Eco+Nomics

In my last post, " An Advocacy ", I pointed out two facts about modern economics and financial markets in an attempt to defend them both. The following two posts become more explicit in indentifying exactly who particularly should be blamed as opposed to generally accusing the Economists as a whole.  The first one by  Simon Wren-Lewis and the second one by Paul Krugman. Enjoy!   [1]  mainly macro: Attacks on mainstream economics and reforming  economics teaching : Mainstream (orthodox) economics is having a hard time in the pages of the Guardian. First Aditya Chakrabortty writes “ How do elites remain in charge?... [2] The Consience of a Liberal:  The Trouble With Economics Is Economists : " That’s in large part what Simon Wren-Lewis is saying in this post  defending mainstream economics. And I largely agree.  It is deeply unfair to blame textbook economics either for the crisis or for the poor response to the crisis. The mania for ...

I have been following a few MOOCs in coursera.org for the last few months, and I have observed something really bleak. Two courses by Prof. Mehrling ( here ) in Coursera examine an alternative approach to the origins of the 2007-2008 turmoil, which has been rather enlightening. A lot of ardent discussions have taken place in these courses' forum; discussions, and some comments in them, that, more or less, accuse economists and financial markets of the current state of affairs. I do not blame these critiques... Yet, I admit they leave a dismal feeling. Mistakes have been made, but economists are not gods; none of us is. I will not argue for who should be blamed, either (I have done so, already). There are only two remarks I would humbly like to make.  First of all, in addition to blaming economists one has to appreciate their contribution before the global financial crisis. Hitherto, they had conduced to successfully alleviating the effects of business cycles in our incom...