Beyond Price Stability
www.innocracy.eu, 2020
For decades, monetary policy has been treated as a technical, not a political issue. The mandate of central banks has seemed clear: keep inflation low. The borders between monetary, financial and economic policy have been blurry even before the pandemic.. Faced with the challenges of the climate crisis, slow growth, unemployment and inequality, does the financial and monetary system need a new constitutional purpose? Who, if anyone, should oversee central banks? In this session, the economists Adam Tooze and Daniela Gabor discuss what a progressive monetary policy of the future should look like. In the following reflection, Christian Odendahl and Philippa Sigl-Glöckner translate the conversation to the German context and ask what Germany’s role in developing a monetary policy of the future should be.
Comment from our editors:
In this recent webinar, Daniela Gabor, Adam Tooze, Christian Odendahl and Philippa Sigl-Glöckner discuss current and future evolutions to monetary policy in the contexts of financial instability, the climate crisis and lasting unemployment and inequalities. They also reflect on the political issues surrounding the democratic control and the governance of central banks. The discussion is not overly technical and could be relatively easily understood by non-economists, although the topic may be more appropriate for more advanced listeners. The first session with Daniela Gabor and Adam Tooze, two prominant heterodox economists is particularly interesting. The summary I included is the one provided by the organizers of the webinar and can be found in the description of the video on Youtube.