The role of money and financial institutions in Kalecki and Keynes

Numerous discussions on money and financial institutions have been advanced both between and within economic theories. Heterodox schools of thought consider money to be non-neutral, with causality running from money demand to money supply and the interest rate as a monetary and distributive variable. In this paper we discuss the views of Michal Kalecki and John Maynard Keynes on money and the operation of financial institutions. Kalecki and Keynes formulated the theory of effective demand, specifically in terms of its effects on economic growth and financial instability. Nonetheless, in line with the work of Tracy Mott, we argue that Kalecki's analyses of the financial system are more profound because they better capture the complexity of the oligopolistic financial system, providing the foundations for Keynes' liquidity preference theory. As a result, it may be concluded that the main problem of economic growth and investment spending is the structure of corporate finance.