Those warning of “helicopter drops” of money by central bankers, as Ben Bernanke is often accused of doing in 2010, actually do not understand modern monetary operations. This post demonstrates that central bank operations generally are not helicopter drops, while fiscal operations in fact...

Develops a simple model of aggregate demand that explicitly incorporates the financial sector balances approach of Wynne Godley. Demonstrates how this can be used to understand the 1990s expansion and the recession beginning in late 2000s

Financial innovations have reduced banks' reserve holdings. Some argue the Fed's ability to set interest rates might be compromised. This concerns arises from a misunderstanding of Fed operations. Regardless of the quantity of reserve balances, the Fed can always set its federal funds rate...

It has long been recognized that uncompensated reserve balances act like a tax on banks and that banks as a result expend scarce resources to avoid holding them. The Fed itself has historically supported legislation to enable it to pay interest on reserve balances (e.g., Kohn 2003), as have...

At its core, there are two parts to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). The first is a description of how the monetary system actually works, mostly focusing upon interactions between the central bank, the treasury, and the financial system, though this part also requires a very thorough understanding...

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, policy makers in the U. S. and in other nations have reduced interest rates, expanded central bank balance sheets, increased deficits to levels generally not seen since World War II, and begun seriously rethinking financial...

Central to current policy debates regarding public pensions, the appropriate macroeconomic policy mix, and any number of other issues related to growth, development, poverty alleviation, and so forth, is the concept of fiscal sustainability. For neoclassical economists, fiscal sustainability is...