This book aims to provide a new framework of economic analysis for understanding and predicting how the economy works in the real world. It does this by re-examining the implicit and explicit foundational assumptions, and inherent contradictions of the standard paradigm.

This groundbreaking new core textbook encourages students to take a more critical approach to the prevalent assumptions around the subject of macroeconomics, by comparing and contrasting heterodox and orthodox approaches to theory and policy. The first such textbook to develop a heterodox model from the ground up, it is based on the principles of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) as derived from the theories of Keynes, Kalecki, Veblen, Marx, and Minsky, amongst others. The internationally-respected author team offer appropriate fiscal and monetary policy recommendations, explaining how the poor economic performance of most of the wealthy capitalist countries over recent decades could have been avoided, and delivering a well-reasoned practical and philosophical argument for the heterodox MMT approach being advocated. The book is suitable for both introductory and intermediate courses, offering a thorough overview of the basics and valuable historical context, while covering everything needed for more advanced courses. Issues are explained conceptually, with the more technical, mathematical material in chapter appendices, offering greater flexibility of use.

Modern mainstream economics is attracting an increasing number of critics of its high degree of abstraction and lack of relevance to economic reality. Economists are calling for a better reflection of the reality of imperfect information, the role of banks and credit markets, the mechanisms of economic growth, the role of institutions and the possibility that markets may not clear. While it is one thing to find flaws in current mainstream economics, it is another to offer an alternative paradigm which, can explain as much as the old, but can also account for the many 'anomalies'. That is what this book attempts. Since one of the biggest empirical challenges to the 'old' paradigm has been raised by the second largest economy in the world - Japan - this book puts the proposed 'new paradigm' to the severe test of the Japanese macroeconomic reality.

Leading economists including Ed Nell and Heinz Kurz have joined forces in this volume with internationally respected Japanese scholars to produce a strong collection of contributions to the debate on Keynes' monumental legacy.

This book shows that macroeconomics is logically independent of microeconomics and that it is fundamental to economic analysis and lends further support to the claim for the macroeconomic foundations of macroeconomics.

Since the appearance of macroeconomics in the 1940s, economists have created many theoretical frameworks to explain the origin and mechanism of economic fluctuations. However, few of these have managed to gain explanatory power over reality; nor can they solve real-life problems. This book proposes a new macroeconomic paradigm that makes breakthroughs in these areas. Based on a balance sheet approach and macro-financial linkage analysis, this book carries out a comprehensive analysis of the trends within China’s macroeconomy in 2020. The author argues that the COVID-19 pandemic created a great degree of uncertainty—therefore, supply-side structural reform and improved total factor productivity have been promoted to ensure a policy of steady growth. Given the declining economic growth rate in percentage terms, China has needed to adapt to a moderate increase in the leverage ratio while applying more effective fiscal policies to achieve a dynamic balance between stable growth and risk prevention. Scholars and students of economics and finance, especially Chinese economics, will find this book a useful reference.

This lively introduction to heterodox economics provides a balanced critique of the standard introductory macroeconomic curriculum. In clear and accessible prose, it explains many of the key principles that underlie a variety of alternative theoretical perspectives (including institutionalist economics, radical economics, Post Keynesian economics, feminist economics, ecological economics, Marxist economics, social economics, and socioeconomics). Because the book's structure parallels the chapters and subject matter presented in a typical introductory macroeconomics textbook, "Reintroducing Macroeconomics" provides readers with a running commentary on the standard approach, while simultaneously introducing them to a broader range of ideas about the causes and appropriate policy responses to a wide range of common economic problems. Although designed primarily as a companion volume for students in introductory economics courses, the book can also be used effectively for more targeted applications that highlight a particular economic issue or approach. It will be of particular interest to students in related disciplines (such as American Studies, anthropology, black studies, environmental studies, gender studies, history, political science, and sociology) who may be required to take introductory economics classes and who are interested in gaining an alternative perspective. By demonstrating the vitality and common ground underlying a broad spectrum of heterodox approaches, "Reintroducing Macroeconomics" brings alternative perspectives into the classroom in an accessible way that empowers students to think about the economy in new and exciting ways. The text includes end-of-chapter study questions, as well as a detailed note to instructors.

Modern macroeconomics has been based on the paradigm of the rational individual capable of understanding the complexity of the world. This has created a very shallow theory of the business cycle in which nothing happens in the macroeconomy unless shocks occur from outside. Behavioural Macroeconomics: Theory and Policy uses a different paradigm. It assumes that individual agents experience cognitive limitations preventing them from having rational expectations. Instead these individuals use simple rules of behaviour. Behavioural Macroeconomics introduces rationality by allowing individuals to learn from their mistakes and to switch to the rules that perform better. It introduces the idea of endogenously generated "animals spirits" that drive the business cycle and are in turn influenced by it, and applies this model to shed new light on a number of important issues. It analyses the role of fiscal policy in stabilizing the economy while maintaining debt sustainability; expands the model to include a banking sector and show how banks amplify the booms and busts; and explains how animal spirits help to synchronize the business cycles across countries. The model set out in Behavioural Macroeconomics leads to very different policy implications from the mainstream macroeconomic model. It shows how policymakers have a responsibility to stabilize an otherwise unstable system.

The aim of Bernard Schmitt’s analysis of the monetary economy of production was twofold: to introduce and to explain the logical character of the macroeconomic laws governing our economies and to explain the origin of the pathologies that follow if these laws are not complied with. Schmitt’s main original contributions concern the theories of value, profit, and capital, as well as his explanation of inflation, unemployment and international payments, unified as quantum macroeconomic analysis. This book expounds on the key principles of quantum macroeconomic analysis as he conceived and developed them. Schmitt’s starting point was the analysis of bank money and the way it is associated with produced output. His macroeconomics was not founded on microeconomics nor derived from the aggregation of microeconomic variables. Schmitt’s theory does not rely on mathematics and modelling either; instead, it is based on logical laws derived from the nature of money and monetary payments. Part I of this book deals with the quantum macroeconomic analysis of capitalism and its pathologies developed by Schmitt and provides the elements necessary to understand its ‘structural’ mechanism. Parts II and III deal with the principles of two reforms that enable the passage from capitalism to post-capitalism and from the present non-system of international payments to an orderly system. This book provides essential reading for all those interested in heterodox approaches to macroeconomics, monetary economics, banking, international economics, and the history of economic thought.

Quantum Macroeconomics presents a new paradigm in macroeconomic analysis initiated by Bernard Schmitt. It explains the historical origin, the analytical contents, and the actual relevance of this new paradigm, with respect to current major economic issues at national and international level. These issues concern both advanced and emerging market economies, referring to inflation, unemployment, financial instability, and economic crises. In the first part of this volume, leading scholars explain the historical origin and analytical content of quantum macroeconomics. The second part explores its relevance with respect to the current major economic issues such as the sovereign debt crisis and European monetary union. The volume also features two previously unpublished papers by Bernard Schmitt. The main findings of this book concern the need to go beyond agents’ behaviour to understand the structural origin of a variety of macroeconomic problems, notably, inflation, unemployment, financial instability, and economic crises. The originality that pervades all contributions is plain, when one considers the lack of any structural explanation of national and international economic disorders in the literature within the mainstream approach to economics. This edited volume is of great interest to those who study macroeconomics, monetary economics and money and banking.