Fiscal Cliffhangers

Mathew Forstater is Full Professor of Economics, University of Missouri—Kansas City, and Founding Director, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.  He is also a Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.  Forstater received his B.A., summa cum laude, in African American Studies, from Temple University in 1987, and an M.A. (honors, 1993) and Ph.D. (1996) in Economics from the New School for Social Research.  He has published widely on employment and budgetary policy, ecological economics, Africana Studies, and public policy.  Forstater is the recipient of a number of teaching awards and recognitions, including the UMKC Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Student Council’s Outstanding Faculty Award in 2003-2004. Forstater has served as an economic advisor in a variety of contexts, including a 2001 International Labour Organization sponsored mission to advise the Ministry of Labour of Argentina. His proposal for an increase in the minimum wage was made into law, and the employment program inspired by the work of Forstater and his colleagues, known as Plan Jefes de Hogar (heads of household employment program), has been recognized by observers as central in reducing both unemployment and poverty in the aftermath of Argentina’s economic crisis. Forstater has over two decades experience in research, teaching, consulting and policy advising in macroeconomic policy, racial economic inequality and sustainable development. His work on “Green Jobs” goes back at least to 1997, with over ten refereed journal articles and monographs on issues of employment and environmental sustainability. Forstater’s Little Book of Big Ideas: Economics (2007, Chicago Review Press) has been translated into Estonian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, and Chinese. Forstater is the co-editor of more than ten books, the author of more than three dozen refereed journal articles and encyclopedia entries, and the guest editor of several special issues and symposia in scholarly journals.  He serves on the editorial board of several journals, and a referee and reviewer for numerous journals and publishers.  Forstater is interviewed regularly in the media, including television, radio, and local, national, and international newspapers and other outlets.  His Ph.D. dissertation on the methodology of public policy was supervised by Robert L. Heilbroner, author of The Worldly Philosophers, the best-selling economics book in history after Samuelson’s textbook.

Stephanie Kelton (nee Bell) is an Associate Professor and Economics Department Chair at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Research Scholar at both the UMKC Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, and the Levy Economics Institute in New York. She earned a B.S. in Business Administration (Finance concentration) and a B.A. in Economics, both from California State University, Sacramento, an M.Phil. in Economics from Cambridge University, UK, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York City. Dr. Kelton is considered an expert in the areas of public finance, financial accounting and international finance. In 2011, she was invited to serve on a panel of experts to help Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) draft legislation to reform the Federal Reserve alongside Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Reich, James K. Galbraith, Dean Baker, and Robert Johnson.  Dr. Kelton has published dozens of articles in professional journals including the Journal of Economic Issues, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, the International Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Social Economy, and Challenge Magazine. She is listed in Who's Who in the World and was the recipient of a Rotary International Scholarship to study in Cambridge, England. Her book (edited with Edward J. Nell), The State, The Market, and the Euro: Metallism versus Chartalism in the Theory of Money, is available through Edward Elgar Press.