Money And Households In A Capitalist Economy

‘Zdravka Todorova’s book breaks new ground in three heterodox traditions. Todorova combines post Keynesian monetary theory of production (specifically a neo-Chartalist approach) with original institutional economics (specifically the Veblen-Ayres framework) with a feminist analysis of the role of gender that includes households, production and finance in capitalist economies in an integrated framework. Her success in developing this analysis involves both substantive theoretical and methodological advances in all three approaches to understanding the economy. Her project is simply astonishing in scope. . . This book is a major accomplishment. . . Money and Households in a Capitalist Economy is a very important book. It is well written and well argued. Every post Keynesian, institutionalist and feminist economist should read it. The European Association for Political Economy and the Association for Evolutionary Economics awarded the International Prize commemorating the 150th anniversary of Thorstein Veblen’s birth to Zdravka Todorova for this book.’
– William Waller, Heterodox Economics Newsletter

‘Todorova bridges the gap between feminist economics and macroeconomics in this pathbreaking work. Presenting an in-depth analysis of the relationship between monetarist theory and gender issues, Todorova traces the earliest history of monetary theory and its lack of gender analysis, and presents a lucid theory of the importance and consequence of embedding feminist economics in a macroeconomic framework. Informative and enthusiastic, the book is written in a clear, easy-to-read style. Apart from being a significant contribution toward discovering previously unexplored synergies between two branches of economics, the book also offers a major boost to feminist economics. More specifically, the contention that monetary theory is not separate from, but linked with, feminist studies is powerful. Essential.’
– S. Chaudhuri, Choice

‘Dr Todorova is part of a new vanguard of multi-hats heterodox economists and it is this vanguard that will determine the future developments in heterodox economics. Money and Households in a Capitalist Economy breaks new ground integrating microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches to household consumption and finance, while providing a gendered analysis.’
– Frederic S. Lee, University of Missouri, Kansas City, US

‘Dr Todorova successfully extends what is widely known as the “UMKC approach” to monetary theory into entirely new areas, namely, feminist economics and the study of the household. She provides perhaps the clearest and most concise explication of the chartal money view, and shows how it helps us to understand the role played by the household in the modern capitalist economy. She sheds new light on our current situation.’
– L. Randall Wray, University of Missouri – Kansas City, US

Post Keynesian analyses of monetary production have not given much attention to households as institutions, while a good deal of the literature in feminist economics discusses households in a strictly microeconomic context, with little consideration of monetary phenomena. This book, a unique study of the capitalist economy, utilizes a distinctive combination of Post Keynesian, institutional, and gender analysis to examine household economics in capitalist society in order to flesh out the gaps in each.

The author poses questions that cut across rigidly determined areas of inquiry, such as gender and money, and micro- and macroeconomic analysis. She grounds the discussion of households and their social and financial relations within a monetary theory of production, and provides many methodological, theoretical, and policy formulation insights to establish a framework that illuminates current problems of household debt.