The Chronicles of…

March 1, 2009

First We Kill All the Economists, Part XXIV

The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics  – PDF
David Colander, Hans Föllmer, Armin Haas, Michael Goldbery, Katarina Juselius, Alan Kirman, and Thomas Lux

[From the conclusion] …"We believe that economics has been trapped in a sub-optimal equilibrium in which much of its research efforts are not directed towards the most prevalent needs of society. Paradoxically self-reinforcing feedback effects within the profession may have led to the dominance of a paradigm that has no solid methodological basis and whose empirical performance is, to say the least, modest. Defining away the most prevalent economic problems of modern economies and failing to communicate the limitations and assumptions of its popular models, the economics profession bears some responsibility for the current crisis. It has failed in its duty to society to provide as much insight as possible into the workings of the economy and in providing warnings about the tools it created. It has also been reluctant to emphasize the limitations of its analysis. We believe that the failure to even envisage the current problems of the worldwide financial system and the inability of standard macro and finance models to provide any insight into ongoing events make a strong case for a major reorientation in these areas and a reconsideration of their basic premises."

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.