The original post answered a request for a practical route into substantive literature on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and job guarantee (JG) proposals. This edited version groups representative papers by subject so readers can compare the ideas, assumptions and policy questions more easily.
MMT is a school of macroeconomic thought concerned with monetary sovereignty, public finance, banking and the operational relationship between fiscal and monetary institutions. A job guarantee is a related policy proposal under which the public sector offers paid work to people who are ready and willing to work but cannot find other employment.
Foundations of modern money
Start here for treatments of state money, monetary sovereignty, endogenous credit and responses to common criticisms of MMT.
Modern Money Theory 101: A Reply to Critics
A concise presentation of central claims and disputed points in the modern-money framework.
Modern Monetary Theory: A Debate
A useful entry point for comparing MMT arguments with objections from other macroeconomic perspectives.
Modern Money
An early account of modern monetary arrangements and the institutional role of the state.
Money
A broad treatment of money's functions, origins and relationship to financial institutions.
State Money
An examination of the state-money tradition and its implications for monetary analysis.
Job guarantee and full employment
These papers examine employer-of-last-resort proposals, employment stabilisation, poverty and the practical design of public job programmes.
Government as Employer of Last Resort: Full Employment Without Inflation
A foundational discussion of how a standing employment offer might operate as both labour policy and a macroeconomic stabiliser.
Minsky's Approach to Employment Policy and Poverty
Connects employer-of-last-resort policy with Minsky's analysis of employment and anti-poverty programmes.
The Social and Economic Importance of Full Employment
Considers why employment outcomes matter beyond headline output and unemployment figures.
Employer of Last Resort: Strategies for Combating Poverty
Explores public employment as a policy instrument for income security and social participation.
The Euro Crisis and the Job Guarantee: A Proposal for Ireland
A historically situated application of job-guarantee thinking within euro-area constraints.
Finance, banking and Minsky
This group connects MMT-adjacent monetary analysis with financial fragility, banking, securitisation and crisis response.
Macroeconomics Meets Hyman P. Minsky: The Financial Theory of Investment
Introduces the role of financing conditions and balance sheets in investment and macroeconomic instability.
Minsky's Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis
Applies Minsky's institutional framework to the evolution of financial markets and crisis dynamics.
The Global Financial Crisis and the Shift to Shadow Banking
Examines credit intermediation outside traditional deposit-taking banks and its role in systemic fragility.
What Should Banks Do? A Minskyan Analysis
Considers the public purpose of banking and the case for institutional reform.
Financial Markets Meltdown: What Can We Learn from Minsky
A historically focused account of financial instability and lessons drawn from Minsky's work.
Fiscal and monetary operations
These readings address deficits, central-bank operations, exchange-rate regimes, sovereign debt and the coordination of monetary and fiscal institutions.
An Alternative View of Finance, Saving, Deficits, and Liquidity
Reconsiders common assumptions about saving, government balances and financial liquidity.
Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rates and Currency Sovereignty
Explains how exchange-rate arrangements affect the policy space available to currency-issuing governments.
Does Excessive Sovereign Debt Really Hurt Growth?
A critique of a prominent empirical claim about debt and growth, best read with the subsequent methodological debate.
Endogenous Money: Structuralist and Horizontalist
Surveys differing accounts of how bank lending, reserves and interest-rate policy interact.
Fiscal Effects on Reserves and the Independence of the Fed
Investigates the operational connection between Treasury activity, reserve balances and central-bank implementation.
History of money and institutions
Historical and institutional approaches help explain why monetary systems cannot be understood solely as neutral exchange technologies.
Introduction to an Alternative History of Money
A starting point for examining monetary history through obligations, institutions and state authority.
The Origins of Money and the Development of the Modern Financial System
Links competing accounts of money's origins to the development of modern financial arrangements.
An Irreverent Overview of the History of Money
A compact institutional history that challenges a simple barter-to-money narrative.
Keynes's Approach to Money: An Assessment After 70 Years
Reviews Keynes's monetary analysis and its relevance to later Post-Keynesian work.
How to use this archive
Check the date
Identify the institutional and policy setting in which each paper was written.
Trace the mechanism
Ask how the paper links spending, taxation, reserves, credit, prices and employment.
Compare critiques
Read supporting and opposing accounts before treating a disputed claim as settled.