Thursday, March 28, 2019

Brad DeLong — "Job Guarantee" vs. "Functional Finance"


Brad DeLong apparently missed the part about role of the job guarantee in mopping up residual unemployment after the implementation of fiscal policy based on functional finance and using automatic stabilization to maintain output close to an optimal level with respect to growth, full employment and price stability. This would be done using Godley-inspired SFC macro modeling rather than the conventional approach to econometrics.

I mention DeLong's criticism even though it is getting thinner and thinner since it is marginally serious. Most of the other criticism I see is complete nonsense. I don't have time to waste on nonsense, and I doubt you do either. If you want to know about the nonsense for some reason, set a Google alert for "MMT" and "Modern Monetary Theory." There's plenty of it.

Grasping Reality
"Job Guarantee" vs. "Functional Finance"
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

2 comments:

Jerry Brown said...

Yep. And Brad didn't seem to like having that part pointed out. Touched a nerve I guess. Oh well.

Magpie said...

@Jerome Brown

Brad didn't seem to like having that part pointed out. Touched a nerve I guess.

Don't focus on the negative or what we lost. Look at what we gained: at least we learned why Brad DeLong hates you. :-)