Monthly Archives: November 2017

New Book: Advances In Endogenous Money Analysis

There’s a nice new book titled, Advances In Endogenous Money Analysis, edited by Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi.

There’s a great chapter on Nicholas Kaldor’s views on money over the years by John E. King and another by Marc Lavoie titled, Assessing Some Structuralist Claims Through A Coherent
Stock–Flow Framework. John E. King also discusses the importance of fiscal policy in Kaldor’s work:

Kaldor continued to insist on the importance of fiscal policy. The first point in his ‘constructive programme of recovery’ from the world stagflationary crisis of the early 1980s was international agreement on ‘coordinated fiscal action including a set of consistent balance of payments targets and “full employment” budgets’ (Kaldor, 1996, pp. 86, 87). Existing budget deficits, he maintained, were

largely the consequence of the low level of activity. On a ‘full employment’ basis they would show a highly restrictive picture – they would show surpluses and not deficits. Contrary to appearances, the requirement of stability is for expansionary budgets – with lower taxes and higher expenditure, and not further fiscal restriction (as is advocated, for example, by M. de Larosiere of the International Monetary Fund). (Ibid., p. 87)

International coordination was critical to the success of this strategy. Trade liberalization was not consistent with full employment: ‘under conditions of unrestricted free trade the actual volume of production and trade may in fact be considerably less than under some system of regulated trade’ (ibid., italics in the original).