The outstanding economist Hyman Minsky was always skeptical of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty. It assumed, he wrote, that economic growth itself would be adequate to eliminate poverty. But Minsky believed that there were structural problems that always left too many people without jobs or with...

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...

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...

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...

From this paper's Preface, by Dr. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President: Twenty to 25 years ago, a debate was under way in academe and in the popular press over the War on Poverty (WOP). One group of scholars argued that the war, initiated by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, had been lost, owing to...

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...

In 1913 and 1914, A. Mitchell Innes published a pair of articles that stand as two of the best pieces written in the twentieth century on the nature of money. Only recently rediscovered, these articles are reprinted and analyzed here for the first time.

The focus of this paper is John Locke's theoretical defense of economic inequality. It is well known that Locke identified labor as the original and just foundation of property. Succinctly, Locke's was a labor theory of property. Now, while Locke saw private property as legitimate, he proposed...

This paper uses Minsky's definition of money as a two-sided balance sheet phenomenon to challenge many common positions on the nature, evolution and role of money. His definition is applied to two opposing theories in the history of monetary debates, and it is shown that the Chartalists (as...

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...