IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0004024.html

Hyman Minsky's Theory of Capitalist Development

Author

Listed:
  • Charles J. Whalen

    (Institute for Industry Studies, Cornell University)

Abstract

During the last decade of his life, Hyman Minsky drew on insights acquired from Joseph Schumpeter in an effort to explore the long-term development of capitalism. He believed such an exploration would underscore the economic implications of postwar financial-system innovations and could encourage a broad discussion regarding the appropriate structure of the U.S. economy. This paper focuses on the theory of capitalist development that Minsky produced during that decade. After describing the purposes of Minsky's exploration, his theory is outlined both in terms of its essential elements and as it applies to the U.S. economy. In addition to emphasizing the relations between finance and business, Minsky identified a transition through at least five distinct stages of capitalism: from the merchant-capitalist era to a recent period dominated by money managers. A concluding section identifies a number of research directions suggested by Minsky's analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles J. Whalen, 2000. "Hyman Minsky's Theory of Capitalist Development," Macroeconomics 0004024, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0004024
    Note: Type of Document - Adobe Acrobat PDF; prepared on IBM PC; to print on PostScript; pages: 11; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/0004/0004024.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hyman P. Minsky & Charles J. Whalen, 1996. "Economic Insecurity and the Institutional Prerequisites for Successful Capitalism," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 155-170, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charles J. Whalen, 2011. "Human Resources: The Key to Institutional Economics after the Great Recession," Chapters, in: Steven Kates (ed.), The Global Financial Crisis, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Charles Whalen, 2011. "Minsky Goes to Buffalo—and Takes on the Economics Establishment," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 40(2), pages 273-280, July.
    3. Yannis Dafermos & Daniela Gabor & Jo Michell, 2023. "Institutional supercycles: an evolutionary macro-finance approach," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(5), pages 693-712, September.
    4. Bruno Bonizzi, 2013. "Capital Flows to Emerging Markets: An alternative Theoretical Framework," Working Papers 186, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    5. Steven Kates (ed.), 2011. "The Global Financial Crisis," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14454.
    6. Charles J. Whalen, 2017. "Understanding Financialization: Standing on the Shoulders of Minsky," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_892, Levy Economics Institute.
    7. Charles J. Whalen, 2013. "Post-Keynesian Institutionalism after the Great Recession," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 10(1), pages 12-27.
    8. Hein, Eckhard & Dodig, Nina & Budyldina, Natalia, 2014. "Financial, economic and social systems: French Regulation School, Social Structures of Accumulation and Post-Keynesian approaches compared," IPE Working Papers 34/2014, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    9. Mariana Mazzucato & Caetano C.R. Penna, 2016. "Beyond market failures: the market creating and shaping roles of state investment banks," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 305-326, October.
    10. Eugenio Caverzasi, 2014. "Minsky and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis: The Financial Instability Hypothesis in the Era of Financialization," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_796, Levy Economics Institute.
    11. Hyman P. Minsky & L. Randall Wray, 2008. "Securitization," Economics Policy Note Archive 08-2, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. L. Randall Wray, 2010. "What Do Banks Do? What Should Banks Do?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_612, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Charles J. Whalen, 1999. "Hyman Minsky's Theory of Capitalist Development," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_277, Levy Economics Institute.
    14. Yulia Vymyatnina & Mikhail Pakhnin, 2014. "Application of Minsky's Theory to State-Dominated Economies," EUSP Department of Economics Working Paper Series 2014/03, European University at St. Petersburg, Department of Economics.
    15. L. Randall Wray, 2012. "Global Financial Crisis: A Minskyan Interpretation of the Causes, the Fed's Bailout, and the Future," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_711, Levy Economics Institute.
    16. Dimitri Papadimitriou & L. Randall Wray, 1998. "The Economic Contributions of Hyman Minsky: varieties of capitalism and institutional reform," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 199-225.
    17. Elisabetta De Antoni, 2012. "The General Theory after the subprime crisis: a Minskyan perspective," Chapters, in: Jesper Jespersen & Mogens Ove Madsen (ed.), Keynes’s General Theory for Today, chapter 9, pages 151-166, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Sverre Knutsen, 2012. "Why do banking crises occur? The American subprime crisis compared with the Norwegian banking crisis 1987-92," Working Paper 2012/03, Norges Bank.
    19. Strachman, Eduardo & Vasconcelos, Marcos Roberto, 2001. "An institutional analysis of some monetary issues in developing economies," MPRA Paper 15128, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised May 2009.
    20. Christine Sinapi, 2011. "Institutional Prerequisites of Financial Fragility within Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis: A Proposal in Terms of 'Institutional Fragility'," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_674, Levy Economics Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0004024. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.