Peter Andre: Economists's Opinions about Economics

Co-author of the paper "What's Worth Knowing?: Economists Opinion about Economics", PhD student at the University Bonn (Germany), and member of the Briq Institute on Behaviour & Inequality, Peter Andre joined us on November 4th for a fascinating discussion about the dissatisfaction with the discipline’s focus, and reasons for its inertia.

Real Economic Analysis -Theoretical and Empirical Alternative for Economics
​Professor Anwar Shaikh 

Professor Anwar Shaikh, renown classical political economist and critic of both neoclassical and post-Keynesian approaches, discusses two themes of his magnum opus Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises. First, Professor Shaikh examines the sociopathy of neoclassical consumer choice theory, which denies that the individual must be "socially situated, structured and shaped by nationality, gender, ethnicity, and class. " Next, Professor Shaikh will trace the history of post-WWII macroeconomics, tying the failures of the Social Democratic and Neoliberal policy regimes to unsound theoretical foundations. Shaikh suggests that a new profit-driven approach must be excavated from the combined insights of Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and Keynes, in which the macroeconomy is viewed as an inherently turbulent system, regulated by real competition and profit equalisation.

Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics for the Post-COVID Era :
Lavoie, Kregel, Nikolaidi, Medici

This panel - featuring Professors Marc Lavoie, Jan Kregel, Maria Nikolaidi, and Florencia Medici - will be an introduction to post-Keynesian theory and its applications to global issues regarding sustainability, stagnation, financial crises, and development. To quote from the post-Keynesian Economics Society: Post-Keynesian Economics (PKE) is a school of economic thought which builds upon John Maynard Keynes’s and Michal Kalecki’s argument that effective demand is the key determinant of economic performance. PKE rejects the methodological individualism that underlies much of mainstream economics. Instead, PKE argues that fundamental uncertainty and social conflict require an analysis of human behaviour based on social conventions and heuristics embedded in specific institutional contexts. Social interactions give rise to distinct systemic properties at the macroeconomic level. Professor Marc Lavoie, author of many important works including the seminal textbook Post-Keynesian Economics: New Foundations, will headline the panel, outlining the key tenets of post-Keynesian analysis and its relevance to realistic economic analysis. Professor Jan Kregel, director of research at the Levy Economic Institute and authors of pivotal works including The Theory of Economic Growth (1972) and Theory of Capital (1976), will be speaking on 'Money and Liquidity', interrogating the importance of monetary flows in national and global financial systems. Professor Maria Nikolaidi, Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Greenwich, will be synthesising post-Keynesian and ecological economics, highlighting the limitations of neoclassical theory in assessing fiscal policy and ecological sustainability (based on her working paper with Professor Yannis Dafermos) Finally, Dr Florencia Medici of the National University of Moreno will be discussing how post-Keynesian economics sheds light on the development of Latin America and its principal problems