Is a different type of economics the answer? — Stephen Hail

The rest of the media is catching on to the fact that there is a paradigm shift underway in economics.

This won’t be a surprise to you if you are a regular reader of Independent Australia. I’ve writtenabout two dozen articles on the main challenger to the old paradigm, which is modern monetary theory (MMT). Others have also written on this topic for IA. If you’ve been relying for news and current affairs on the usual suspects, however, the current controversy might have crept up on you.

For the most part, the rest of the media has been asleep on this one, even if they are latterly waking up.

There are more and more mentions of MMT in the mainstream media, and an increasing number of whole articles which are partly, if not entirely, supportive of this new frame for thinking about the economy and the role of the federal government within the economy.

Why the sudden interest? It is becoming clear to all but the most blinkered that was for many years the near-consensus view on the best way of managing the economy is broken. It certainly doesn’t work any longer and perhaps it could only ever work for a while because it depended on things which are unsustainable. What is unsustainable, naturally, tends not to be sustained....

Independent Australia
Is a different type of economics the answer?

Stephen Hail | Lecturer in Economics, University of Adelaide