Bill Mitchell

His latest book Macroeconomics (Macmillan, March 2019), co-written with L. Randall Wray and Martin Watts, is a textbook that "encourages students to take a more critical approach to the prevalent assumptions around the subject of macroeconomics, by comparing and contrasting heterodox and orthodox approaches to theory and policy ... based on the principles of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)".

His 2017 book Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (September, 2017), co-written with Italian journalist Thomas Fazi, "reconceptualises the nation state as a vehicle for progressive change. They show how despite the ravages of neoliberalism, the state still contains resources for democratic control of a nation's economy and finances. The populist turn provides an opening to develop an ambitious but feasible left political strategy. It offers an urgent, provocative and prescient political analysis of our current predicament, and lays out a comprehensive strategy for revitalising progressive economics in the 21st century."

His book Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale (May 2015), provides "a critical history and analysis from the perspective of Modern Monetary Theory of the European economic crisis that started in 2009."

Full Employment Abandoned: Shifting Sands and Policy Failures (2008), co-written with Joan Muysken of Maastricht University, traces the theoretical analysis of the nature and causes of unemployment over the last 150 years and argue that the shift from involuntary to so-called "natural rate" concepts of unemployment are behind an "ideological backlash" against state intervention as notably advocated, within the frame of the free economy, by Keynes in the 1930s. The authors further contend that unemployment is a reflection of systemic policy failures, rather than an "individual problem". They present a theoretical and empirical critique of the neo-liberal approach and suggest that the reinstatement of full employment, along with price stability, is a viable policy goal, achievable through an activist fiscal policy.

Mitchell holds the following degrees: PhD in Economics, University of Newcastle, 1998; Bachelor of Commerce, Deakin University, 1977; and Master of Economics Monash University, 1982. He completed a Master's Preliminary at the University of Melbourne in 1978 (with first-class honours).

Mitchell is a "passionate" cyclist. He was an "active bike racer" when, in 1995, he founded the website Cyclingnews.com, which was sold in 1999 to the Australian media company Knapp Communications. It was subsequently bought in 2007 by Future plc.

Since 1990, Mitchell is a professor at University of Newcastle, New South Wales. He also holds the position of Docent Professor in Global Political Economy, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Mitchell is an accomplished musician who has played guitar professionally in various bands over the years. Mitchell currently plays with Pressure Drop, a Melbourne-based reggae-dub band, originally popular in the 1970s and early 1980s. The band reformed in 2010.

William Francis Mitchell (born March 1952) is a professor of economics at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and one of the founding developers of Modern Monetary Theory.

Mitchell was born to working class parents in Glen Huntly, Australia, in March 1952. The family moved to Ashwood, a new Housing Commission suburb in Melbourne, soon after. He attended Ashwood Primary School (1957–1963) and Ashwood High School (1964–1969).