Abstract

Mario Seccareccia and Marc Lavoie have for decades proven to be careful and demanding researchers. Seccareccia is mostly known for his contributions to the theoretical debate on monetary policy, the theory of the monetary circuit and the history of economic thought, and has become a leading critical voice on the role of the state and banks in the evolution and current functioning of monetary economies of production. Seccareccia’s many years of dedication to the International Journal of Political Economy have exposed him to a great diversity of ideas, and his sound judgment has made him a reliable guide in a wide range of academic issues. In many of the major controversies that have at times divided the thinking of heterodox economists, Seccareccia has consistently been a voice of balanced reason, while at the same time offering staunch rebukes for misled macroeconomic policy. In particular, he took on essential issues such as austerity (Seccareccia, 1996), as well as its supporting economic methodology, particularly the use of the IS-LM model (Seccareccia and Lavoie, 2015) that has led mainstream economics down as a slippery path. Within Post-Keynesian debates, Seccareccia has nicely addressed the issue of ‘post-Keynesian fundism’ (Seccareccia, 1996), and the role of taxation in the monetary circuit, among others.