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Some commentators consider fractional reserve banking as a major vehicle for the expansion in the money supply growth rate. What is the nature of this vehicle? Fractional reserve banking arises because banks legally are permitted to use money placed with them in demand deposits. Banks treat this type of money as if it was loaned to them. However,

There is an emerging view held by many commentators that it is banks and not the central banks that are key for the expansion of money. This way of thinking is promoted these days by the followers of the Post Keynesian school of economics (PK). In a research paper by the Bank of England’s Zoltan Jakab and Michael Kurnhof , they suggest that In the

The view that more money can revive an economy is based on the belief that money transmits its stimulatory effect through aggregate expenditure. With more money in their pockets, people will be able to spend more and the rest will follow suit. Money, in this way of thinking, is a means of payment and funding. Money, however, is not a means of

The global economy is heading towards a “liquidity trap” that could undermine central banks’ efforts to avoid a future recession according to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England. In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times (January 8, 2020), the outgoing governor warned that central banks were running out of ammunition to combat

In the popular way of thinking, people are characterized as if a scale of preferences is hardwired in their heads. Regardless of anything else, this scale remains the same all the time. This thinking does not characterize human beings but robots. The humanoid robot chooses goods because the valuation scale has told him to. The valuation scale

In his January 10 interview on Bloomberg TV , former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers expressed concern that despite the aggressive lowering of interest rates by major central banks, economic activity does not appear to be responding. Summers suggested that something is not quite right. He is of the view that the Alvin Hansen’s secular

Mainstream thinking considers the central bank a key factor in the determination of interest rates. By setting short-term interest rates, the central bank, it is argued, can influence the entire interest rate structure by creating expectations about the future course of its interest rate policy . In this way of thinking, the long-term rate is an

In order to establish the state of the economy, economists employ various theories. Yet what are the criteria for how they decide whether the theory employed is helpful in ascertaining the facts of reality? According to the popular way of thinking, our knowledge of the world of economics is elusive — it is not possible to ascertain how the world

For most so-called practical economists, information regarding the state of an economy is derived from data. Thus, if an economic statistic such as real gross domestic product or industrial production shows a visible increase, it is considered indicative of a strengthening of the economy. Conversely, a decline in the growth rate is regarded as

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. In the midst of the emerging economic chaos triggered by the COVID-19 coronavirus, individuals are seeking answers from governments as to how to prevent the emerging economic disaster. Most economic experts are sympathetic to this and are urging the authorities to push massive injections of