Abstract
This concluding chapter summarizes the main arguments of What’s Wrong with Modern Money Theory? I argue that while I share many of the policy goals of MMT advocates, I have some significant concerns about the arguments and evidence for their proposals, and the likely feasibility and impacts of them, especially world-wide. To illustrate that better approaches do exist, I present an extended example of research PERI economists have done on an “employment targeted” macroeconomic policy for South Africa. I also briefly discuss work that PERI economists have done on programs to mitigate climate change. I discuss these in the spirit of promoting more programmatic discussions among progressive economists with similar policy goals.
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Notes
- 1.
As I argue in Chapter 6, MMT analysts do, of course, discuss financial regulations. In fact, some MMT advocates, including William Black, are experts and prolific writers on the topic. But in the context of their macroeconomic policy proposals, the discussion of financial regulation is quite limited. And where it exists, it focuses on regulating primarily banks, and not hedge funds and other “shadow banking” institutions. This is quite problematic in a world where these financial institutions have become so important in the global economy and to the state of financial stability.
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See, PERI’s program on Environmental and Energy Economics (https://www.peri.umass.edu/research-areas/environmental-andenergy-economics).
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Epstein, G.A. (2019). Conclusion: Contours of a Progressive Macroeconomic Policy. In: What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory?. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26504-5_8
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