Neil Wilson — Scottish Independence Myths: the currency board

More neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism dressed up as "freedom."

Nice Mosler quote, too.

3spoken
Scottish Independence Myths: the currency board
Neil Wilson

John Weeks — Debt Default is a Solution, Not a Problem

All this leads to an obvious conclusion–debt default serves as the solution to an otherwise intractable problem, an unsustainable foreign depth. The problem is not default, the problem is the absence of an international mechanism to bring it about in an orderly manner. But the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has proposed such a mechanism, which I will discuss in another article.

TripleCrisis
Debt Default is a Solution, Not a Problem

John Weeks

Brian Romanchuk — Currency Regimes Matter If Policymakers Understand Them

In this article, Antonia Fatas argues that exchange rate regimes (like the euro) have limited power to explain differences of economic outcomes. It is based on an article by Andrew K. Rose, which looks at the currency regimes of smaller (mainly developing) economies during the global financial crisis.

Paul Krugman responded here, noting that bond yields only rose due debt concerns in the euro countries. From the point of view of the bond markets, that is a crucial point: a country that does not control the currency of its debt emissions is just another credit market borrower, and can end up facing prohibitive default risk premia.

Since his article illustrates that point well, I will discuss here the non-interest rate aspects of this debate. The currency regime is a critical component of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), and so this debate is very important for understanding MMT.

Bond Economics
Currency Regimes Matter If Policymakers Understand Them
Brian Romanchuk