This paper investigates the commonly held belief that government spending is normally financed through a combination of taxes and bond sales. The argument is a technical one and requires a detailed analysis of reserve accounting at the central bank. After carefully considering the complexities...

This paper attempts to bring together several of Hyman Minsky's insights in order to suggest a relationship between the State's ability to tax and the money of the economy. Minsky recognized that money represents an IOU or promise to pay and that 'acceptability' is its important feature. He...

Hyman Minsky is best known for his work in the area of financial economics, and especially for his financial instability hypothesis. In recent years, some authors have also recognized his advocacy of the "employer of last resort" as part of his "big government" intervention to help maintain...

This paper attempts to specify theoretically the origins of money. Rather than the exchange-based view of neoclassical economists where money is seen as a transaction cost-reducing instrument (and where exchange itself is asserted to be a universal phenomenon), we argue that money is a social...

Over the past two decades a group of us has developed an alternative approach to monetary theory that integrates the insights of Knapp's (1924) state money approach (also called chartalist and adopted by Keynes (1930, 1914)), the credit money view of Innes (1913, 1914), Lerner's (1943, 1947)...

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, the theory of functional finance, as explicated by its originator, Abba P. Lerner, is put forward. Second, the reader is introduced to the use, standard in money and banking texts, of T-account balance sheet entries. Although no important...

Modern governments with a floating currency face no inherent financial constraints. Unfortunately, most modern macro-theorists continue to write as if these nations were financially constrained by (1) the magnitude of current tax "revenue" and (2) the private sector's willingness to "finance"...