conducting a dual book launch (see www.reclaimthestate.org for details) and on Thursday, I will be presenting a public lecture at the University of Helsinki which is open to all to attend. For today’s blog, I am now able to provide a full video (minus Q&A) of my presentation at the British...

Alexander Douglas replies to Simon Wren-Lewis on MMT.Stories by Alexander Douglas on Medium by Alexander DouglasSimon Wren-Lewis, MMT, mathsAlexander Douglas | Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St. Andrews

The combination of MMT full employment policies and the job guarantee is the best way to strengthen family financial stability. The United States, which has a sovereign currency, can do that. The European Union nations that lack a sovereign currency will frequently be unable to do so. Jobs, not simply income, are essential to many humans’ happiness and sense of self-worth.... New Economic PerspectivesThe Job Guarantee Should Unite Anyone Interested in Strengthening FamiliesWilliam K....

Ha ha ha!Mainly MacroWhy is MMT so popular? Simon Wren-Lewis | Professor of Economics, Oxford UniversityLars Syll weighs in too.Why MMT is so popular.

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...