EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Local clearing unions as stabilizers of local economic systems: a stock flow consistent perspective

Stefano Lucarelli and Lucio Gobbi

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2016, vol. 40, issue 5, 1397-1420

Abstract: Various examples of complementary currencies have recently emerged in Europe in response to the impact of the 2007 financial crisis. They have been variously labelled as social, local and alternative money but their economic meaning has still to be discussed. On the one hand, they have been hailed as innovative tools for socio-territorial policies with a focus on localist, anti-globalist and anti-capitalist values. On the other, the emphasis on the value of currencies as instruments of alternative territorial development runs the risk of overshadowing issues concerning the specific features of such projects. The first part of this paper puts forward an interpretation of the current situation as a crisis of the liquidity principle and suggests that the principle of clearing instead represents the primary point of reference for any institutional arrangement aimed at restoring a balanced relationship between lenders and borrowers. A critical review of known European complementary monetary circuits is followed by examination of the Sardex clearing system. The paper then goes on to argue by means of a stock-flow consistent model that complementary monetary circuits can serve to stabilise local economic systems. In particular, a local clearing union for local exchanges has the effect of stabilising the profits of firms while attenuating the impact of the credit crunch at same time.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bew021 (application/pdf)
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:oup:cambje:v:40:y:2016:i:5:p:1397-1420.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:40:y:2016:i:5:p:1397-1420.