Heterodox Economics Newsletter

Issue 325 April 01, 2024 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory

About ten years ago a former teacher of mine, who had by then become a cherished colleague and friend, celebrated his retirement. He was a post-Keynesian economist in a mainstream department and the laudatio was given by one of his senior mainstream colleagues. At one point in the speech the laudator mentioned Kaleckian models, which my friend was fond of, and added that, potentially, this class of models should not have been neglected so much, because it cannot be ruled out that they provide important insights, which are now structurally overlooked. Now, maybe this implicit argument for pluralism was just a polite gesture. But in the face of the speaker, I sensed something different, namely regret. And indeed, until his PostDoc phase the senior mainstream colleague also was actively working on Kaleckian models himself – they even popped up in his PhD-thesis (which I read many years ago), but then he dropped the subject because it fell out of fashion. And still, thirty years later, he was seemingly unsure whether he made the right epistemic decision back then.

Maybe my interpretation of these past events is wrong, but still, the underlying intuition – that some sensible mainstream colleagues indicate regret or uncertainty about the paths chosen by the discipline and, relatedly, themselves – comes to me regularly. There is even a whole class of papers that I consider as 'regret-papers', like John Hicks' IS-LM: An Explanation, Paul Romer's take on the "mathiness" of DSGE models, Georg Akerlof's concerns about structural "sins of omission", Thomas Piketty's introductory remarks on the econ discipline in Capital in the 21st century, and, up to a degree, Alan Blinder's classic on "the economics of brushing teeth".

An interesting addition to this list is provided by Angus Deaton's recent piece on "Rethinking (my) economics", where he not only pins down some main blindspots of established ways of theorizing, but also points to important policy questions, like the role of unions or free trade, on which he effectively changed his mind and moved away from mainstream positions. While already the recent book by Deaton and Anne Case – on "Deaths of Despair" – indicated that Deaton & Case can take a critical stance, that resonates with heterodox accounts on the co-evolution of capitalism and public health, this short piece now explicates this critical stance more directly with regard to the state of the econ discipline. While some might say, this is still too little and too late, and others might add, that Deaton's view on migration is one-sided, I am happy for any turnaround that goes roughly into the right direction ;-)

All the best

Jakob

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