Steve Keen Hired as Chief Economist for IDEA Economics; Best Wishes to Keen and IDEA

On March 30, the newly formed Institute for Dynamic Economic Analysis (IDEA) announced it hired Steve Keen to serve as its chief economist.

Via email IDEA stated "Steve will guide the organization’s research and educational programs. IDEAeconomics was inspired in large part by his work, and we are honored to launch (coming early May) under his guidance. IDEA is dedicated to building the economics Steve has worked on for years. Our collaborations will be informed by his networks among the media and within the profession. Steve is the person best equipped to lead us in our mission to reform economics."

From the above link ...

Economics is broken. Conventional economics has missed badly in its forecasts, provided an incoherent explanation of economic events and failed to produce effective policy. There is another way. An economics that incorporates debt and money. An economics that is proven by history and practice, statistics and theoretical consistency.

IDEA is dedicated to an economics that works for investors, business leaders, policy makers and, most importantly, everyday people who have been denied proper insight into the forces shaping their real lives. Our approach builds on a long tradition of classical, Keynesian and Post-Keynesian thought. We will develop, support and promote the economics that makes sense, partnering with others to establish a definitive and functional alternative to the orthodoxy that has failed.

The economic crisis that began in 2007 took mainstream economics by surprise, but it was anticipated by non-orthodox scholars whose approach to economics was inspired by Hyman Minsky. One might have thought his would display the desperate need for an alternative to the Neoclassical orthodoxy and strengthen the position of Minsky scholars in academic institutions. But after the crisis and now five long years of slump, this alternative is even less likely to be developed at universities than it was before the crisis.

Having been right, Minskian economists are no longer invisible and can no longer be ignored, but we can be attacked and marginalized. Since Neoclassical economists are entrenched as the gatekeepers who vet grant proposals, Neoclassical economists will receive the vast majority of research funds. The alternative economics the real world desperately needs will not be funded and developed by the existing research bodies. The concerned public has to take up the baton. Hence the formation of IDEAeconomics. The aim at IDEA is to harness the energy and intelligence of private citizens to develop a realistic, dynamic, monetary approach, so guidance from economists can allow us to avoid financial crises — rather than blindly leading us into them.

When IDEA approached me to be its Chief Economist, I accepted. I was free to do so because the non-mainstream University economics program where I taught was shut down in 2013. My main tasks here at IDEA will be to write Finance and Economic Breakdown, a formal, dynamic, complex systems development of Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis, and (2) to develop the open source system dynamics program Minsky, which makes easy what mainstream economics has found to be near impossible: to construct and test strictly monetary, dynamic models of the economy.

We are also working on the shorter-term projects Alan detailed in our last message to you. And beyond these, but perhaps more important, there is the need to educate and enliven the broader discussion. We can do this, inject a coherent voice through media, speaking directly to audiences and collaborating with the like-minded.

All of that can be supported by your contribution to IDEAeconomics. We are engaged in a project that needs to be done and done well, before it is too late. The evidence is in. Economists, policy-makers and the broader public need to change their thinking and develop an economics that works rather than one of beautiful myths built on dangerous fallacies. You can help make that happen, and it won’t happen without you.
Best,

Steve Keen