| Thomas I. Palley | |
| School Tradition: | Post-Keynesian economics |
| Birth Date: | March 17, 1956 |
| Field: | Macroeconomics |
| Alma Mater: | University of Oxford (B.A.) Yale University (M.A.) Yale University (Ph.D.) |
| Repec Prefix: | f |
| Repec Id: | ppa636 |
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.
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]
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]