Godley tables describes sets of financial flows from the point of view of a particular economic agent, such as a bank. The columns of the table represent accounts (possibly aggregated), which are treated as integration variables by the system. In ``double entry'' mode, accounts may be assets, liabilities or equities. Assets may appear as liabilities in another agent's Godley table, and vice versa, with the sense of the financial flows treated oppositely (a positive flow increasing the asset of one entity will appear as a negative flow, increasing the value of a liability). Instead of positive or negative flows, one can optionally use CR and DR prefixes, as specified in the options panel.
The first row specifies the stock variables, after which follow the flow rows. Usually, the row marked ``Initial Conditions'' comes next, but may be placed in any position. These specify the initial conditions of the stock variables, and may refer to a multiple of another variable, just like the initial condition field, or just be a numerical value.
Finally come the flows. The first column is a simple textual label (the phrase ``Initial Conditions'', regardless of capitalisation, is a reserved phrase for setting stock variable initial conditions) identifying the flow. The flows themselves are written as a numerical multipler times a flow variable. Unscoped variables are treated as global at present, however, in the future, Godley tables will be allowed to be part of groups, which will then define the context of the unqualified variable names.
The final column displays the row sum. A correctly functioning Godley table should have each row sum to zero -- this ensures everything is accounted for, with no hidden sinks or sources.
Russell Standish 2017-01-05