Economics students are taught that banks lend money that comes from the deposits of their customers. In other words, banks just circulate money - passing it from those who save, to those who borrow. This, however, completely misunderstands how banks actually work: by creating new money when they give out loans. This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, however, was awarded, “for research on banks and financial crises”, to three economists whose models still understand banks, debt, and money as though they were naive economics students, argues Steve Keen.