Macroeconomics

In memory of Lance Taylor

In the papers of economist Charles Kindleberger, Perry Mehrling found notes on the paper that won Ben Bernanke his Nobel Prize.

In the 1983 paper cited as the basis for Bernanke’s Nobel award, the first footnote states: “I have received useful comments from too many people to list here by name, but I am grateful to each of them.” One of those unnamed commenters was Charles P. Kindleberger, who taught at MIT full-time until mandatory retirement in 1976 and then half-time for another five years. Bernanke himself earned his MIT Ph.D. in 1979, whereupon he shifted to Stanford as Assistant Professor. Thus it was natural for him to send his paper to Kindleberger for comment, and perhaps also natural for Kindleberger to respond.

Diamond-Dybvig-Bernanke is a flawed model of banking that has no room for a lender of last resort

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2022 to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond, and Philip H. Dybvig for having “significantly improved our understanding of the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises” (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2022a).

The main justification for Diamond and Dybvig's (DD) award is given by a paper published in 1983: “In an article from 1983, Diamond and Dybvig develop a theoretical model that explains how banks create liquidity for savers, while borrowers can access long-term financing” (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2022b, p.4).

A short exposition of the model

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina M. Khan is interviewed by Mark Glick

INET co-sponsored "The New Roaring Twenties: The Progressive Agenda for Antitrust and Consumer Protection Law," a conference at the University of Utah, October 25-26, 2022 where it also supports the Utah Project on Antitrust and Consumer Protection.

What Strategies can Break This Dependency?

The dollar system has proven resilient in the face of recent extreme and unexpected shocks, but it has also failed to foster sustainable growth and prosperity. Can it survive its contradictions? Evidence from the latest Trade and Development Report of UNCTAD suggests better South-South and commodity producers-consumers agreements are needed, on the way to a more inclusive international monetary system.

In a climate of fiscal austerity, unconventional monetary policy has been at the forefront of macroeconomic stabilization efforts since 2008, with the beginning of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE) programs. At the time, when the fiscal channel dried up (after a short-lived stimulus) but growth and inflation remained low, developed countries relied on large purchases of bonds and other securities by their central monetary authorities to support long-term credit creation while maintaining the smooth functioning of the money markets.

A Novel Account of Inflation Forecasts

The use and abuse of MMT (Part 1) Michael Hudson, Dirk Bezemer, Steve Keen and Sabri Öncü Summary After being attacked by monetarists and others…

The post The use and abuse of MMT (Part 1) first appeared on Economic Reform Australia.

The payments system is merely a technical and bookkeeping question, mundane in the end. The idea of operating it with only reserves puts in stark relief a far more important question: What is the point of banks at all?

This sixteen-part series, The Souls of the People, will explore these issues and the ideas and economics behind them. The values, origins, economics and philosophy behind the call to "cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" (Norquist). The creation of think tanks specifically to provide a pseudo-intellectual foundation for inequality, and that along with media convince the middle class to vote against their own interests. The rise, reasons for, and effect of beliefs that markets without law allow for full employment and that wage laws cause unemployment. That competition alone can bring about good working conditions. The rejection of progressive taxes, and of the right to avail ourselves of the power and resources of the country through organizing public goods. And most importantly, how all of these are maintained by laws that impoverish the powerless and enrich the powerful, and thus are self-perpetuating.

These issues are yet again the problem of our age. Their seeming trajectory towards resolution post WWII, with widespread prosperity and a rising middle class, has been undone. What undid them points to the underlying problem: Immediate causes include the spectacular increase in financialization and unearned rents, the lack of and lack of enforcement of progressive taxes, both in turn largely due to a shift in the public's understanding of these issues. What caused this shift in public understanding is the age old problem—power and the lack thereof.