Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Replicating MMT In A Neoclassical Framework? — Brian Romanchuk

One of the standard criticisms raised by many neoclassical economists is that there is nothing new to MMT. Given that neoclassical economists and MMT proponents have been arguing loudly online for over a decade, it seems hard to support the view that MMT is a subset of neoclassical economics. (Another weak point in the argument is that the person making it rarely has read any MMT academic work, so the critic is not exactly sure what features are part of neoclassical economics.)
A slightly less adversarial stance taken is that MMT insights can be replicated by adapting neoclassical methods. I think the answer to that question is: yes and no. Although it seems possible to get parallel results to parts of “narrow MMT,” but the integration with broad MMT does not appear to be possible. This is more plausible, and the subject of discussion here.
(Note: This is an unedited draft section of my MMT primer. It is part of a chapter discussing common critiques of MMT.)
Bond Economics
Replicating MMT In A Neoclassical Framework?
Brian Romanchuk

1 comment:

NeilW said...

You can of course take a neoclassical agent based model that claims to replicate the findings of neoclassical economics. Then you can find the obvious flaw in the design, then you can add a Job Guarantee to it.

Somebody might be doing that...