MMT Follow-up: A Framework for Money, Inflation, and Debt

Tags The FedFinancial MarketsMonetary Policy

08/14/2020Robert P. Murphy

As a follow-up to his discussion on MMT with Rohan Grey (in ep. 130), Bob goes solo to explain the basic cash balance framework for thinking about money, inflation, and debt. Specifically, Bob will explain why he thinks it's far more important to know how the government finances a deficit rather than knowing what it spends the money on.

Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:

BMS ep. 130 with Rohan Grey.
Bob’s infamous inflation bet: response to Krugman/DeLong and his explanation years later for reason.com.
Rothbard’s critique of the “equation of exchange,” MV=PQ.
Bob’s QJAE article on the economics of fractional reserve banking.

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Contact Robert P. Murphy

Robert P. Murphy is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute. He is the author of many books. His latest is Contra Krugman: Smashing the Errors of America's Most Famous Keynesian. His other works include Chaos Theory, Lessons for the Young Economist, and Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action (Independent Institute, 2015) which is a modern distillation of the essentials of Mises's thought for the layperson. Murphy is cohost, with Tom Woods, of the popular podcast Contra Krugman, which is a weekly refutation of Paul Krugman's New York Times column. He is also host of The Bob Murphy Show.