Blog - Philosophy of Money

If you don’t like trade deficits – tax the rich?

12th April 2018

Austerity, Economic History, Money in Europe, Theory & Other Problems

Has the word ‘deficit’ done more damage than any other in economics? Deficits are bad, surpluses are good. In economics, nothing could be further from the truth. How can there be virtue, if every virtuous act r...

CNBC: market sell-off is ‘noise’

Eric Lonergan

17th February 2018

Media, Press

link to video...

Values in economics

Eric Lonergan

21st January 2018

Theory & Other Problems

1

A philosophical aside I feel obliged to declare my biases up front. I've spent almost as much time studying moral philosophy as economic theory. Somewhat ironically, I decided to study economics after I had re...

r* and the range of irrelevance

Eric Lonergan

29th December 2017

Definitions of Money, Economic History, Finance & Asset Pricing, Monetary Policy

5

Despite the fact that interest rates determine all asset valuations, there is nothing close to a general theory of interest rate determination. The rule of thumb when I started working in financial markets was ...

Safe asset issuance & the discovery of oil

Eric Lonergan

17th December 2017

Finance & Asset Pricing

(with guest author, Tristan Hanson) Last month, we made a proposal for a sovereign wealth fund (‘SWF’). It triggered a substantial debate. How would it operate in practice? Are we trying to fund investment o...

Rethinking Brexit, via Kilkenny & Oxford

Eric Lonergan

12th November 2017

Economic History, Money in Europe, Sample Of One

3

Mark Blyth and I have been arguing that nationalism is a global virus, filling the vacuum created by the erosion of political identity under neo-liberalism. The Cold War era now appears, almost nostalgically, a...

MMT part III – conclusion, and a conversation with Ben Bernanke

Eric Lonergan

20th October 2017

Definitions of Money, Economic History, Monetary Policy, Theory & Other Problems

22

My last two blogs have revisited the issue of whether or not base money is a liability of the state. The issue played a central role in a discussion over the future of monetary policy at the Brussels think-tank...

MMT part II: a synthesis, an olive branch, and a defence of Twitter

Eric Lonergan

11th October 2017

Definitions of Money, Economic History, Monetary Policy, Theory & Other Problems

26

This is a short follow-up to my previous post, ‘MMT - sophistry or substance?’, and Simon Wren-Lewis’s ‘Why is MMT so popular?'. Summarising, I suggest the two defining characteristics of MMT are: (1) a theo...

MMT: school of thought or set of personalities?

Eric Lonergan

7th October 2017

Definitions of Money, Economic History, Monetary Policy, Theory & Other Problems

28

MMT revisited Simon Wren-Lewis’s recent post on why MMT is so popular makes a number of important points. The Twitter response to Simon’s post was fairly representative - to its credit, MMT has a committed c...

Raising rates is a stimulus

Eric Lonergan

4th October 2017

Helicopter Money, Monetary Policy, Theory & Other Problems

There are two broad categories of monetary policy instrument: 1) measures which are aimed at influencing market interest rates, and 2) transfers from the central bank to the private sector. ‘Conventional’ m...

If you don’t like trade deficits – tax the rich?

CNBC: market sell-off is ‘noise’

Values in economics

r* and the range of irrelevance

Safe asset issuance & the discovery of oil

Rethinking Brexit, via Kilkenny & Oxford

MMT part III – conclusion, and a conversation with Ben Bernanke

MMT part II: a synthesis, an olive branch, and a defence of Twitter

MMT: school of thought or set of personalities?

Raising rates is a stimulus

Reviews of Eric’s book

CNBC: market sell-off is ‘noise’

Monetary policy & babysitting: why rates are so low, and ‘what’s next?’