The unsellability of DSGE models — private-sector firms do not pay lots of money to use DSGE models — is one strong argument against DSGE. But it is not the most damning critique of it. The most damning critiques that can be levelled against DSGE models are the following two: (1) DSGE models are unable to […]
economics
Modelling by the construction of analogue economies is a widespread technique in economic theory nowadays … As Lucas urges, the important point about analogue economies is that everything is known about them … and within them the propositions we are interested in ‘can be formulated rigorously and shown to be valid’ … For these constructed […]
Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which …
The post Keynes’ wisdom still stands; “Anything we can actually do we can afford.” appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.
A couple of years ago, Robert Lucas gave an outline of what the new classical school of macroeconomics thought about the latest downturns in the US economy and its future prospects. After stating his view that the US recession that started in 2008 was basically caused by a run for liquidity, Lucas then goes on […]
Mainstream (neoclassical) economics has always put a strong emphasis on the positivist conception of the discipline, characterizing economists and their views as objective, unbiased, and non-ideological … Acknowledging that ideology resides quite comfortably in our economics departments would have huge intellectual implications, both theoretical and practical. In spite (or because?) of that, the matter has […]
Yours truly’s paper Mainstream economics — the poverty of fictional storytelling is downloadable here.
Almost sixty years ago Milton Friedman wrote an (in)famous article arguing that (1) the natural rate of unemployment was independent of monetary policy and that (2) trying to keep the unemployment rate below the natural rate would only give rise to higher and higher inflation. The hypothesis has always been controversial, and much theoretical and […]
In a recent essay titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” adapted from a forthcoming book on inequality, Krugman writes that he and other mainstream economists “missed a crucial part of the story” in failing to realize that globalization would lead to “hyperglobalization” and huge economic and social upheaval, particularly of the industrial […]