Debates in Monetary Macroeconomics

Steven Pressman is Adjunct Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research in New York, and Professor Emeritus of Economics and Finance at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. In addition, he serves as Associate Editor of the Review of Political Economy. For over two decades he served as Book Review Editor and Associate Editor of the Eastern Economic Journal as well as the Treasurer of the Eastern Economic Association, and has served as President of the Association for Social Economics. John Smithin is Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar at York University, Toronto, and Executive Co-Director and Fellow of the Aurora Philosophy Institute. He previously held teaching appointments at the University of Calgary, and Lanchester Polytechnic at Coventry (now Coventry University) in England. In the academic year 1995-96 he was elected Bye Fellow at Robinson College, Cambridge.

1. Introduction - Pressman and Smithin.- I. Budget.- 2. Keynes after Piketty: Some Unsettling Questions Regarding Government Budget Deficits - Steven Pressman.- 3. Some Unsettling Questions Regarding Government Budget Deficits: The National Debt is Irrelevant - David Barrows.- II. Trade.- 4. The Ambiguous Effects of Pursuing Current Account Surpluses - Nina Eichacker.- 5. Does a Current Account Deficit Indicate Bad Economic Policy? - William Scarth.- III. Taxes.- 6. How Taxes Can Be Used as a Deflationary Tool - Joelle Leclaire.- 7. What is the Sign of the Balanced-Budget Multiplier? - John Smithin.- IV. Exchange Rates.- 8. A Modern Defence of Flexible Exchange Rates and Monetary Policy Rules - Eric Kam and Mohammed Moshin.- 9. The Case for Fixed Exchange Rates Regimes: What For and in What Form? - Adrien Faudot.- V. Monetary Policy.- 10. Should the Implementation of Monetary Policy Be Subject to Rules? - Martin Watts and George Pantelopolous.- 11. Rules Are (Sometimes) Meant to Be Broken: Arguments in Favor of Discretionary Monetary Policy - Sarah F. Small.