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This thought-provoking book clearly and systematically analyses the post-Keynesian approaches to endogenous money and, in doing so, provides an informed critique of the development of post-Keynesian economics. Using a horizontalist perspective the author offers an historical overview of the post-Keynesian and circuit approaches to endogenous money, starting with a comprehensive survey of the Franco-Italian circuit school. He argues that rather than emphasizing the early writings of Minsky, Kaldor and Tobin in the 1950s and of Davidson and Rousseas later, post-Keynesians ought to have followed the writings of Joan Robinson and Richard Kahn who offered far better theories of credit-money. The author then compares the current post-Keynesian structuralist theory with New Keynesian monetary thought. In conclusion, he develops an innovative theory of banking based on Keynesian uncertainty and consistent with the horizontalist tradition taking into account credit restraints, crunches and creditworthiness. This book will be illuminating to scholars of post-Keynesian economics, macroeconomics, and history of economic thought

This Essay explains why the Supreme Court's economic reasoning in its recent Ohio v. American Express Co. ("Amex") decision is wrong. The Amex case involved the use of what are called "antisteering" restraints in which a retailer is not allowed to use a variety of tactics to steer a consumer away from using an American Express ("Amex") card and toward using another payment mechanism. The reason why a merchant might want to do this is because the cost that the merchant incurs when a customer uses an Amex card can be higher than the cost that the merchant incurs when the customer uses either another credit card, debit card, or cash. Although not challenged in the Amex case, the Amex contractual rules also prevent a retailer from imposing a surcharge on customers who use an Amex card to reflect the higher merchant cost. It is interesting to note that some countries—such as Australia—have regulated certain credit card fees, others have forbidden credit card companies from telling merchants that they cannot surcharge, and some states in the United States—such as New York—have forbidden merchants from surcharging. Restraints on surcharging or steering are examples of restraints that Ralph Winter and I call "vertical most-favored-nation restraints," ("vMFN") in which one supplier tells a retailer that the retailer cannot set the retail price of its product higher than that of a rival, even if its wholesale price is higher than that of its rival. Such restraints have been the subject of some litigation already, but I expect that with the increasing use of web based platforms where such restraints are often used, litigation regarding such restraints will increase. This Article illustrates the underlying economic logic behind the anticompetitive effect of vMFNs. I then apply the reasoning to credit cards and finally, using the economic framework developed, explain the economic errors in the Court's Amex decision. For a more detailed discussion, please see the Carlton and Winter paper referenced herein.

The weakness of credit growth in the United States and Europe has given rise to concerns that the financial crisis has led to a credit crunch which has deepened the recession in the real economy and poses a serious threat to the recovery that seems to have started in the most recent months. In this contribution we find that so far the development of credit aggregates and interest rates for loans does not provide strong evidence for a supply restraint that goes beyond hat could be expected given the deterioration of the quality of borrowers against the background of the exceptionally severe economic downturn. Still, the behaviour of interest rate spreads in the United States does indicate that the effectiveness of monetary policy is reduced for the time being as a result of distress in the financial sector, and we see some risks that inappropriate bank capitalization may restrain credit growth and threaten the current recovery, especially in Germany where core capital is low by international standards. Policy measures to avoid a credit crunch should focus on preventing undercapitalization of banks from becoming a serious limitation to credit growth.

The weakness of credit growth in the United States and Europe has given rise to concerns that the financial crisis has led to a credit crunch which has deepened the recession in the real economy and poses a serious threat to the recovery that seems to have started in the most recent months. In this contribution we find that so far the development of credit aggregates and interest rates for loans does not provide strong evidence for a supply restraint that goes beyond what could be expected given the deterioration of the quality of borrowers against the background of the exceptionally severe economic downturn. Still, the behaviour of interest rate spreads in the United States does indicate that the effectiveness of monetary policy is reduced for the time being as a result of distress in the financial sector, and we see some risks that inappropriate bank capitalization may restrain credit growth and threaten the current recovery, especially in Germany where core capital is low by international standards. Policy measures to avoid a credit crunch should focus on preventing undercapitalization of banks from becoming a serious limitation to credit growth.

This paper is concerned with the political theory developed by Major C. H. Douglas, the English founder and leader of the Social Credit movement, and not specifically with the ideas of the Canadian Social Credit movement, although the English theory has had a continuous, if not always a decisive, influence on the Canadian movement. Since the Douglas political theory stems from the Douglas social critique we shall begin with the latter.The frustration of the engineer by the business control of industry may be seen as the starting point of Major Douglas's social thinking. Deeply impressed by the waste of industrial capacity and potential, Major Douglas developed a sweeping critique of industrial civilization. A man of broad sympathies and with a professional view of his engineering calling, he saw that whatever held back the progress of science in industry made it impossible for the technologist to serve the people and give them the benefit of their heritage. He saw further that the concentration of power in the control of industrial production was only a part of a trend toward concentration of power in government, in trade unions, and in every institution which affected the life and opportunity of every individual both as worker and consumer. In his earliest writings his main concern was to expose this trend toward the submergence of the individual, to establish its pervasive nature, and to warn that it must be defeated if the human quality of civilization was not to be destroyed. His case was presented with restraint and with telling effect. His recommendation of a monetary device, which later became commonly identified with social credit, as the most probable direction in which a solution might be found for freeing men from the tyranny of concentrated power, was also presented with restraint in the writings of the first few years, and was subordinated to the main analysis. His point was that men could not be free in any other way until they had secured a freedom of choice, both as producers and consumers, and a level of material well-being which the existing system of production and distribution denied them. The economic system must therefore first be reformed. Socialism was not the answer, since it would mean still further centralization of economic and political power. Monetary reform was the answer because it could destroy the mechanism by which economic power was being increased and by which the material well-being and the freedom of the individual were being diminished. Always Major Douglas presented monetary reform merely as a means toward the end of establishing a new society in which human beings would be free to develop their individuality in a way that had never been possible before.