Category Archives: The dismal science

Why We Need New Measures of Potential Output—and What They Tell Us

Economists and policy makers are waking up to the fact that estimates of what is possible in the economy – “potential output” – are way off: this paper explains why.

ZEN and the Art of Modern Money, Part 3 (MMT)

More MMT for people in a hurry.

The Roots of Health Inequality and the Value of Intra-Family Expertise

Having doctors in the family is good for your healh. Who’d have thunk it?

All Eyes on the Fed

The latest round of debate on what the Fed might do down the road.

ZEN and the Art of Modern Money (MMT)

Working through a primer on MMT.

Antitrust in American History: Law, Institutions, and Economic Performance

The Chicago School’s weakening of antitrust law hurt the economy

How Far Can We Push Fiscal Spending in Light of MMT? Some Optimistic Reflections on the Potential For Economic Experimentation

Estimating where MMT’s inflation constraint on fiscal spending kicks in.

Promotions and the Peter Principle

The Peter Principle lives!

Greening Monetary Policy

Monetary policy favors carbon-intensive industries. Time to stop doing that.

MMT, Models, Multidisciplinarity

Pavlina Tcherneva does the heavy lifting of debunking an off-the-mark attack on MMT by Noah Smith.

Bill Black: Tom Friedman Just Noticed that the UK “Has Gone Mad”

Bill Black uses Tom Friedman’s recognition just this week that Brexit is a mess as the foundation of a detailed takedown of Friedman’s propaganda, um, views.

The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: A New “Reality Economics” Curriculum Is Needed (Part 4)

How mainstream economics ignores the lessons from antiquity on the destructiveness of oligachies, and how early industrialists and business schools promoted anti-rentier, socialit policies.

The Media Endlessly Talks About Interest Rates—Are They Even an Effective Economic Tool at This Point?

Interest rates are a poor substitute for fiscal spending and as we’ve seen, over-reliance on monetary policy produces speculative booms and busts. More and more people recognize this formula isn’t working, but what will it take to change course?