The phenomenal financial expansion of the last decades has been characterised by an exacerbation of systemic instability and an increase in the frequency of financial crises, culminating in the recent meltdown in the US financial sector. The literature on financial crises has developed concomitantly, but despite a large number of papers written on this subject, economists are still struggling to understand the underlying determinants of these phenomena. In this dissertation, I argue that one of the reasons for this apparent failure is the way agents, as well as the environment in which they evolve, are modelled in this literature. After reviewing the existing literature on international financial crises, I outline an alternative framework, drawing from Post-Keynesian and Behavioural insights. In this framework, international financial crises are seen as being a direct consequence of the way agents formulate expectations in an environment of fundamental uncertainty and the investment and financial decisions they subsequently take. I argue that the psychological heuristics agents use in formulating expectations under fundamental uncertainty can lead to decisions which fragilise the economy and can thus be conducive to financial crises. I then apply this framework to the study of the 2000-2001 financial crisis in Turkey, which is notorious for not lending itself easily to explanations based on the existing theoretical literature on international financial crises. After outlining the crisis and reviewing the main existing accounts, I identify two moments prior to the crisis: A phase of increasing financial fragility, lasting from a previous crisis in 1994 to 1999, and a financial bubble in 2000 during the implementation of an IMF stabilisation program, partly predicated on the previous increase in financial fragility. My framework can account for both periods; it fits particularly well the first one and enhances the explanatory content of existing stories about the events that took place in 2000.

The paper builds on the Marxist concept of exploitation to explore the meaning of the Post Keynesian notion of uncertainty. Uncertainty is mediated by institutions and is distributed unevenly among different social groups. As different historical social formations entail different institutional structures, the distribution and nature of uncertainty also differ. The configurations between class relations and uncertainty are analyzed for the capitalist, feudal and slave modes of production. It is demonstrated that modes of production do not only imply specific exploitative relations but also different relative distributions of uncertainty amongst classes. Joining Marxian and Post Keynesian approaches allows a richer understanding of exploitive relations and illuminates the full societal impact of uncertainty. It is shown that only in capitalism is the exploited class exposed to a substantial degree of economic uncertainty. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The NAIRU theory has become the mainstream theory in explaining unemployment in Europe and is often used to justify demands for a cutback of the welfare state, reducing unemployment benefits, reducing minimum wages, decentralizing collective bargaining etc. Close inspection reveals that it nonetheless shares some arguments with Post Keynesian and even Marxist theory. The paper proposes an underdetermined, encompassing NAIRU model, which is consistent with several theoretical tradtions. Depending on the closure with respect to demand formation and determination of the NAIRU itself, the model allows for New Keynesian, Post Keynesian and Marxist results. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The thesis deals with monetary disequilibrium in the theory of endogenous money. In the new consensus economics, money is endogenous and passive. Money market is not considered and if yes, then only in an implicit equilibrium, whereas mechanisms ensuring this equilibrium are not discussed. In post-Keynesian economics, there is an explicit discussion, whether monetary disequilibrium may occur. Horizontalists argued for equality of money supply and money demand. On the other hand, arguments of some structuralists based on an independent demand for money function show that monetary disequilibrium may occur. The thesis therefore analyses mechanisms ensuring equilibrium in the money market. The only mechanism among them which enables the passivity of money is the reflux mechanism. However, it can not be regarded as universal since not all economic subjects which create demand for money are in debt to the banking system. For that reason accommodation of some factors of money demand function is necessary and money is endogenous and active. Econometric tests studying independent money demand and the consequent possibility of monetary disequilibrium based on Granger causality tests seem to be methodologically problematic and showing mixed results. Monetary disequilibrium can not be ruled out. Contemporary monetary policy based mainly on new consensus approach thus omits one channel of monetary policy transmission. Theoretical analysis suggests that monetary equilibrium has to be (at least partly) restored through changes in factors of money demand, which can lead to changes of other macroeconomic variables including inflation.

The submitted thesis is composed of three different articles dealing with issues of financial innovation, credit constraints, and their impact on welfare. The first article treats the contemporary theoretical grasp of the interaction between the financial and real economies, focusing primarily on the role of modern financial innovation in the business cycle. For this purpose, a framework promoted by the Regulation School and Post Keynesians is frequently employed, whilst some other unorthodox streams and mainstream economics are partially discussed as well. All of them aspire -- either per se or under the pressure of the contemporary economic agenda -- to clarify the evolution of financial innovation and credit in the recent era. It is generally found that certain consensus across the schools of economic thought exists, but some of them have done a better job in predicting the consequences of the financial innovation for real economic activity than others. Further, two dynamic macroeconomic models are developed in order to, inter alia, identify the possible effects of extended credit availability presented in the former article on the example of the housing market, and simulate the effects of housing price changes on general welfare. Clearly, this part of the thesis exhibits the indirect consequences of financial innovation as, once again, being rather ambiguous: after having partially unleashed the unprecedented credit granting in the economy, impacting interest rates and loan-to-value ratios, with a subsequent impact on housing prices, it has also influenced credit constrained and unconstrained households in a different manner. Based on an analysis of the situation using partial and general equilibrium analytical frameworks, two somewhat different conclusions are drawn up with respect to the occurrence of various shocks in the models. Under the partial equilibrium framework the effects of relaxation of credit constraints are visible and quite straightforward, indicating relatively simple and intuitive relationship between the price appreciation and general welfare. This is primarily perspicuous for the credit constrained households. In the general equilibrium framework, on the other hand, the transitional dynamics of shock proliferation is more transparent and the impact on credit constrained vs. unconstrained households is more ambiguous and much different from the basic intuition used in the article anchored in the partial equilibrium toolbox.