The Weekend Quiz – September 29-30, 2018 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Travelling today … but we have videos, music and events

There will be no blog post today other than what follows. I am travelling to the US for The Second International Conference of Modern Monetary Theory in New York. I hope to see a lot of you there. From there I will be heading to Ireland, then London, then Lisbon, then London, then Frankfurt (and environs) for a sequence of speaking commitments. A full itinerary of public events is below. The quiz will still be available tomorrow but this is it until Monday, whence I will report on the MMT Conference (probably).

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MMT and the external sector – redux

This blog post is written for a workshop I am participating in Germany on Saturday, October 13, 2018. The panel I am part of is focusing on external trade and currency issues. In this post, I bring together the basic arguments I will be presenting. One of the issues that is often brought up in relation to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) relates to the foreign exchange markets and the external accounts of nations (particularly the Current Account). Even progressive-minded economists seem to reach an impasse when the question of whether a current account should be in surplus or deficit and if it is in deficit does this somehow constrains the capacity of currency-issuing governments to use its fiscal policy instruments (spending and taxation) to maintain full employment. in this post I address those issues and discuss nuances of the MMT perspective on the external sector.

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Exploring the effectiveness of social media – Part 3

This is the third addition in the ‘Exploring the effectiveness of social media’ series, which is reporting current research I am doing with Dr Louisa Connors, which seeks to understand how best to use social media to advance an awareness and understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We will be discussing some of this work at the The Second International Conference of Modern Monetary Theory (New York, September 28-30), that is, later this week. There is no doubt that social media (among other things) has played a major role in building a non-academic audience for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). But it is not yet clear to me that social media users who seek to advocate for MMT have fully understood the media they are using. I see counterproductive exercises regularly on Twitter, for example. There is a clear literature on effective use of social media and there is also a long literature on how to frame arguments to be persuasive. Calling someone on Twitter who disagrees with you a ‘fxxkwit’ or telling them they haven’t read the literature is probably not the best way to exploit what is a power tool for advancing our cause. This blog post extends the discussion about the strategic use of social media.

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Exploring the effectiveness of social media – Part 2

This is another addition in the ‘Exploring the effectiveness of social media’ series, which I last discussed in the blog post of the same name – Exploring the effectiveness of social media (September 5, 2018). This is current research I am doing with Dr Louisa Connors and we will discuss it at the The Second International Conference of Modern Monetary Theory (New York, September 28-30), that is, later this week. There is no doubt that social media (among other things) has played a major role in building a non-academic audience for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). As I noted in the previous blog post on this topic, it is not clear that MMT advocates fully utilise social media in a way that advances advocacy even though it is clear that advocacy is the intent of the social media activity. The earlier blog post examined some of the reasons why Twitter use for example might be counterproductive. This blog post extends the discussion about the strategic use of social media.

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The Weekend Quiz – September 22-23, 2018 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Understanding what the T in MMT involves

I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for some time, but a Tweet the other day reminded me that there was still major misunderstandings of what Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) represents and that it was time to clarify some of those errors in comprehension. Specifically, there is a current out there that considers MMT to be incorrectly labelled because according to the argument there is no theory involved. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would think that but the fact that they do tells me that I should write this blog post. As I noted yesterday, our Macroeconomics textbook to be published by Macmillan Palgrave in February 2019 is full of theory. It has a lot of description, taxonomy, accounting, history, and philosophy, but also a lot of theory that ties some of those other components together in a meaningful way. The T in MMT is not a misnomer. The Tweet I saw the other day also said there was nothing new in MMT so what’s with the modern bit! I have already dealt with that issue in the past.

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Economics curriculum is needed to work against selfishness and for altruism

It is Wednesday and so just some snippets. I have written about the behavioural impacts that studying mainstream economics, particularly the microeconomics component can have on students as they progress through their studies. I have observed sort of nice young people entering first-year and by later years, become arrogant, self-opinionated and delusional jerks. This phenomenon is particularly prominent if they go onto to do postgraduate level studies. It is well documented. The way mainstream economics is taught builds on anti-social attitudes that might already be present in students who choose to undertake this sort of training. The curriculum matters a lot. In that context, our next macroeconomics textbook (see below) will, in my view, actively work against any predisposition towards selfishness and against altruism, while still providing students with a first-class, technical education in how the monetary system operates.

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