The monetarist counterrevolution and the stagflation period of the 1970s were among the theoretical and practical developments that led to the rejection of fiscal policy as a useful tool for macroeconomic stabilization and full employment determination. Recent mainstream contributions, however,...

Recently, national newspapers all over the world have suggested that we should reread John Maynard Keynes, and that Hyman P. Minsky provides a valuable framework for understanding the world in which we live. While rereading Keynes and discovering Minsky are noble goals, one should also remember...

In this paper I first provide an overview of alternative approaches to money, contrasting the orthodox approach, in which money is neutral, at least in the long run; and the Marx-Veblen-Keynes approach, or the monetary theory of production. I then focus in more detail on two main categories: the...

The Queen of England famously asked her economic advisers why none of them had seen "it" (the global financial crisis) coming. Obviously, the answer is complex, but it must include reference to the evolution of macroeconomic theory over the postwar period - from the "Age of Keynes" through the...

As the heirs to classical political economy and the German historical school, the American institutionalists retained rent theory and its corollary idea of unearned income. More than any other institutionalist, Thorstein Veblen emphasized the dynamics of banks financing real estate speculation...

This paper advances three fundamental propositions regarding money: (1) As R. W. Clower (1965) famously put it, money buys goods and goods buy money, but goods do not buy goods. (2) Money is always debt; it cannot be a commodity from the first proposition because, if it were, that would mean...

One of the greatest achievements of the modern New Consensusʺ view in macroeconomics is the assertion of a nonquantity theoretic approach to monetary policy. Leading theorists and practitioners of this view have indeed rejected the quantity theory of money, and defended a return to the old...

This paper reviews the recently published doctoral thesis of Hyman P. Minsky, summarizing its main contributions to methodology and microeconomics. These were aspects of economics with which Minsky is not usually associated, but which lie at the foundation of his later work. They include...

The paper argues that the functional approach of money does not provide a good method to study monetary history and monetary mechanisms. An alternative approach is developed and illustrated by analyzing the role of tobacco and cowry shells in past monetary systems. It is shown that any monetary...