Sunday, February 9, 2014

This is a problem with a lot of Post-Keynesians too...

The problems I mentioned in the last post about how many Austrians want to talk about Austrian economics, I mean. So it's not just some concern I am making up because I disagree with the conclusion. I (generally) agree with most Post-Keynesian conclusions. But a lot of them have the same sort of issues (it comes with heterodoxy to a large extent). They want to talk about broad underlying concepts that they assume everyone else misses instead of the actual model and the actual empirical tests of the model.

I am very lucky to have taken my Macro Political Economy class with a Post-Keynesian that cared a lot about the models themselves, as well as the empirical literature on the models. Imagine a class on Austrian macro co-taught by Roger Garrison, Gerry O'Driscoll, and Andrew Young. It was like that for Post-Keynesian economics. You don't get that with all Post-Keynesians though.

2 comments:

  1. In this vein, if anyone is interested in how Post Keynesian (short-run) models actually work and not listening to someone drone on and on and on about fundamental uncertainty or historical time or (the worst but thankfully the rarest - "neoliberalism") this is an excellent book: http://www.e-elgar.com/bookentry_main.lasso?id=13962

    This is one of those textbooks where I've picked it up and reread portions of it after the class was over out of interest in the material and not just revisiting the material for another class, etc..

    My professor uses this for the long-run stuff, but we didn't really cover it so I can't speak for it. But I do trust my prof and there are a lot of good people in this volume: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Alternative-Theories-Economic-Reference/dp/1847204023

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  2. So are you implying that the "fundamental uncertainty" that certain Post Keynesian economists go on about (and by which they seem to mean that absolutely nothing can be known) is really secondary to how their economic models operate, Daniel?

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