Thorstein Veblen’s Financial Macroeconomics

Abstract

:The purpose of this article is to provide an exposition of Thorstein Veblen’s contribution to financial macroeconomics. I argue that Veblen conceptualizes and contextualizes how the financial structure of effective demand is predisposed to endogenous non-sustainable leverage processes, manipulation, and speculation. I stress that Veblen advances a cultural-financial theory of investment and brings forward the role that pecuniary and emulation instincts play in institutionalizing predatory and fraudulent activities which destabilize the macroevolution of monetary production economies. I underline that Veblen patterns financial macroeconomic fragility and instability within the institutions of the business enterprise system.