著者

田中 英明

出版者

法政大学経済学部学会

雑誌

経済志林 = The Hosei University Economic Review (ISSN:00229741)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.89, no.2, pp.583-616, 2022-03-20

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This study discusses modern money by examining the relationship between the modern money theory (MMT) approach and the theory of credit money. L. Randall Wray and Stephanie Bell (Kelton) base their monetary theory on the state, or chartalist approach to money of Georg Friedrich Knapp and A. Mitchell Innes. They also inherit from Hyman Minsky the notion of a hierarchy of monies, or a debt pyramid. However, Knapp, Innes, and Minsky revealed that bank debt acts as credit money by being accepted to discharge debts. Due to the organization between banks, central bank money, not state money, is at the top of the hierarchy. Modern central bank money is credit money for discharging its debts, not as a promise to pay gold. Therefore, there is an endogenous supply mechanism in which money is created and destroyed in response to financing demand. The policy implications of MMT must be revisited in the light of these central bank roles and actions.