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This article traces the pedigree of ideas and the personal and institutional connections that led us to collaborate with Alain Parguez, whose academic legacy we celebrate here by exploring the roots, the current relevance, and the future of his research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyze the coordinated global rate hikes of independent central banks in 2022 from the perspective of public policy making. We will discuss the probabilistic approach developed by Massimo Cingolani in order to both diagnose the current formulation of interest rate policy regarding inflation, and to discuss alternative ways of considering inflation and constructing public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we make an appeal for the incorporation of public banking into public discourse regarding the management of the U.S. economy. We argue that the history of post-Keynesian thinking shows a perennial interest in offering solutions to financial and economic problems that often involve the participation of the State. However, in more recent history, discussion has revolved around fiscal and monetary policy, with little consideration given to credit policy and the role of public banking. Basing our arguments on what we believe to be Keynes's most important lessons for the current crisis, we establish several forms in which public banks can confront the economic morass that the Too Big to Fail banks have created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many angles through which a critical observer can analyze the divergent class interests in most aspects of macroeconomic management. We examine the insistence of financial authorities of all major economies on reviving economic activity through monetary — and not fiscal — policy as a particularly clear example of favoring vested interests over the interests of the common man. Nearly a century after Thorstein Veblen wrote on the subject, one can find many parallel elements to the political landscape of the times. Today, the common man is often expressed by the “99%,” and many accept that the dominant vested interest is that of global banks. Unlike in Veblen’s times, economists today have many historical experiments in economic management that they can consult. By employing logic, historical experience, and an understanding of our current global finance-led capitalism, we offer a preliminary institutionalist analysis of the mechanisms of current monetary policy that “flood” Wall Street, while leaving employment, production, and investment — Main Street — all but forgotten. We then explain how vested interests have abandoned fiscal policy and left a deflationary macroeconomic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]