Neil Wilson — The Limits of understanding of MMT

I've got a good amount of time for LK's blog. It is my 'goto' blog for good sense on many a topic. But I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed at the latest missive on foreign trade. It still has the usual straw men in it. I really don't understand why PK people can't get their head around the dynamics of floating rate exchange systems and still stick to fixed exchange analysis based around apparent Kaldorian views.

Bill has already debunked the Kaldorian points in his post of a few weeks ago.

I'll take the points in LKs post one at a time.

3spoken
The Limits of understanding of MMT
Neil Wilson

Andrew Black — Exchange Rate Regimes & Modern Monetary Theory

There have been heated discussions concerning the advantages and disadvantages of what is known as “Modern Monetary Theory”. This theory makes a number of claims, some of which appear unreasonable and impractical to Keynesian economists and others with an economic policy focus. The aim of this discussion paper is to throw more light on the nature of exchange rate relationships internationally. The reason for doing this is that MMT protagonists claim that many economic ills would be resolved if a country has its own currency, which can move freely against other currencies. To take a somewhat extreme proposition, MMT protagonists have argued that in the interests of securing full employment, deficit funding can be safely embarked upon through the government simply printing more money.[i] While this may be technically true for domestic savers and consumers, it overlooks the importance of foreign holders of domestic assets and bonds. If a high government deficit then causes difficulties for foreign owners of national assets, this is entirely manageable, they say, through a devaluation of the currency. As Palley put it, 

“All countries face inflation and financial sector stability constraints, but the US is essentially free of a foreign exchange market constraint. However, that constraint is very visible in many other countries, which explains their greater intuitive scepticism about MMT.” (Palley, 2015, p. 20.) 

The main aim of this short discussion paper is to clarify just what the predominate forms of exchange rate regimes are across the world. If the advantages claimed by proponents of MMT are/were so manifest, then it would be reasonable to expect that a free floating exchange rate regime would be the preferred option internationally. As shall be seen, this turns out not to be the case, and the number of countries with their own free floating currencies is a minority, and one that appears to be shrinking....

London Metropolitan Institute — Global Policy Institute
Exchange Rate Regimes & Modern Monetary Theory
Dr Andrew Black, GPI Opinion

ht Kristjan in the comments