Present-day macroeconomics has sometimes been dubbed ‘the new neoclassical synthesis’, suggesting that it constitutes a reincarnation of the neoclassical synthesis of the 1950s. This paper assesses this understanding. To this end, we examine the contents of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’...

Present-day macroeconomics has sometimes been dubbed ‘the new neoclassical synthesis’, suggesting that it constitutes a reincarnation of the neoclassical synthesis of the 1950s. This paper assesses this understanding. To this end, we examine the contents of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’...

The fit of empirical Taylor Rules to Brazilian data improves if we consider the hypothesis of interest rate inertia. Inertia seems to be part of monetary policy of several countries and reflects the action of Central Banks of not adjusting once-for-all to changing conditions. This article...

The introduction of linear-quadratic methods in monetary economics in the 1960s tinged the intense debate about the optimal monetary policy instrument. These methods were widely used outside monetary economics because they delivered easy solutions to complex stochastic models. This same reason...

Macroeconomists have emphasized the force of facts in forging a consensus understanding of business cycle fluctuations. According to this view, rival economists could no longer hold disparate views on the topic because “facts have a way of not going away” (Blanchard 2009). But how can...

Macroeconomics, or the science of fluctuations in aggregate activity, has always been portrayed as a field composed of competing schools of thought and in a somewhat recurrent state of disarray. Nowadays, macroeconomists are proud to announce that a new synthesis characterizes their field: no...

Mainstream macroeconomists agree that we live in the age of microfoundations. The recent worldwide financial crisis may have emboldened critics of this microfoundational orthodoxy, but it remains the dominant view that macroeconomic models must go beyond supply and demand functions to the level...

After World War II economists acquired increasing importance in the American society in general. Moreover, the production of economics PhDs in the United States increased substantially and became a less concentrated industry. This period witnessed also the reformulation of the graduate education...

Some historians argue that the history of economic thought (HET) is useful and important to economists and that historians should remain in economics departments. Others believe that historians’ initiatives toward economists are doomed in advance to failure and that they should instead ally...