Horizontalists and Verticalists: an Appraisal 25 Years Later 383 Ulrich Bindseil and Philipp J

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Horizontalists and Verticalists: an Appraisal 25 Years Later 383 Ulrich Bindseil and Philipp J Review of Keynesian Economics Volume 1 No. 4 2013 ELGAR JOURNALS Review of Keynesian Economics www.elgaronline.com/roke Print ISSN 2049-5323 Online ISSN 2049-5331 Annual subscription rates for 2014 (four issues) Institutions: £294/$473 (print and online) £257/$415 (online only) Individuals: £104/$168 (print and online) £68/$110 (online only) Students: £52.50/$84 (online only) Single print issue: £65/$100/€72 TO PLACE A SUBSCRIPTION (worldwide): The Subscriptions Dept Marston Book Services Ltd 160 Eastern Avenue Milton Park Abingdon Oxfordshire OX14 4SB UK Tel: +44 1235 465574 Fax: +44 1235 465556 Email: [email protected] Subscriptions in the EU may be subject to European VAT. If registered, please supply details to avoid unnecessary charges. 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International Ltd, Padstow Elgar Journals Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc The Lypiatts William Pratt House 15 Lansdown Road 9 Dewey Court Cheltenham Northampton Glos GL50 2JA Massachusetts 01060 UK USA Review of Keynesian Economics Volume 1, No. 4, Winter 2013 Contents Mini symposium: 25th anniversary of Basil Moore’s Horizontalism and Verticalism Basil J. Moore’s Horizontalists and Verticalists: an appraisal 25 years later 383 Ulrich Bindseil and Philipp J. König Horizontalists and verticalists after 25 years 391 James Culham and John E. King Horizontalists, verticalists, and structuralists: the theory of endogenous money reassessed 406 Thomas I. Palley Articles A heterodox structural Keynesian: honouring Augusto Graziani 425 Riccardo Bellofiore Keynes and the endogeneity of money 431 Fernando J. Cardim de Carvalho Degree of monopoly and class struggle: political aspects of Kalecki’s pricing and distribution theory 447 Fernando M. Rugitsky Book Reviews J. Kvist, J. Fritzell, B. Hvinden, and O. Kangas, Changing Social Equality: The Nordic Welfare Model in the 21st Century (The Policy Press, Bristol, UK 2012) 224 pp. J. Hoekstra, Divergence in European Welfare and Housing Systems (IOS Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2010) 232 pp. 465 Reviewed by Nick Falvo iv Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 1 No. 4 William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (Columbia University Press, New York, USA 2011) 352 pp. 469 Reviewed by Brandon McCoy Piero Ferri, Macroeconomics of Growth Cycles and Financial Instability (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, USA 2011) 224 pp. 472 Reviewed by William McColloch Philip Mirowski, Never let a Serious Crisis go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown (Verso, London, UK and New York, USA 2013) 480 pp. 476 Reviewed by John E. King Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 1 No. 4, Winter 2013, pp. 383–390 Basil J. Moore’s Horizontalists and Verticalists: an appraisal 25 years later Ulrich Bindseil* Directorate General Market Operations, European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany Philipp J. König* Department of Macroeconomics, Economic Policy and Forecasting, German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin, Germany In 1988 Basil Moore published his book Horizontalists and Verticalists: The Macroeconomics of Credit Money, which this year celebrates its 25th birthday. We discuss this book from today’s perspective, and in particular whether Moore’s main assertions have been validated or rejected by the development of central bank practice and academic monetary economics. We find that the book has impressively stood the test of time and, despite part of textbook economics still insisting on the money multiplier as an explanation for the money supply, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that we have all become ‘Horizontalists’ in the last 25 years. Keywords: monetary policy, interest rates JEL codes: E40, E50 1 INTRODUCTION A student of neoclassical Austrian Fritz Machlup, Basil Moore became interested in money and banking very early in his career. His thesis dealt with the effects of monetary policy on bank earnings. He spent his first sabbatical with John Gurley and Edward Shaw in Stanford who, in 1960, had written their influential monograph, Money in a Theory of Finance. In 1968, Moore himself published his first book, An Introduction to the Theory of Finance. As we point out below, we believe that it is, among other things, his deep interest in and firm knowledge of finance and banking issues that enabled Moore to develop what he later called the ‘horizontalist view of credit money’ (see Hein and Nichoij 2010). Under the influence of Paul Davidson, Moore began to develop his views on monetary macroeconomics, primarily as a response to the dominant paradigm of Friedman’s monetarism. This culminated in 1988 in his book, Horizontalists and Verticalists: The Macroeconomics of Credit Money, which this year celebrates its 25th birthday. We discuss this book from today’s perspective, and in particular whether Moore’s main assertions have been validated or rejected by the development of central * The views in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of their respective affiliations. © 2013 The Author Journal compilation © 2013 Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd The Lypiatts, 15 Lansdown Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 2JA, UK and The William Pratt House, 9 Dewey Court, Northampton MA 01060-3815, USA 384 Review of Keynesian Economics, Vol. 1 No. 4 bank practices and academic monetary economics. We find that the book has impress- ively stood the test of time and, despite part of textbook economics still insisting on the money multiplier as an explanation for the money supply, it is not much of an exaggera- tion to say that we have all become ‘Horizontalists’ in the last 25 years. 2 ‘VERTICAL’ VS ‘HORIZONTAL’ VIEWPOINTS The ‘verticalist’ view states that the money supply function is exogenous, is indepen- dent from money demand, and can, at least to a reasonable extent, be controlled by the central bank. The verticalist paradigm may apply in a world of commodity or pure fiat money. But, as Moore argued in 1988, it does not provide a correct description of a credit economy. Rather, in such a world, a ‘horizontalist’ view must be adopted. The supply of credit money is endogenous, is demand-determined, and only its price can be controlled by the central bank, not its quantity. This was Moore’s message in 1988 and it was a brave one. It postulated nothing less than the failure of a key assumption taken for granted by almost every monetary macro- economist in the twentieth century: that the central bank can control the monetary base and thereby exert control over the stock of money supplied to the economy. Moore was aware of the consequences of removing this central assumption and instead adopting the horizontal view. He did not shy away from explicitly spelling this out: The ‘Horizontalist’ notion … implies, for example, that the entire literature on monetary control and on monetary policy, IS-LM analysis, the Keynesian and the money multiplier, liquidity preference, interest rate determination, the influence of public sector deficits on the level of domestic interest rates, growth theory, and even the theory of inflation must be comprehen- sively reconsidered and rewritten. (Moore 1988, p. xiv) And he added self-confidently: virtually everything written in the monetary, macro- and growth literature – [is] either mis- specified or incomplete. Such fundamental theoretical misspecification renders all accompa- nying empirical parameter estimates highly suspect. (ibid., p. xiv) By providing the analytical and empirical foundation of the horizontalist view, Moore aimed at fundamentally reshaping monetary economics. 3 HOW SUCCESSFUL HAS MOORE BEEN? Moore’s ideas may have shaped the course of post-Keynesian economics. Although we have to admit that neither of us is much acquainted with the post-Keynesian literature, we believe that the Festschrift edited by Setterfield (2006) is evidence enough of Moore’s influence in this field of economics. However, mainstream monetary economics has largely ignored ‘Horizontalists and Verticalists,’ even though Niggle (1989) stressed that the book should have been ‘as influential within monetary economy and political economy as Keynes’s Tract on Mone- tary Reform, Treatise on Money,andGeneral Theory’ (p. 1181). We too do believe that Moore’s book rightly deserves its place in the history of economic thought. But we believe that this will take until mainstream (and in particular textbook) economics has freed itself completely from the assumption of an exogenous and controllable money stock that Moore identified to be so mistaken. © 2013 The Author Journal compilation © 2013 Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Basil J. Moore’s Horizontalists and Verticalists: an appraisal 25 years later 385 The year 1988, in which Moore wrote, was, however, not ripe for his view. It was a time when mainstream monetary economics had already experienced fundamental changes that continue until today. Robert Lucas had issued his critique on econometric policy evaluation 12 years earlier and thereby triggered the avalanche of micro-based macroeconomics that still prevails today. The foundations for modern New Keynesian monetary models had been laid by Calvo (1983) or Blanchard and Kyotaki (1987). The movement of rational expectations economics was already in full swing. All these developments took place without taking note of the ‘horizontalist’ view. With respect to monetary issues, they firmly rested on the possibility that central banks can exert direct control over the monetary base.
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