Symposia
Sep 13, 2013
This seminar will explore the relationship between the theoretical and legal design of central banks and their real-world actions. Questions to be addressed include: What roles do central banks play according standard macroeconomic models? How accurate are these views? What role do legal mandates play in the formation of central bank policy? What does central bank independence mean in practice? How important is…
Sep 12, 2013
This seminar will examine the hierarchical power relationships generated and continuously affected by the legal and economic design of the monetary system. Questions to be addressed include: How have financial and legal technologies shaped our monetary system? How do different contemporary legal and economic views on money and the monetary economy relate to each other? What role should and/or does power play in…
Jun 23, 2013
A public debate on macroeconomic theory and policy with leading thinkers from Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the Austrian School.
May 31, 2013
This seminar explores a number of pressing macroeconomic issues, including federal budget, the national debt, and unemployment, from the perspective of the Australian economy. Questions to be addressed include: How much policy flexibility do small, open economies like Australia gain from having a sovereign currency, as compared to larger economies like the United States? How can small economies with floating exchange rates respond…
Mar 8, 2013
This seminar focuses on the social, political and economic justifications for securing a legal right to meaningful work and basic material wellbeing, as well as historical examples of direct public employment programs from various nations including the United States, Argentina and India. Questions to be addressed include: Should individuals have a legal right to work and/or basic material wellbeing? Can we afford…
Feb 26, 2013
This seminar will explore how financial sector innovation and regulatory structures affect inequality, macroeconomic fragility and white collar crime. Questions to be addressed include: What role does the financial sector play in a modern day economy? How does financial innovation fit into traditional boom-and-bust accounts of the business cycle? What role did fraud play in the global financial crisis? How can financial reform effectively…
Feb 8, 2013
This seminar examines the legal and operational relationship between central banks and treasury departments. Questions to be addressed include: Should fiscal and monetary policy be viewed separately from each other? Is central bank “independence” an obsolete concept? What are the political implications of recent unorthodox central banking practices such as Quantitative Easing (QE), Operation Twist and Interest-On-Excess-Reserves (IOER)? What role should central banks…
Jan 25, 2013
This seminar explores the relationship between money and the legal formation of the modern liberal capitalist state, with a particular emphasis on the pre-Revolutionary and early United States. In contrast to conventional economic narratives that cast money as lubrication for existing forms of exchange, this event highlights the legal and political origins of our modern monetary system, and traces the…
Jan 24, 2013
A conversation on Thursday, January 24th, 2013, with top leadership of SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), Greece’s leading opposition party, to discuss the challenges facing Greece and the Eurozone and SYRIZA’s vision for economic and financial reform.
2013 — 2015
The MMx initiative supports network participants and institutional affiliates to develop, organize, publicize and share local learning events, including seminars, debates, panels and reading groups.
2013 — 2014
Description This series examines the legal architecture underpinning monetary and financial systems in order to better understand the dynamic relationship between law, money and the economy. Rationale In 1930, John Maynard Keynes declared in A Treatise on Money that “[T]he age of chartalist or State money was reached when the State claimed the right to declare what thing should answer as money…
Nov 13, 2012
This seminar explores the intersection between the real and monetary (or nominal) economy. It addresses the relationship between money and economic growth, and explores popular misconceptions surrounding the “sustainability” of government deficits, national debt and trade deficits for developed and developing nations. Questions to be addressed include: Why does unemployment exist in a monetary economy? How does a nation’s developmental stage affect…