Phil Armstrong
As an Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) member, Phil is a strong advocate of the need for pluralism in economics. He has spent the last 38 years teaching – in the main economics and business and lately, engineering. Phil is Post-Keynesian and a strong advocate of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and believes MMT provides both powerful insights into the way the economy works and how progressive economic policy can be put into practice.
Selected recent published work
Books
Can Heterodox Economics Make a Difference? Conversations With Key Thinkers. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020
Chapter 8: Modern Monetary Theory as post-neoliberal economics: the role of methodology-philosophy. Modern Monetary Theory: Key Insights, Leading Thinkers. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023.
Articles
Keynes’s view of deficits and functional finance: a Modern Monetary Theory perspective, The International Review of Applied Economics (2018) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02692171.2018.1475139
Capital control reconsidered: financialisation and economic policy [with Kalim Siddiqui], The International Review of Applied Economics (2017) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02692171.2017.1375464
Book review: The Oxford Handbook of Post-Keynesian Economics, Volume 1, Theory and Origins / The Oxford Handbook of Post-Keynesian Economics, Volume 2, Critiques and Methodology, Review of Political Economy (2017) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09538259.2017.1352132
Online resources
Heterodox Views of Money and Modern Monetary Theory (2015) https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/Money-and-MMT.pdf
A Discussion of Central Bank Operations and Interest Rate Policy [with Warren Mosler] (2019) https://gimms.org.uk/2019/02/24/central-bank-operations-interest-rate-policy/
Modern Monetary Theory and a Heterodox Alternative Paradigm (2019) https://gimms.org.uk/2018/12/26/mmt-heterodox-alternative-paradigm/
Neil Wilson
Neil Wilson is an expert in finance and information systems. As an engineer, he has to make things work in the messy old real world that has actual people in it.
After more than 30 years in the systems business, Neil has learned the hard way that operations rarely follow the manual. Moving from network crashes to financial crashes, Neil was intrigued as to whether the economy could be fixed with a reboot – which lead him to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
Neil has become one of the UK’s leading thinkers about MMT and its implications. His work challenges the high-priesthood of Important Grey Men who refer to people as “resources”, and who believe debt is bad for government and good for you. Neil dreams of a world where everyone who wants a living wage job can find one, close to their home, their friends and their family.
Selected articles
These articles are available via Neil’s New Wayland blog
Running a Modern Money Economy
This is how you abolish tuition fees
Papers:
An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer – 2nd edition
Chapter 1: How does the government spend? A functional model of the UK Exchequer. Modern Monetary Theory: Key Insights, Leading Thinkers. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023.
Chapter 9: Tax as a hygiene factor: setting UK taxation policy using Modern Monetary Theory. Modern Monetary Theory: Key Insights, Leading Thinkers. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023.
Alan Hutchison
A former civil servant and, latterly, a consultant to government, Alan has a background in the application of information technology and the organisational changes it necessitates. In the 1990s he was part of small, Whitehall-based team which was charged with introducing the civil service to the 20th century.
A few years ago he read a letter in ‘The Guardian’ which included the phrase ‘deficits or surpluses are neither good nor bad’. Popping that into an internet search led him to Modern Monetary Theory.
His interest in MMT is concerned with the potential that it has to change society, everything from how the Job Guarantee could be an effective mechanism for rebalancing the housing market to how democracy will be much improved when the electorate and their elected representatives truly understand how money works.
He gives talks on MMT across the North to a variety of political, activist, academic and local government audiences. He blogs occasionally at matchesinthedark.uk
Selected articles
We pay for it by spending the money
Is there a critical shortage of rich people?
Spending chains and Sankey diagrams
Resources, neo-colonialism and the NHS
Patricia Pino
Patricia is currently studying for an MSc in Economics and Finance at King’s College London. She is also a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and has 13 years of experience in Building Physics – focusing on the built environment and environmental sustainability.
Patricia believes that furthering democracy is key to the advancement of progressive causes and is a former member of the board of Directors of Republic, an organisation committed to the abolishing of the monarchy in the UK. She is a strong advocate for MMT, mainly through her co-hosting of “The MMT Podcast”.
Podcast
The MMT Podcast is creating a podcast to demystify economics | Patreon
MMT Website (www.theMMTPodcast.com) coming soon.
Article
Who Should Pay for the COVID-19 Crisis? | The Full Brexit
Christian Reilly
Christian is a writer and comedian who, over the last 12 years, has become increasingly immersed in researching and writing about macroeconomics and MMT.
In 2018, he started The MMT Podcast, in partnership with his friend Patricia Pino.
Christian and Patricia have conducted scores of interviews with various leading economists, including the principal architects of MMT, in an endeavour to demystify economics and decode the jargon surrounding economics and finance journalism.
Christian gives MMT presentations to activists and political groups, and is always happy to chat about it with interested people.
All episodes of The MMT Podcast with Patricia Pino and Christian Reilly are here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/
Andrew Berkeley
Andrew’s background is in marine science, oceanography and modelling. He earned a PhD in 2008 and has since worked in several contexts including academic research, scientific and analytical software development, environmental regulation and the renewables sector. Following the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-08 Andrew became interested in economics and decided to apply his research experience to understanding the manner in which the UK government interacts with the banking sector and the monetary system as a whole – a topic which is seemingly poorly understood by many but crucial to the public, political discourse. This research led to Andrew co-authoring several works describing the functioning of the UK Exchequer and the operational constraints under which the UK government’s finances are administered.”
Publications:
Richard Tye
Richard is a search and rescue helicopter pilot and developed an interest in money and banking in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. Independent reading eventually led to a basic understanding of money creation and banking in a modern economy, however, one crucial piece of the puzzle was missing – government.
After reading a curious comment by a reader of a popular UK blog in 2015, Richard researched further and discovered the missing piece – Modern Monetary Theory. Since then, and with the encouragement of the UK MMT community, he has been involved in a unique institutional study of HM Government finances, focusing primarily on historical aspects, which culminated in the publishing of ‘An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer’ in 2021.
When time permits, Richard continues to peruse the historical records in search of useful facts and insights to broaden understanding of the development of the nation’s finances.
Publications:
Chapter 2: Credit and the Exchequer since the Restoration. Modern Monetary Theory: Key Insights, Leading Thinkers. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023.