Without a Lender of Last Resort for government debt, multiple equilibria in bond markets may ensue where default emerges for non-fundamental reasons. The stabilising power of central bank interventions does not build on a real debt depreciation via inflation, but on a swap of bonds and central...

Mercantilist theories and policies in early capitalism have been criticized for confusing microeconomic and macroeconomic sources of wealth, for misunderstanding the benefits of free trade, and for overrating the role of money. This paper aims to reconstruct the rationality of mercantilism as an...

The current debate whether zero interest rates are caused by a saving glut or a liquidity glut is resolved by the distinction between the market and the natural rate, where saving affects only the latter variable, and monetary policy mainly the first. This topic is linked to a second one: the...

In recent years, various "unconventional" views have been advanced that promise to offer new analytical insights and policy approaches that are suited to control the value of money, particularly in a constellation of low growth and unemployment. Whereas Forward Guidance attempts to decrease the...