Positive Money

This paper presents an overview of different models which explain financial crises, with the aim of understanding economic developments during and possibly after the Great Recession. In the first part approaches based on efficient markets and rational expectations hypotheses are analyzed, which however do not give any explanation for the occurrence of financial crises and thus cannot suggest any remedies for the present situation. A broad range of theoretical approaches analyzing financial crises from a medium term perspective is then discussed. Within this group we focused on the insights of Marx, Schumpeter, Wicksell, Hayek, Fisher, Keynes, Minsky, and Kindleberger. Subsequently the contributions of the Regulation School, the approach of Social Structures of Accumulation and Post-Keynesian approach, which focus on long-term developments and regime shifts in capitalist development, are presented. International approaches to finance and financial crises are integrated into the analyses. We address the issue of relevance of all these theories for the present crisis and draw some policy implications. The paper has the aim to find out to which extent the different approaches are able to explain the Great Recession, what visions they develop about future development of capitalism and to which extent these different approaches can be synthesized.

En trente ans, la finance est devenue toute-puissante. Pas un jour sans connaître les mouvements du FTSE ou du NASDAQ, pas une semaine sans analyse du change, pas un mois sans fermeture d’usine, pas un an sans inquiétude sur la dette publique, pas une décennie sans une crise financière. Le bilan macroéconomique de nos économies occidentales est peu glorieux : une croissance molle, des investissements atones, un chômage endémique, des inégalités croissantes. Le constat est sans appel : les politiques libérales ont déréglementé la finance, et la banque, qui accompagnait autrefois l’industrie dans ses investissements à long terme, lui fait aujourd’hui obstacle. La créativité des financiers s’est substituée à celle des entrepreneurs. Il est urgent de remettre la finance à sa place : ce n’est pas à l’économie d’obéir à la finance, mais à la finance de servir l’économie. Un ouvrage qui décrypte trente ans de financiarisation de l’économie, propose un examen détaillé de l’articulation entreprise/ finance et avance des propositions – analysées et commentées par Michel Aglietta – pour mieux penser l’économie réelle.

This report presents the results of the “Financial Mechanisms for Innovative Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystems” project, designed to foster a better understanding of the different ways in which financial resources can be made available and accessed to support the growth of social and solidarity economy (SSE) organizations and their ecosystems. The project is supported by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social and Solidarity Economy of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

In order to describe the global structure of the monetary and financial system and its effects on the global economy, most economics textbooks rely on unappropriated theories that provide nothing but outdated descriptions. In this talk, key speakers in economics, economic history and banking try to make this complex system a little more understandable by relying on real-world insights.