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One of the most surprising recent developments in financial markets has been the emergence of negative yields on long-term debt. This development contradicts the notion of the zero lower bound which, until recently, was taken as a given in monetary policy discussions. In this paper, I look at the phenomenon of negative yields through the lens of Keynes's liquidity-preference theory of interest. I review changes to the financial market environment that have led to a shift in the liquidity of government bonds relative to bank deposits, and with this empirical context in place, I argue Keynes's theory is consistent with the phenomenon of negative bond yields. Finally, I consider Keynes's thought in relation to a negative interest-rate policy (NIRP) and argue that while he would be opposed to a NIRP as a temporary expedient, a mildly negative policy rate fits with his long-run vision for a world with a zero risk-free long-term interest rate.

Money is an institution that can only function when it perfectly manages the relationship between sovereignty and confidence. The foundation of this monetary relationship can focus on two directions: either a top-down process based on sovereignty so as to justify public confidence in the money; or a bottom-up process starting from building confidence through coordination and learning among individuals to explain the organization of a sovereign monetary authority. Starting from the three hierarchical levels of confidence (methodical, hierarchical and ethical) highlighted by Michel Aglietta and André Orléan (2002), the first process emphasizes the importance of a sovereign political power as the foundation of confidence and multiplies the rules and norms necessary for methodical confidence, while being a guarantor of the social values in the monetary compromise issuing from ethical confidence. The monetary order is based on the exercise of hierarchical political power from top to bottom. Money thus becomes a ‘total social fact’ (Simmel quoted in Aglietta, 2008, p. 4).

This chapter investigates the rational foundations of liquidity preference theory as sketched by Keynes in The General Theory. Mainstream theory focuses on two determinants of liquidity preference related to weak uncertainty: risk aversion and transaction flexibility. Keynes, on the other hand, focused mainly on the nexus between liquidity preference and strong uncertainty, distinguishing two basic determinants: strong uncertainty aversion, and strong intertemporal flexibility. Though each of these determinants has been the object of specific interpretations of liquidity preference theory, this chapter suggests that we may encompass their analysis within a more general conceptual framework. To this end, the Keynesian concept of weight of argument plays a crucial role. In particular, we show that its variations along different phases of the business cycle alter the impact of each of the components of liquidity preference.

In looking to Keynes for guidance on modern policy issues, we identify some general principles which can be carried forward to the present day. In order to address problems arising from the domestic and international monetary systems, we focus on the principle of effective demand and the theory of liquidity preference, applied to analysis of a monetary production economy. Yet for Keynes theorising started and ended with context. The analytical process started with identifying the problem and looking to relevant theory for illumination. Yet it was crucial to consider the nature of the context in order to assess the validity of the assumptions and, if necessary, to change them. We therefore consider the differences in monetary systems between the 1930s–1940s and the present day in order to form a Keynesian view of monetary reform.

Economic theory that is relevant to the real world is always a product of its time, taking for granted the institutions and behaviours that characterise that time. Old books, like Keynes’s General Theory, present a conundrum: how much is still pertinent today and what revisions are necessary to bring the theory into line with changes in the economic system since the book was written. This chapter attempts an answer to that question. It is argued that the principle of effective demand and liquidity preference is almost unchanged, but that globalisation and changes to the banks’ behaviour pose serious questions for the theory, as does our new awareness of resource constraints and climate change. The underlying methodology remains the best on offer and should be retained in any revision.

This paper identifies what seem to have been the five main issues in contention in monetary theory, both historically and in the current era, and discusses the view that J.M. Keynes took on each of them in the Treatise on Money and The General Theory. The key issues in monetary theory are the ontology of money, endogenous versus exogenous money, interest-rate determination, the choice of the monetary policy instrument, and the neutrality versus non-neutrality of money.

This paper takes off from Jan Kregel’s paper “ Shylock and Hamlet, or Are There Bulls and Bears in the Circuit?” (1986), which aimed to remedy shortcomings in most expositions of the “circuit approach.” While some “circuitistes” have rejected John Maynard Keynes’s liquidity preference theory, Kregel argued that such rejection leaves the relation between money and capital asset prices, and thus investment theory, hanging. This paper extends Kregel’s analysis to an examination of the role that banks play in the circuit, and argues that banks should be modeled as active rather than passive players. This also requires an extension of the circuit theory of money, along the lines of the credit and state money approaches of modern Chartalists who follow A. Mitchell Innes. Further, we need to take Charles Goodhart’s argument about default seriously: agents in the circuit are heterogeneous credit risks. The paper concludes with links to the work of French circuitist Alain Parguez. Keywords

Keynes’s theory of a monetary economy and his liquidity preference theory of investment will be examined in order to highlight the essential properties of money under the conditions of uncertainty, which inevitably prefigures the existence of involuntary unemployment and could – within a laissez faire, deregulated financial system – induce phases of endemic financial instability and crises.

Keynes’s primary motivation in writing “Alternative theories of the rate of Interest” and “The “ex-ante” theory of the rate of interest” was to counter attempts by Ohlin and others to recast his liquidity preference theory as no more than a supply and demand model of the determination of the rate of interest. This rearguard action was ultimately unsuccessful, given the profession’s ultimate acceptance of Hicks’s IS-LM analysis as a summary of the General Theory. However, it also had a positive outcome, as tussling with Ohlin’s arguments led Keynes to propose that investment finance was “an additional demand for money” (Keynes 1937b: 247) to the General Theory’s triumvirate of transactions, precautionary and speculative demands.

The sharp exchanges that Keynes had with some of his critics on the loanable funds theory made it harder to appreciate the degree to which his thought was continuous with the tradition of monetary analysis that emanates from Wicksell, of which Keynes's A Treatise on Money was a part. In the aftermath of the General Theory (GT), many of Keynes's insights in the Treatise were lost or abandoned because they no longer fit easily in the truncated theoretical structure he adopted in his latter work. A part of Keynes's analysis in the Treatise which emphasized the importance of financial conditions and asset prices in determining firms' investment decisions was later revived by Minsky, but another part, about the way self-sustained biases in asset price expectations in financial markets exerted their influence over the business cycle, was mainly forgotten. This paper highlights Keynes's early insights on asset price speculation and its link to monetary circulation, at the risk perhaps, of downplaying the importance of the GT.

Paper for a conference in honor of Basil Moore: Complexity, Endogenous Money, and Exogenous Interest Rates, January 7-11, 2004, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Perhaps the most important of Basil Moore's contributions to economic theory is the recognition that the money supply should be treated as an endogenous variable while the interest rate should be taken to be exogenous. The first proposition has been accepted by virtually all Post Keynesians, while the second was more problematic and briefly resulted in rival "horizontal" and "structuralist" approaches. This paper explores several issues surrounding interest rate exogeneity: first, what we mean by the term exogeneity; second, which interest rate(s) is(are) directly administered by policy; third, whether interest rate exogeneity is in some sense "natural" or whether it follows from particular institutional arrangements, and whether it applies over all stages of the business cycle; and, finally, implications arising from adoption of an exogenous interest rate for Keynes's liquidity preference theory and Minsky's financial instability hypothesis.

Money, finance and capitalist development, Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer a Keynesian evolutionary analysis of capitalist performance, John Cornwall and Wendy Cornwall can the global neoliberal regime survive victory in Asia?, Jim Crotty and Gary Dymski financial derivatives and liquidity preference in the contemporary capitalist economy, Jan Toporowski the endogeneity of money, Peter Howells political economy of central banks -agents of stability or sources of instability, Costas Lapavitsas the NAIRU - a critical appraisal, Malcolm Sawyer.