Sunday , February 23 2025
Home / Lars P. Syll / Keeping the dream alive

Keeping the dream alive

Summary:
Keeping the dream alive For me, the study of asymmetric information was a very first step toward the realization of a dream. That dream was the development of a behavioral macroeconomics in the original spirit of Keynes’ General Theory. Macroeconomics would then no longer suffer from the ad hockery of the neoclassical synthesis, which had over-ridden the emphasis in The General Theory on the role of psychological and sociological factors, such as cognitive bias, reciprocity, fairness, herding, and social status. My dream was to strengthen macroeconomic theory by incorporating assumptions honed to the observation of such behavior … Keynes’ General Theory was the greatest contribution to behavioral economics before the present era. Almost everywhere Keynes

Topics:
Lars Pålsson Syll considers the following as important:

This could be interesting, too:

Lars Pålsson Syll writes How inequality causes financial crises

Lars Pålsson Syll writes Andreas Cervenka och den svenska bostadsbubblan

Lars Pålsson Syll writes Debunking the balanced budget superstition

Lars Pålsson Syll writes How inequality causes financial crises

Keeping the dream alive

Keeping the dream aliveFor me, the study of asymmetric information was a very first step toward the realization of a dream. That dream was the development of a behavioral macroeconomics in the original spirit of Keynes’ General Theory. Macroeconomics would then no longer suffer from the ad hockery of the neoclassical synthesis, which had over-ridden the emphasis in The General Theory on the role of psychological and sociological factors, such as cognitive bias, reciprocity, fairness, herding, and social status. My dream was to strengthen macroeconomic theory by incorporating assumptions honed to the observation of such behavior …

Keynes’ General Theory was the greatest contribution to behavioral economics before the present era. Almost everywhere Keynes blamed market failures on psychological propensities (as in consumption) and irrationalities (as in stock market speculation). Immediately after its publication, the economics profession tamed Keynesian economics. They domesticated it as they translated it into the “smooth” mathematics of classical economics. But economies, like lions, are wild and dangerous. Modern behavioral economics has rediscovered the wild side of macroeconomic behavior. Behavioral economists are becoming lion tamers. The task is as intellectually exciting as it is difficult.

George Akerlof

Advertisements
Lars Pålsson Syll
Professor at Malmö University. Primary research interest - the philosophy, history and methodology of economics.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *