"Minsky Crisis"

Stability is destabilizing. These three words concisely capture the insight that underlies Hyman Minsky's analysis of the economy's transformation over the entire postwar period. The basic thesis is that the dynamic forces of a capitalist economy are explosive and must be contained by institutional ceilings and floors. However, to the extent that these constraints achieve some semblance of stability, they will change behavior in such a way that the ceiling will be breached in an unsustainable speculative boom. If the inevitable crash is "cushioned" by the institutional floors, the risky behavior that caused the boom will be rewarded. Another boom will build, and the crash that follows will again test the safety net. Over time, the crises become increasingly frequent and severe, until finally "it" (a great depression with a debt deflation) becomes possible. Policy must adapt as the economy is transformed. The problem with the stabilizing institutions that were put in place in the early postwar period is that they no longer served the economy well by the 1980s. Further, they had been purposely degraded and even in some cases dismantled, often in the erroneous belief that "free" markets are self-regulating. Hence, the economy evolved over the postwar period in a manner that made it much more fragile. Minsky continually formulated and advocated policy to deal with these new developments. Unfortunately, his warnings were largely ignored by the profession and by policymakers—until it was too late.Stability Is Destabilizing; Hyman Minsky; Money Manager Capitalism; Financial Instability Hypothesis; Global Financial Crisis; Self-Regulating Markets

"Financial Keynesianism and Market Instability"

In this paper I will follow Hyman Minsky in arguing that the postwar period has seen a slow transformation of the economy from a structure that could be characterized as "robust" to one that is "fragile." While many economists and policymakers have argued that "no one saw it coming," Minsky and his followers certainly did! While some of the details might have surprised Minsky, certainly the general contours of this crisis were foreseen by him a half century ago. I will focus on two main points: first, the past four decades have seen the return of "finance capitalism"; and second, the collapse that began two years ago is a classic "Fisher-Minsky" debt deflation. The appropriate way to analyze this transformation and collapse is from the perspective of what Minsky called "financial Keynesianism"—a label he preferred over Post Keynesian because it emphasized the financial nature of the capitalist economy he analyzed.Hyman Minsky, Fisher-Minsky Debt Deflation, Hilferding, Finance Capitalism, Money Manager Capitalism, Financial Keynesian

"Keynes's Approach To Money: An Assessment After 70 Years"

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 "finance motive" or the "horizontal" money supply curve adopt similar methodology. The second approach of the GT is presented in Chapter 17, where Keynes drops "money supply and demand" in favor of a liquidity preference approach to asset prices that offers a more satisfactory treatment of money's role in constraining effective demand. In the penultimate section, I return to Keynes's earlier work in the Treatise on Money (TOM), as well as the early drafts of the GT, to obtain a better understanding of the nature of money. I conclude with policy implications.

"The Continuing Legacy of John Maynard Keynes"

This working paper examines the legacy of Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the publication of Keynes’s masterpiece and the 60th anniversary of his death. The paper incorporates some of the latest research by prominent followers of Keynes, presented at the 9th International Post Keynesian Conference in September 2006, and integrates this with other work that has come out of the Keynesian tradition since the 1940s. It is argued that Keynes’s contributions still provide important guidance for real-world policy formation.

"Modern Money"

All modern economies have a "chartalist" or "state" money, as acknowledged by Friedrich Knapp and J. M. Keynes. In this paper, I examine the "history" of money to shed light on its origins. I also examine in detail the views of those who accepted the chartalist, or state, approach to money, from Adam Smith to Knapp and Keynes, with some discussion of the views of Hyman Minsky and Abba Lerner. This is then linked to Lerner's "functional finance" approach to money and government spending. I next explore the implications of "modern money" for government policy and show that much economic analysis reaches erroneous conclusions because it fails to recognize the nature of modern money. The state "defines" money when it chooses that in which taxes must be paid. Government spending is the most important determinant of the supply of base money; government deficits are the most important source of net money holdings. This stands in stark contrast to traditional analysis, for fiscal policy is the primary determinant of the money supply and monetary policy determines the short-term interest rate. Because government deficits increase bank reserves, monetary policy is required to offer an interest-earning alternative to excess reserves; essentially, monetary policy consists of sales of government bonds (by the Treasury and central bank) to "drain" excess reserves in order to hit the interest rate target established for monetary policy. Thus, bond sales are not a part of fiscal policy nor are they needed to "finance" government deficits. This analysis leads to several interesting policy conclusions regarding the importance of government deficits and debts and regarding proposals to promote full employment.

"The Emperor Has No Clothes: President Clinton's Proposed Social Security Reform"

If you were to write yourself IOUs to provide for your retirement and put them in a safety deposit box, would you rest comfortably, assured that you would be able to purchase all the necessities of life in 2020? Well, President Clinton's is even worse.

"Surplus Mania: A Reality Check"

A federal government surplus has finally been achieved, and it has been met with pronouncements that it is a great gift for the future and with arguments about what to do with it. However, the surplus will be short-lived, it will depress economic growth, and, in any case, surpluses cannot be "used" for anything.

"Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis"

This paper applies Hyman Minsky's approach to provide an analysis of the causes of the global financial crisis. Rather than finding the origins in recent developments, this paper links the crisis to the long-term transformation of the economy from a robust financial structure in the 1950s to the fragile one that existed at the beginning of this crisis in 2007. As Minsky said, "Stability is destabilizing": the relative stability of the economy in the early postwar period encouraged this transformation of the economy. Today's crisis is rooted in what he called "money manager capitalism," the current stage of capitalism dominated by highly leveraged funds seeking maximum returns in an environment that systematically under-prices risk. With little regulation or supervision of financial institutions, money managers have concocted increasingly esoteric instruments that quickly spread around the world. Those playing along are rewarded with high returns because highly leveraged funding drives up prices for the underlying assets. Since each subsequent bust wipes out only a portion of the managed money, a new boom inevitably rises. Perhaps this will prove to be the end of this stage of capitalism--the money manager phase. Of course, it is too early even to speculate on the form capitalism will take. I will only briefly outline some policy implications.