Andaba buscando algún artículo que expusiera algunas ideas de Hyman Minsky. Minsky es un post-keynesiano que está ganando popularidad, p.ej Axel Leijonhufvud decía que la crisis se podía explicar con ideas austriacas + ideas de Minsky. Tiene la llamada Financial Instability Hypothesis por la que explica que el mundo de las finanzas es inestable y lleva a periodos de auge y recesión en el conjunto de la economía.

Bueno, pues he encontrado dos artículos en Mises.org donde presentan sus ideas y críticas. Al parecer llego un poco tarde porque ambos son de 2007.

Minsky Having a Moment? – Robert Blumen en 2007

Minsky has in common with the Austrian school that monetary phenomenon are responsible for the cyclical behavior of modern financial economies, in particular the banking system, inthat he finds the strict quantity theory of money insufficient to explain inflationary processes

While the Great Austrian Critique of Minsky has yet to be written, the critique will focus on a difference over the nature of economic-financial crises in a capitalistic economy: endogenous (Minsky) or exogenous (Austrians)? Are fractional reserve banking and central banking inherent to a market economy, or are they a destructive form of central planning?

Does the Current Financial Crisis Vindicate the Economics of Hyman Minsky? – Frank Shostak en 2007

For post-Keynesians such as Minsky, what matters is the particular institutional setup of the economy. They argue that Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) is only applicable to a modern capitalist economy. In short, the FIH is not a general theory as such but is institutionally specific.

For post-Keynesians such as Minsky, what matters here is that, in the present institutional setup, banks can create unbacked credit; this fact validates Minsky’s theoretical framework. But what is it in the modern capitalistic framework that enables banks to engage in the reckless expansion of credit that makes this system unstable? Careful examination will show that it is the existence of the central bank.

By means of monetary policies, the central bank makes it possible for banks to engage in the expansion of unbacked credit.

We thus conclude that Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis doesn’t prove that the capitalistic system is inherently unstable. The instability that Minsky has identified has nothing to do with capitalism, per se, but rather with the institution (the central bank) that prevents the efficient functioning of capitalism.

So while Minsky’s story accurately describes the present financial-market turmoil, it does not provide any satisfactory explanation based on previously established and identified phenomena. It arbitrarily puts the blame for instability on the capitalistic economy without even making the slightest attempt to establish a logical verification for this claim.

Minsky began with the assumption that capitalism is unstable and never questioned this premise. Obviously, then, for Minsky, the only way to fix apparently unstable capitalism is through larger doses of government and central-bank interference with the economy.