Current monetary policy involves the manipulation of the Central Bank interest rate (the repo rate), with the specific objective of achieving the goal(s) of monetary policy. The latter is normally the inflation rate, although in a number of instances this may include the level of economic...

Macroeconomic Policies of the Economic and Monetary Union: Theoretical Underpinnings and Challenges Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer, The Levy Economics Institute and Leeds University Abstract This paper presents two issues: first, an effort to decipher the type of economic analysis and...

It has almost become the conventional wisdom that there should be rules governing the size of the budget deficits, without regard for the impact of such deficits on the macro economy. This is reflected in the push for a balanced budget in the United States and the 3 percent deficit to GDP ratio...

The paper begins by a brief review of the main ideas associated with Hyman Minsky and their implications for economic policy and the achievement of full employment. There is a focus on the financial instability hypothesis, the role of the central bank as lender of last resort and the...

The NAIRU (non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) is generally viewed as a supply-side determined short run equilibrium rate of unemployment. Aggregate demand plays no essential part in the determination of the equilibrium rate of unemployment. In those models from which a NAIRU is...

This paper proposes an alternative stability and growth pact among European Union (EU) governments that would underpin the introduction of a single currency and a "single market" within the EU. The alternative pact embraces a number of new aspects of integration within the EU that are based on a...

This paper reconsiders the case for the use of fiscal policy based on a "functional finance" approach that advocates the use of fiscal policy to secure high levels of demand in the context of private aggregate demand, which would otherwise be too low. This "functional finance" view means that...

Recent developments in macroeconomic policy, in terms of both theory and practice, have elevated monetary policy while downgrading fiscal policy. Monetary policy has focused on the setting of interest rates as the key policy instrument, along with the adoption of inflation targets and the use of...

This paper is concerned with two issues. First, it discusses some of the main problems and inferences the methodological approach of critical realism raises for empirical work in economics, while considering an approach adopted to try to overcome these problems. Second, it provides a concrete...

This paper explores some of the links between macroeconomic policy and industrial strategy. The perspective of the present paper is to emphasis the role of the output and investment activities of enterprises rather than the general focus on the labour market in the determination of economic...