The main conclusion of the paper is that – even if bank lending to the private sector is falling (and destroying money balances) at a zero short-term interest rate – the monetary authorities can always increase the quantity of money (broadly defined to include all bank deposits)...

Tim Congdon responds to the article by Thomas Mayer and Patrick Minford, ‘Monetarism: A Retrospective’ that appeared in World Economics, Vol. 5, No. 2 (April–June), 2004, pp. 147–185.

The UK achieved a remarkable degree of macro-economic stability in the 1990s. Contrary to expectations when the pound was expelled from the European exchange rate mechanism in September 1992, over the next ten years inflation was kept almost exactly on target and its volatility declined by over...

Two alternative concepts of the output gap, Keynesian and monetarist, can be distinguished. When they use the phrase, economists should make clear which concept is under discussion. The first concept, developed by Okun in the early 1960s, defines the output gap relative to a full employment...

The newly-formed European currency will compete with the dollar to become the world’s leading currency in the 21st century. Its prospects in this competition will depend partly on the size of the European economy compared with the US economy. This article argues that unprecedented...

Two ways of thinking about the causation of the Great Recession are contrasted: the ‘mainstream approach’ and the ‘monetary interpretation’. According to the mainstream approach, the Great Recession was due to the potential insolvency of the banking system and the...