C a l l   f o r   P a p e r s

3rd European MMT conference 2023:

Navigating the Polycrisis: a conference on European macroeconomics

September 9-10, 2023

CfP Presentations: 11 September 2023

Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin (GER)

https://www.mmtconference.eu

The Samuel Pufendorf Society for Political Economy invites everyone to contribute to the 3rd European MMT Conference. This conference aims to shed light on the role MMT can play in addressing the challenges arising from the current economic and political issues.

After the world saw unconventional macroeconomic stabilization during the COVID-19 pandemic the return of inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shifted the macroeconomic discourse and tools.

Central banks raised interest rates to fight the inflation while supply-chain shortages due to the pandemic faded out and Europe was struggling to reorganize its energy supply from Russia. Western sanctions against Russia prominently targeted the financial system, namely SWIFT, and froze central bank deposits. Questions of war financing are back at the table with geopolitics gaining salience.

Even though the causes for the current inflation are complex central banks focus their response in raising interest rates no matter what. While raising rates did not bring down inflation it severely destabilized the banking system with multiple bank failures in the past months – notably Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse.

MMT can claim another right prediction here. After the COVID-recession was the shortest recession in economic history due to the massive government spending MMT was also right in pointing out that raising interest rates will not impact the current inflation and will be a useless tool.

We need to rethink economic policy.

And in the midst of this crisis of macroeconomic policy, we are running out of time to solve an even bigger crisis: the climate crisis. Full employment, price stability and ecological sustainability - how we can we reach these goals? What are the other goals progressives should aim for? What are the policy instruments available to make societies prosper? We are indeed in a Polycrisis.

In this conference, we are interested in contributions to the following topics and beyond from scholars of all disciplines:

• Economic policy response to the Polycrisis
• Anti-inflationary policy measures
• Inflation as a distributional conflict
• Financial stability and instability
• Return of industrial policy
• Economic governance in the Eurozone and other currency areas
• Explanations of inflation and new policy proposals to manage the price level
• The political economy of the Eurozone and its member states
• Reform proposals for fiscal policy rules
• Historical accounts of economic policy reactions in the Polycrisis
• Green New Deal and other policies to bring forth the socio-ecological transformation
• Public Purpose and the role of government in delivering change
• Job Guarantee
• Alternatives to GDP as indicators of a society's well-being
• Empirical work on the effects of government spending
• History of Economic Thought related to any of the issues above
• Debates between MMT scholars and mainstream scholars
• Examinations of the fiscal-monetary nexus
• The role of inequality
• The Latin-American lost decade of the 1980s
• Law and Public Economics
• Industrialization and Development economics
• Economic Geography and Money

Important Dates and procedure:

Submission Deadline: July 31st, 2023

Rolling acceptance, latest August 6th, 2023

Final Paper Submission Deadline: August 31st, 2023

Conference Dates: September 9 – 11

Paper Presentations: September 11

We welcome extended abstracts in English or in German of 300 to 600 words which outline your research question, methodological and theoretical approach, interim results, and their relevance in light of the above topics. Presentations will take place online on September 15, 2021. You will have 30 minutes to present and 15 minutes for discussion. Presentations will take place preferably on site in Berlin but attending and presenting virtually will be made possible.

Please send your abstract with your name and your institution to conference[at]pufendorf-gesellschaft.org. Additionally, please sign up for the conference too and indicate that you sent an abstract in the registration form.

For any inquiries or further information, please visit our conference website or contact the organizing committee at conference[at]pufendorf-gesellschaft.org.

We look forward to your participation and insightful contributions to the 3rd European MMT Conference.

Call for Paper PDF version: