As someone who is the furthest from being an economist...
The conceptual difference between Keynesian and MMT comes down to:
- How much relative emphasis is placed on federal deficits vs interest rates wrt inflation. Keynesians don't decouple deficits and interest rates.
- Emphasis on monetarian vs fiscal management. MMTs focus on fiscal. Keynesians straddle the two. (Chicago/Austrian schoolers focus on monetarian.)
Said another way, the MMTs are simply pointing out that with 2008 and the aftermath, Keynesian models and predictions were not correct wrt to QE and inflation, and so are floating alternative theories, primarily explicitly adding interest rates to the models.
As someone who is the furthest from being an economist...
The conceptual difference between Keynesian and MMT comes down to:
- How much relative emphasis is placed on federal deficits vs interest rates wrt inflation. Keynesians don't decouple deficits and interest rates.
- Emphasis on monetarian vs fiscal management. MMTs focus on fiscal. Keynesians straddle the two. (Chicago/Austrian schoolers focus on monetarian.)
Said another way, the MMTs are simply pointing out that with 2008 and the aftermath, Keynesian models and predictions were not correct wrt to QE and inflation, and so are floating alternative theories, primarily explicitly adding interest rates to the models.