This ambitious book seeks both to revive and revise the idea of 'functional finance'. Followers of this doctrine believe that government budgets should concentrate solely on their macroeconomic impact on the economy, rather than reflecting a concern for sound finance and budgetary discipline....

There have been important advances in monetary economics and macroeconomics recently. In macroeconomics there has been the paramount development of the New Consensus Macroeconomics along with significant policy implications, thereby giving rise to the notion of New Monetary Policy. This book...