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.

An overview of recent theoretical and policy-related developments in monetary economics.

Modern Monetary Theory and Practice: An Introductory Text is an introductory textbook for university-level macroeconomics students. It is based on the principles of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and includes the following detailed chapters:Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: How to Think and Do MacroeconomicsChapter 3: A Brief Overview of the Economic History and the Rise of CapitalismChapter 4: The System of National Income and Product AccountsChapter 5: Sectoral Accounting and the Flow of FundsChapter 6: Introduction to Sovereign Currency: The Government and its MoneyChapter 7: The Real Expenditure ModelChapter 8: Introduction to Aggregate SupplyChapter 9: Labour Market Concepts and MeasurementChapter 10: Money and BankingChapter 11: Unemployment and InflationChapter 12: Full Employment PolicyChapter 13: Introduction to Monetary and Fiscal Policy OperationsChapter 14: Fiscal Policy in Sovereign nationsChapter 15: Monetary Policy in Sovereign NationsIt is intended as an introductory course in macroeconomics and the narrative is accessible to students of all backgrounds. All mathematical and advanced material appears in separate Appendices.

Central Bank Policy: Theory and Practice analyses various policies, theories and practices adopted by central banks, as well as the institutional arrangements underlying the principles of good governance in policy-making. It is the first book to comprehensively discuss the latest theories and practices of central bank policy.

Alan S. Blinder offers the dual perspective of a leading academic macroeconomist who served a stint as Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board—one who practiced what he had long preached and then returned to academia to write about it. He tells central bankers how they might better incorporate academic knowledge and thinking into the conduct of monetary policy, and he tells scholars how they might reorient their research to be more attuned to reality and thus more useful to central bankers. Based on the 1996 Lionel Robbins Lectures, this readable book deals succinctly, in a nontechnical manner, with a wide variety of issues in monetary policy. The book also includes the author's suggested solution to an age-old problem in monetary theory: what it means for monetary policy to be "neutral."

Concepts -- Issues -- Interdependence -- Fiscal policy -- Monetary policy -- Financial stability -- International financial integration and foreign-exchange policy -- Tax policy -- Growth policies