The so-called credit crunch of 1966 has long been recognized as the first significant postwar financial crisis, and one that required the first important intervention by the Federal Reserve Bank. In the midst of the robust postwar expansion, the Fed began to fear inflation and tightened monetary...

At a time when small businesses are suffering from a credit crunch, "niche" 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 L....

All modern economies have a "chartalist" or "state" money, as acknowledged by Friedrich Knapp and J.M. Keynes. In this paper, I examine the "history" of money to shed light on its origins. I also examine in detail the views of those who accepted the chartalist, or state, approach to money, from...

Hyman Minsky's work represents one of the most important links between Post Keynesians and Institutionalists. We begin, in this essay, with a brief summary of some of his earlier work, including his well-known "financial instability hypothesis" and his policy proposals that were designed to...

The international financial system might be said to be in crisis. It requires frequent intervention by central banks and other national and international bodies to reduce fluctuations of currencies. It does not tend to eliminate current account deficits and surpluses; exchange rate fluctuations...

"[T]he money of a State is not what is of compulsory general acceptance, but what is accepted at the public pay offices..." (Georg Friedrich Knapp 1924) "In an economy where government debt is a major asset on the books of the deposit-issuing banks, the fact that taxes need to be paid gives...

Paul Davidson is one of the best known and most influential Post Keynesian economists. He has insisted throughout his career that economists should focus on real world problems and that the purpose of economic policy is to help society become more humane and civilized. He is also known for his...

This paper extends earlier work (Wray 1991; see also Wray 1992b) that argued that liquidity preference theory should be interpreted as a theory of value. Here I will argue that two theories of value are needed for analysis of a monetary production economy: the labor theory of value and the liquidity...

This paper argues that economists require a particular concept of time in order to facilitate the development of theory that has greater explanatory power in describing and analyzing the sort of economy in which we are primarily interested—the monetary economy usually termed capitalism. And...

Since, WWII, it has been the stated policy of the U.S. government to simultaneously pursue high employment and stable prices. Paradoxically, neither accepted economic theory nor practical experience appears to indicate that high or full employment is even possible with stable prices. In this...