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 Modern Monetary Theory: Misconceptions, Real Limitations and Blind Spots. A Review of the Criticisms


Guillaume L'ŒILLET * Senior Lecturer, CNRS, CREM - UMR6211, University of Rennes 1. Contact: Guillaume.loeillet@univ-rennes1.fr.The author would like to thank Professor Jean-Jacques Durand for his careful review and valuable comments.

Since the great financial crisis, the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) rouses interests in political, media and academic area. In the ensuing Keynesian moment, the MMT has emerged from the confidentiality to advocate a permanent fiscal dominance in opposition to the consensus built toward a politically independent monetary policy. MMT has however been widely criticised by mainstream economists but also by the post-keynesian school from which it comes. The most vehement attacks to deny the scientific nature of the theory and to confine it to a political movement belonging to the left wing of the US democrats. More sophisticated critics tackle theorical foundation and empirical evidences of the MMT to contest their recommendations. This paper provides an overview of those critical points of view and contributes to the chorus of criticism by raising a failing political economy.

Since 2008, the major advanced economies have undergone a Keynesian shift in the implementation of their economic policies in response to the major shocks of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) between 2008 and 2010 and the Covid-19 pandemic since 2020. In the first case, governments sought to compensate for the sluggishness of private demand linked to high uncertainty and a massive deleveraging process by agents. In the second case, governments simply took over from private agents who were forced to partially interrupt their work because of the pandemic. In both cases, fiscal policy took a back seat to monetary policy as its effectiveness and role in responding to shocks appeared limited. This period has also brought on a more fundamental reconsideration of monetary policy consensus based on the relationship between money and inflation, as…