Modern Money and the War Treasury

Sam Levey

Journal of Economic Issues, 2021, vol. 55, issue 4, 1034-1065

Abstract: Using historical sources, I attempt to piece together the economic worldview held by the United States Treasury Department during World War II. Analyzing the Treasury’s view of taxation, bond sales, and interest rates, this article considers whether and in what ways this worldview is compatible with Modern Monetary Theory. I conclude that in most regards, the two align closely, the differences being primarily attributable to the peculiarities of war finance. Finding a less clear view of national debt, an interpretation is offered based on Treasury’s statements. Additional evidence shows that this view had a small but significant foothold in the era’s news outlets.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00213624.2021.1994780 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:55:y:2021:i:4:p:1034-1065

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2021.1994780

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().