DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES

DP 2018 – 1

‘Economic Theory ten years after the crisis: Just tweaking around the edges?’ and/or A bit of repair at the seams?’

Droucopoulos Vassilis

National & Kapodistrian University of Athens

Note: This is a plenary speech delivered at the 9^th International Conference of Political Economy “10 Years after the Great Recession: Orthodox versus Heterodox Economics”, September 7^th 2018, Athens, Panteion University.

Abstract

It is my intention to address, primarily within the scope of mainstream macroeconomic theory, three of the questions making up the main theme of the conference, namely: “How a very problematic theory continues to survive and dominate both the policy and the academic scene. What are the processes in the economy and the society that sustain its dominance? What is the condition of the economic Orthodoxy (particularly under its current form of the New Macroeconomic Consensus, that is the hybrid of mild neoliberalism with conservative New Keynesianism)?”. A good many orthodox economists hold the view that there is no necessity for a paradigm shift. On the contrary, a mere “evolution towards a more pluralistic discipline” would suffice. Hence the title of my talk.

DP 2018-1 Droucopoulos 

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