This paper traces the euro zone’s inadequate macroeconomic performance in recent years back to the predominance of a restrictive macroeconomic policy mix based on a ‘new monetarist’ approach to economic policy. An approach based on a (post-)Keynesian analysis is presented as a growth and...

The trend of increasing inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in most developed countries, including Germany, has led to calls for corrective tax increases for the rich and wealthy. Such calls are often confronted with the claim that corrective taxation will unavoidably lead to...

When the red-green (SPD-Bündnis90/DieGrünen) coalition took over the federal government from the Christian-Democrat/Free-Democrat (CDU/CSU/FDP) coalition in 1998, tax reforms had a very high political priority. And, in fact, the government pushed through an astonishing number of far-reaching...

The publishing of a second edition of a macroeconomic textbook 17 years after the first edition is not an event that usually receives great attention – even if the subtitle promises that a ‘foundation for successful economic policies for the twenty-first century’ will be...

Michael Hudson is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. ISLET engages in research regarding domestic and international finance,...

The German debt brake is often regarded as a great success story and has therefore served as a role model for the Euro area and it’s Fiscal Compact. In this paper we fundamentally criticise the debt brake. Firstly, we show that it suffers from serious shortcomings and that its success is...