Expanding on an approach developed by financial economist Hyman Minsky, the authors of this new working paper present an alternative to the standard "efficient markets hypothesis"--the relevance of which Minsky vehemently denied. Minsky recognized that, in a modern capitalist economy with...

This paper first examines two approaches to money adopted by Keynes in the General Theory (GT). The first is the more familiar "supply and demand" equilibrium approach of Chapter 13 incorporated within conventional macroeconomics textbooks. Indeed, even Post Keynesians utilizing Keynes's...

This paper addresses three issues surrounding monetary policy formation: policy independence, choice of operating targets, and rules versus discretion. According to the New Monetary Consensus, the central bank needs policy independence to build credibility; the operating target is the overnight...

This paper briefly summarizes the orthodox approach to banking, finance, and money, and then points the way toward an alternative based on socioeconomics. It argues that the alternative approach is better fitted to not only the historical record, but also sheds more light on the nature of money...

This paper uses Hyman P. Minsky's approach to analyze the current international financial crisis, which was initiated by problems in the U.S. real estate market. In a 1987 manuscript, Minsky had already recognized the importance of the trend toward securitization of home mortgages. This paper...

Even as the United States enjoys an economic expansion, there is an undercurrent of concern among economic analysts who follow financial markets. Some feel that the expansion of the credit derivatives markets poses the threat of a crisis similar to the Long-Term Capital Management debacle of...

Minsky's classification of fragility according to hedge, speculative, and Ponzi positions is well-known. He wrote about fragile positions of individual firms and of the economy as a whole, with the economy transitioning naturally from a robust financial structure (dominated by hedge units) to a...

Critics argue that the current crisis has exposed the profligacy of the Greek government and its citizens, who are stubbornly fighting proposed social spending cuts and refusing to live within their means. Yet Greece has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the European Union (EU), and its...

In this new brief, Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray examines the later works of Hyman P. Minsky, with a focus on Minsky’s general approach to financial institutions and policy. The New Deal reforms of the 1930s strengthened the financial system by separating investment banks from commercial...

This brief by Yeva Nersisyan and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray argues that deficits do not burden future generations with debt, nor do they crowd out private spending. The authors base their conclusions on the premise that a sovereign nation with its own currency cannot become insolvent, and...