Monetary aggregates are now much less used as policy instruments as identifying the right measure has become difficult and interest rate transmission has worked well in an increasingly complex financial system. In this process, little attention was paid to the potential spillover of excess liquidity. This paper suggests a notional level of "optimal" liquidity beyond which asset prices will start to rise faster than the GDP deflator, thereby creating a gap between the face value and the real purchasing value of financial assets and widen the wedge in income between those with capital stock and those living on salaries. Such divergence will eventually lead to an abrupt and disorderly adjustment of the asset value, with repercussions on the real sector.

The 2008 international crisis has revived the interest in Keynes’s theories and, in particular, on Minsky’s models of financial fragility. The core proposition of these theories is that money plays an essential role in modern economies, which is usually neglected in other approaches. This is Keynes’s liquidity preference theory, which is also the foundation for Minsky’s model, a theory that has been largely forgotten in recent years. This book looks at liquidity preference theory and its most important problems, showing how one should understand the role of money in modern monetary economies. It develops Keynes’s and Minsky’s financial view of money, relating it to the process of capital accumulation, the determination of effective demand and the theory of output, and employment as a whole. Building on the author’s significant body of work in the field, this book delves into a broad range of topics allowing the general reader to understand propositions that have been mistreated in the literature including Keynes and the concept of monetary production economy; uncertainty, expectations and money; short and long period; liquidity preference theory as a theory of asset pricing under uncertainty; asset prices and capital accumulation; Keynes’s version of the principle of effective demand; and the role of macroeconomic policy. It will be essential reading for all students and scholars of Post-Keynesian economics.

The global financial crisis has exposed the limitations of a conventional inflation targeting (IT) framework in insulating an economy from shocks, and demonstrated that its rigid application may aggravate the effect of shocks on output and inflation. Accordingly, we investigate possible refinements to the IT framework by incorporating financial stability considerations. We propose a small open economy DSGE model, calibrated for Korea during the period of 2003 - 07, with real and financial frictions. The findings indicate that incorporating financial stability considerations can help smooth business cycle fluctuations more effectively than a conventional IT framework.

Prominent economists reconsider the fundamentals of economic policy for a post-crisis world. In 2011, the International Monetary Fund invited prominent economists and economic policymakers to consider the brave new world of the post-crisis global economy. The result is a book that captures the state of macroeconomic thinking at a transformational moment. The crisis and the weak recovery that has followed raise fundamental questions concerning macroeconomics and economic policy. These top economists discuss future directions for monetary policy, fiscal policy, financial regulation, capital-account management, growth strategies, the international monetary system, and the economic models that should underpin thinking about critical policy choices. Contributors Olivier Blanchard, Ricardo Caballero, Charles Collyns, Arminio Fraga, Már Guðmundsson, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Otmar Issing, Olivier Jeanne, Rakesh Mohan, Maurice Obstfeld, José Antonio Ocampo, Guillermo Ortiz, Y. V. Reddy, Dani Rodrik, David Romer, Paul Romer, Andrew Sheng, Hyun Song Shin, Parthasarathi Shome, Robert Solow, Michael Spence, Joseph Stiglitz, Adair Turner

This textbook provides an introduction to modern monetary economics for advanced undergraduates, highlighting the lessons learned from the recent financial crisis. The book presents both the core New Keynesian model and recent advances, taking into account financial frictions, and discusses recent research on an intuitive level based on simple static and two-period models, but also prepares readers for an extension to a truly dynamic analysis. Further, it offers a systematic perspective on monetary policy, covering a wide range of models to help readers gain a better understanding of controversial issues. Part I examines the long-run perspective, addressing classical monetary policy issues such as determination of the price level and interaction between monetary and fiscal policy. Part II introduces the core New Keynesian model, characterizing optimal monetary policy to stabilize short-term shocks. It discusses rules vs. discretion and the challenges arising from control errors, imperfect information and robustness issues. It also analyzes optimal control in the presence of an effective lower bound. Part III focuses on modelling financial frictions. It identifies the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy via banking and introduces models with incomplete markets, principal-agent problems, maturity mismatch and leverage cycles, to show why investors’ and intermediaries’ own stakes play a key role in lending with pro-cyclical features. In addition, it presents a tractable model for handling liquidity management and demonstrates that the need to sell assets in crisis amplifies the volatility of the real economy. Lastly, the book discusses the relation between monetary policy and financial stability, addressing systemic risk and the role of macro-prudential regulation.