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by Yeva Nersisyan and L. Randall Wray As MMT has been thrust into the spotlight, misrepresentations and misunderstanding have followed. MMT supposedly calls for cranking up the printing press, engaging in helicopter drops of cash or having the Fed finance government spending by engaging in Quantitative Easing. None of this is MMT. Instead, MMT provides an analysis of fiscal and monetary policy applicable to national governments with sovereign, non-convertible currencies. It concludes that the sovereign currency issuer: i) does not face a “budget constraint” (as conventionally defined); ii) cannot “run out of money”; iii) meets its obligations by paying in its own currency; iv) can set the interest rate on any obligations it issues. Current procedures adopted by the Treasury, the central bank, and private banks allow government to spend up to the budget approved by Congress and signed by the President. No change of procedures, no money printing, no helicopter drops are required.

Luiza Nassif-Pires, Laura de Lima Xavier, Thomas Masterson, Michalis Nikiforos, and Fernando Rios-Avila   Disproving the belief that the pandemic affects us all equally, data collected by New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and a piece published today in the New York Times shows that the novel coronavirus is “hitting low-income neighborhoods the hardest.”[1] In a forthcoming policy brief, we share evidence that this pattern would be the case and provide a solid explanation as to why (Nassif-Pires et al., forthcoming). Moreover, as we argue, the death tolls are also likely to be higher among poor neighborhoods and majority-minority communities. This inequality in health costs is in addition to an unequal distribution of economic costs. In short, poor and minority individuals are disproportionately feeling the impacts of this crisis. A concise version of our evidence is presented here. The toll of social inequality in healthcare is well known. A clear relationship has been repeatedly demonstrated between social determinants — such as income, education, occupation, social class, sex, and race/ethnicity — and the incidence and severity of many diseases. This association holds true for infectious respiratory illnesses such as influenza, SARS and also for COVID-19, as figure 1 shows. The consequences of this imbalance are particularly catastrophic when there is a massive disease outbreak. The precise mechanisms by… Read More

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, the US Congress appropriated a whopping $2 trillion budget to tackle it (about 10% of GDP). The focus was on expanded unemployment benefits and cash assistance to families, as well as grants and loans to small firms and large corporations in hopes that they will halt the torrent of layoffs. Across the ocean, Denmark took a different approach. The Danish government announced that it would cover 75–90% of certain worker salaries for the next 3 months. However remote the possibility here in the US, it still inspires the question: Could we have followed suit? How shall we think about such a policy? The Danish approach only covers workers in virus-hit jobs. However, suppose the US government decided to pay the entire wage bill for the economy during the months of radical social distancing. This would amount to an effective nationalization of the payroll, making the government an employer of first resort.

by Ana Luíza Matos de Oliveira, Lygia Sabbag Fares, Gustavo Vieira da Silva, and Luiza Nassif Pires Even though Covid-19 has already killed thousands worldwide and is paralyzing global economic activity, President Jair Bolsonaro insists on referring to it as a “little flu.” Despite the president’s efforts to avoid a halt to the economic activity in Brazil, the rhythm in the country has slowed down and people who can afford to stay confined at home are doing so. This week, several cities and states implemented mandatory shut downs on non-essential commerce and services. Given this new scenario, with still very uncertain impacts, we would like to raise a concern with a problem that has been reported in other countries: the increase in domestic violence.

In the last 24 hours, two big news stories regarding the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic have broken. The first is news that the Senate has passed a $2 trillion stimulus package that legislators claim is intended to alleviate the economic damage caused by the responses to the unfolding pandemic: closures of schools and businesses as well as the social isolation of much of the population. The second–a reported 3 million new unemployment claims in the last week alone–is a direct result of the aforementioned responses, as businesses close, events and travel plans are canceled and those who can remain isolated in their homes wondering which will run its course first: the supply of binge-able content on Netflix or the pandemic.

Pavlina Tcherneva recently participated in a hearing before a parliamentary group (La France insoumise) of France’s National Assembly on the subject of the Green New Deal and the job guarantee (the intro is in French; Tcherneva’s testimony is in English): [iframe width=”485″ height=”274″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/csyE46OeS8Q” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe]

In this rare video from 1987 (there is very little surviving footage of Minsky discussing his work), Hyman Minsky summarizes his theory of the financial fragility at the heart of modern capitalist economies: [iframe width=”486″ height=”364″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/9mHBrixVarU” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe] This was part of an event in Bogotá, Colombia (which is discussed in this working paper by Iván D. Velasquez).

The Hyman P. Minsky Summer Seminar Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Blithewood Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. June 7–13, 2020 The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is pleased to announce the 11th Minsky Summer Seminar will be held from June 7–13, 2020. The Seminar will provide a rigorous discussion of both the theoretical and applied aspects of Minsky’s economics, with an examination of meaningful prescriptive policies relevant to the current economic and financial outlook. It will also provide special sessions introducing the theory and applications of Wynne Godley’s stock-flow consistent modeling methods, supported by hands-on workshops. The Summer Seminar will be of particular interest to graduate students, recent graduates, and those at the beginning of their academic or professional careers. The teaching staff will include international economists working in the theory and policy tradition of Hyman Minsky and Wynne Godley. Applications may be made to Kathleen Mullaly at the Levy Institute (mullaly@levy.org), and should include a letter of application and current curriculum vitae. Admission to the Summer Seminar will include provision of room and board on the Bard College campus. The registration fee for the Seminar will be $375. Due to limited space availability, the Seminar will be limited to 30 participants; applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis starting in January 2019.

Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Cristina Lindblad and Peter Coy sat down with L. Randall Wray for an in-depth interview on Modern Monetary Theory: [iframe src=”https://www.bloomberg.com/multimedia/api/embed/iframe?id=081295ee-e45c-4dae-a380-2989a5ad4c23″ allowscriptaccess=”always” frameborder=”0″></iframe]

We are grieved to announce that Nina Shapiro, Professor of Economics Emeritus at St. Peter’s College, passed away on March 6. Nina was one of the first Levy Institute Visiting Scholars and a major contributor to the field of post-Keynesian economics. She passed away last week at the age of 71 from complications due to cancer. Nina was best known for her work on the post-Keynesian theory of the firm and innovation, as well as the history of economic thought and macroeconomic theory. Her work was rooted in the tradition of Marx, Keynes, Kalecki, and Steindl. She was a deeply creative thinker who connected Marxian and Marshallian ideas on competition with the macroeconomics of Keynes and Steindl. An essay published at the start of her career—“The Revolutionary Character of Post Keynesian Economics” (Journal of Economic Issues, 1977)—made an enduring case for the rejection of scarcity as the basis for economic analysis. She was a founding member of the Editorial Board of The Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics and at the time of her death was at work on a book on the theory of the firm. Trained in the nascent political economy doctoral program of The New School for Social Research with Edward Nell, Robert Heilbroner, David Gordon, and Anwar Shaikh, she was a part of the Rutgers University Livingston College… Read More

The New Keynesian monetary mainstream has brought out the big guns. Paul Krugman, Kenneth Rogoff, and Larry Summers have come out to shoot down the rising star known as “MMT,” which stands for Modern Monetary Theory. For a while, it was academically convenient to withhold paying any public attention that could foster competition in the field. Like other non-mainstream ideas in economics, MMT was simply ignored by our star mainstream economists, who are always ready and keen to lend their wisdom and advice for public action. Now that MMT has reached the public debate through arousing interest among powerful public voices, fostering political debate about available policy options, protecting the mainstream monopoly of opinion has prompted them to take aim at MMT. The key issues in the battle of ideas between Paul Krugman (New Keynesian monetary mainstream of the IS/LM variety) and Stephanie Kelton (MMT) are out there for everyone to see (see Krugman, Feb. 12th; Kelton, Feb. 21st; Krugman, Feb. 25th; and Kelton, Mar. 4th). It is noteworthy that the two do not seem to be all too far apart regarding their preferred policy agenda. At its core, the controversy really concerns monetary theory – including the question of what kind of money and monetary economy any relevant monetary theory should theorize about. Regarding this particular battle, I will… Read More