Monetary economics after the global financial crisis: What has happened to the endogenous money theory?

Abstract

The 2010s have witnessed a new shift in central banking and, partially at least, in monetary economics and macroeconomic modelling. It is a fact that the endogenous money theory has been gradually clawing back popularity at the expense of the classical theory of interest rates, the financial intermediation view of banks, the money-multiplier story and the quantity theory of money. However, the loanable funds theory and the view of banks as pure financial intermediaries (sometimes coupled with the money-multiplier story) are still sometimes invoked. In addition, the dynamic process of creation, circulation and destruc-tion of money is usually neglected. The point is that money endogeneity is still regarded by many main-stream economists as a mere empirical fact, not a key feature of capitalist market-based economies to be properly explained by a logically consistent theory. By contrast, dissenting economists have further advanced the endogenous money view through: (a) a generalised theory of the endogenous process of money creation; (b) the increasing popularity of modern monetary theory in the public debate; and (c) the development of aggregative stock–flow consistent models and agent-based stock–flow consistent models as an alternative to dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models.