RSSE: Steve Keen (University College London) Looking under the right lamppost - Choosing the right foundations for macroeconomics

It is our pleasure that Steve Keen (University College London) will present on Thursday, October 23, 2025, at 12:45 in room RB436 about the topic “Looking under the right lamppost - Choosing the right foundations for macroeconomics”.

Registration is not required and anyone who would like to attend is warmly invited.

It is also possible to participate online via MS Teams at this link. In case of any connection issues, please contact lubomir.cingl@vse.cz.

ABSTRACT: The development of macroeconomics has been driven by the desire to create “a widely accepted analytical macroeconomic core, in which to locate discussions and extensions” (Blanchard 2016). Neoclassicals looked for this under the microeconomic lamppost, because that’s the only one they know. But macroeconomics can be derived from incontrovertible macroeconomic definitions, with genuinely simple simplifying assumptions and no assumption of equilibrium. What emerges, in sequence, is Goodwin’s Growth Cycle, Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis, and a complex systems version of modern monetary theory.

BIO: Professor Steve Keen is a Distinguished Research Fellow at University College London and a globally recognised economist known for his critical approach to mainstream economic theory. He is the author of Debunking Economics (2011) and The New Economics: A Manifesto (2021), and was one of the few economists to anticipate the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, for which he received the prestigious Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review. His research focuses on applying complex systems theory to macroeconomics and on the economics of climate change, and he has published extensively—over 80 scholarly works—on topics ranging from financial instability and money creation to the role of energy in production and critiques of both neoclassical and Marxian economic models. Ranked 19th in Academic Influence’s global list of influential economists, he is also the designer of Minsky, the first open-source system dynamics software enabling monetary macroeconomic modelling, and more recently launched Ravel©™, a commercial business intelligence tool built on its platform. Formerly Professor of Economics at Kingston University London and the University of Western Sydney, Professor Keen remains an active public intellectual through his publications, social media presence (@ProfSteveKeen), and crowdfunding platforms including Patreon and Substack. His recent work includes Rebuilding Economics from the Top Down (forthcoming, 2024) and influential papers on climate economics published in Globalizations and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.