Monday, January 2, 2012

Randy Wray weighs in the MMT JG


Read it at New Economic Perspectives
MMP Blog #30: What is Modern Money Theory?
by L Randall Wray

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3 comments:

Chewitup said...

I like Cullen's piece today where he cites Scott Fullwiler.
“where MMT or Neochartalism go is not up to Bill or any other specific person, as the Keynesians proved.

By putting MMT out into the blog world and getting our wish of having a following, the consequence is that we don’t have control over the path it takes. We can do research and hope it influences that path, but it’s no longer ours exclusively. We could have kept tighter control if we had chosen to continue to work on the fringes and remain almost completely unknown.

So, going forward, and perhaps even now, whether the JG is required part of MMT is not for us to decide, even as it certainly is central to previous academic MMT literature. Such are the costs of gaining popularity and having others jump on board. I personally prefer this reality to the alternative path of remaining obscure.”

January 2, 2012 9:01 AM
John Zelnicker said...

Tom -- Randy mentions the JG in this piece but then says he will discuss it later. The focus seems to be on the origin of the term "Modern Monetary Theory". The post has useful and important information, but doesn't mention the JG after the introductory paragraphs. Did you mean to link to another post of Randy's?

January 2, 2012 10:03 AM
Tom Hickey said...

John, Randy is setting this up, I believe, as an explanation of MMT as as whole and how the JG fits into that whole as an integral piece. That why I wrote "MMT JG" in the title to this post.

The present discussion has brought out more clearly how MMT is a comprehensive macro theory that needs the JG to reach a unique solution to the main thrust of macro, that is, optimizing production, employment and price stability. MMT economists assert that the JG is integral to their contribution toward this.

Bill Mitchell explained it in a recent post, and I assume that Randy is going to elaborate on that, so the first post will be a prerequisite to what comes after. I'll put the next one up when Randy posts it.

BTW, Randy worked this up in Understanding Modern Money (1998), so its been out there from the beginning. Apparently a lot of people missed it, so I would guess that Randy will essentially summarize what he wrote at that time, maybe adding some detail that wasn't there, too.

January 2, 2012 11:26 AM

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