Although Keynesian economics has withstood repeated challenges and updated itself over the decades, it would be a mistake to conclude that it is sufficient for making sense of contemporary economic change. For that, we need to resurrect an alternative perspective on what money does and how it works.
CHICAGO – In Money and Empire, Perry Mehrling of Boston University recounts the remarkable moment, in 1965, when Congress summoned international monetary economist and historian Charles P. Kindleberger from MIT to testify on the troubling US balance-of-payments deficit. After World War II, the United States had persistently exported more than it imported. But by 1965, the reverse was true: West German goods were flooding the US domestic market, and Japanese imports were soon to follow. With dollars flowing overseas as payment for these imports, many had begun to ask if it was time to reform the post-war Bretton Woods international monetary system, which had pegged the US dollar directly to gold and tied other currencies more flexibly to the dollar.
CHICAGO – In Money and Empire, Perry Mehrling of Boston University recounts the remarkable moment, in 1965, when Congress summoned international monetary economist and historian Charles P. Kindleberger from MIT to testify on the troubling US balance-of-payments deficit. After World War II, the United States had persistently exported more than it imported. But by 1965, the reverse was true: West German goods were flooding the US domestic market, and Japanese imports were soon to follow. With dollars flowing overseas as payment for these imports, many had begun to ask if it was time to reform the post-war Bretton Woods international monetary system, which had pegged the US dollar directly to gold and tied other currencies more flexibly to the dollar.