Milton Friedman – one of the scholastic protagonists and machinists of Neoliberalism – wrote in the preface to the 1982 edition of Capitalism and Freedom, tutoring his disciples: “There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces […]
economics
MMT is, first and foremost, a balance sheet approach to macroeconomics. At its very core lie reserve accounting, then deposit accounting, and then sectoral balances accounting. There is very little behaviour in any of this. Equilibrium rules as all balances balance – in both flows and stocks – and there are no assumptions apart from […]
The axioms now in use have been derived from a meagre and narrow experience and from a few particulars of most common occurrence… Nor should it count for much that … he often cites experiments. For he had come to his decision beforehand, without taking proper account of experience in setting up his decisions and […]
. So when ‘modern’ mainstream economists use their models — standardly assuming rational expectations, Walrasian market clearing, unique equilibria, time invariance, linear separability and homogeneity of both inputs/outputs and technology, infinitely lived intertemporally optimizing representative agents with homothetic and identical preferences, etc. — and standardly ignoring complexity, diversity, uncertainty, coordination problems, non-market clearing prices, real […]
Ekonomijournalistgruppen har en hel del tydliga devota och inställsamma inslag, där många, kanske de flesta, med tiden har valt att gå ”all in” och blivit PR-konsulter eller pressansvariga på något företag. Andreas Cervenka är ett lysande undantag och hans ”Girig-Sverige” är ekonomijournalistik när den är som bäst, kritisk, upplysande och underhållande … Sverige har numera […]
American economist Hyman Minsky described capitalism as a “two price” system. On one side are asset prices—both financial, like government or corporate bonds, and physical like residential or commercial property. On the other, there are consumer prices—goods and services that determine current output and consumer price inflation. In the contemporary global economy, asset prices […]
I recall, with sadness, a comment made to me by the author of a well-known textbook. Upon being asked whether he accepted my analysis of demand theory as presented first in 1948, the reply was positive. He added that it would not be included in his advanced textbook because “it would upset too many things […]
For although the amount of his own saving is unlikely to have any significant influence on his own income, the reactions of the amount of his consumption on the incomes of others makes it impossible for all individuals simultaneously to save any given sums. Every such attempt to save more by reducing consumption will so […]
När tankesmedjan Katalys nu firar tioårsjubileum har man passande nog valt att bjuda in författaren till en av årtiondet största megahits inom ekonomiområdet — Underskottsmyten — Stephanie Kelton. Har ni vägarna förbi Stockholm i morgon tycker jag definitivt ni ska lägga ett par timmar på att besöka ABF-huset! Yours truly har under flera års tid […]
Mainstream economists do not believe that “countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt.” Looking at the result from a survey, not a single economist agreed with that statement. If these economists had been right, we would see lots of […]