This paper, written in 1949, deals with the significance of Keynes' General Theory. It is argued that there is nothing revolutionary in the tools of analysis, the methodology, or the assumptions embodied in Keynes' "general theory". The General Theory is revolutionary in the same sense in which...

This paper examines the changing role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the world economy in the 1970s and into the 1980s. Though the IMF was established in 1945 by the Bretton Woods Agreement to aid countries with short term balance of payments problems, its role in recent years has...

In the U.S., corporate bankruptcies generally go through the court system for resolution, whereas bank failures are resolved by bank regulatory agencies. The goal of corporate bankruptcy is to maximize the value of the firm as a quot;going concernquot; in liquidation to the shareholders. In a...

Maurice Allais's view that the credit created by fractional reserve banking is equivalent to counterfeiting has led him to recommend the separation of the depository and lending functions of banks. This proposal has recently been reintroduced by James Tobin and others under the term quot;narrow...

At a time when small businesses are suffering from a credit crunch, quot;nichequot; financial institutions increasingly are filling the void left by more traditional sources of financing, such as commercial banks. In this working paper, authors Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Ronnie J. Phillips, and...