Date of Award
Winter 2017
Degree
MS
Advisor
L. Randall Wray, Ph.D.
Abstract
Kenneth Boulding maintains that the economy is comprised not just of an exchange system (twoway transfers), but also of a grants system (one-way transfers), where the latter arises to bridge gaps in the former. This paper uses Boulding’s unconventional framework to analyze the modern economy of the United States. I investigate grants issued by the government, by families, and by private entities, and reveal their respective inabilities to adequately mitigate inequality and unemployment in the exchange economy. I show that the current grants system is unable to bridge the gaps in exchange, and that the grants expansion that would be necessary to accomplish this is ill-advised. I conclude that rather than using a basic income guarantee to expand grants, the US should strengthen its exchange system with a job guarantee. While this would not eradicate gaps in exchange completely, it would reduce them to a scope that grants can safely bridge.
Access Control
Open Access
Recommended Citation
van Doornen, Heske, "Grants: Band-Aids on a Bullet Wound" (2017). Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy. 14.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/levy_ms/14