Thomas Palley (born March 17, 1956) is an American economist who was the chief economist for the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Thomas I. Palley
Born (1956-03-17) March 17, 1956 (age 68)
Academic career
FieldMacroeconomics
School or
tradition
Post-Keynesian economics
Alma materUniversity of Oxford (B.A.)
Yale University (M.A.)
Yale University (Ph.D.)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Career

Palley received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford University in 1976. He earned a master's degree in international relations and a PhD in economics from Yale University. Palley founded the Economics for Democratic & Open Societies project. He states its purpose is to "stimulate public discussion about what kinds of economic arrangements and conditions are needed to promote democracy and open society."[1] Palley's previous positions include director of the Open Society Institute’s Globalization Reform Project, and Assistant Director of Public Policy for the AFL-CIO.[1]

His work has covered macroeconomic theory and policy, international finance and trade, economic development, and labor markets where his approach is Post-Keynesian.[2]

Post-Keynesian work

Academically his best known work is the book Post Keynesian Economics: Debt, Distribution, and the Macro Economy. In this book, Palley tries to develop Post-Keynesian macroeconomic models that combine the insights of various 'brands' of post-Keynesian economics including the following: Yale Keynesianism (James Tobin), Cambridge–UK Keynesianism (Nicholas Kaldor), and American Post-Keynesianism (Paul Davidson, Hyman Minsky).

A critique of the book was written by Basil Moore, also a post-Keynesian economist. Moore argues that Palley succeeds in demonstrating the coherence of post-Keynesian macroeconomics. This is done via the concepts of effective demand, price-setting, quantity-taking fix-price supply behavior and the ineffectiveness of nominal wage and price adjustments as a means of remedying aggregate demand deficiencies. But Moore raises the criticism that by using neoclassical tools and methodology Palley has failed to take both time and uncertainty (key post-Keynesian concerns) in a sufficiently serious fashion.[3]

Selected works

  • Post Keynesian Economics: Debt, Distribution, and the Macro Economy, Macmillan Press, 1996. Paperback edition, 1996. ISBN 978-0-333-63060-0
  • From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economics, Cambridge University Press, 2012, Hardback edition. ISBN 978-1-107-01662-0

References

  1. ^ a b http://www.thomaspalley.com/?page_id=11 Thomas Palley Economics for Democratic & Open Societies
  2. ^ "Thomas Palley | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
  3. ^ Basil J. Moore (1997) Book Review of Thomas Palley, Post Keynesian Economics: Debt, Distribution and the Macroeconomy, Journal of Comparative Economics Volume 25, Issue 3, December 1997, pp. 473–476