Avi Baranes, graduate research assistant at University of Missouri – Kansas City, will examine the different approaches to understanding austerity measures both in the Unites States and around the world.
He begins with the traditional deficit hawk and deficit dove views of austerity, and then presents an alternative approach based on modern money theory (MMT) that economists such as Stephanie Kelton, the chief economist for the minority on the Senate Finance Committee, has popularized.