This paper is a non-technical and somewhat philosophical essay, that seeks to investigate the relationship between economics and reality. More precisely, it asks how reality in the form of empirical evidence does or does not influence economic thinking and theory. In particular, which role do...

In mainstream economics, the word “inflation” refers to a general rise in prices measured against a standard level of purchasing power. Previously the term was used to refer to an increase in the money supply, which is now referred to as expansionary monetary policy or monetary inflation....

A growing debate around the active role played by the neoliberal ideology and the economy connected with it in the crisis development. The polarisation of researchers in this area is quite significant: starting from the negation of this role to its complete affirmation. This analysis is aimed at...

The International Seminar on Macroeconomics (ISoM) is an annual conference, which was co-sponsored, during 15 years (1978-1993) by the French EHESS and the NBER. This article uncovers the scientific and institutional dynamics unrolling from this cooperation. The ISoM, we argue, constituted a...

My paper reconstructs the path of German economist Friedrich A. Lutz (1901−1975) to American economics. The correspondence with his former teacherWalter Eucken, the founder of the Freiburg School, constitutes a crucial and yet unexplored source for the paper. Through Lutz's case, I demonstrate...

Nowadays monetary economists derive optimal policies by solving a Ramsey problem. In this paper I explore the historical context in which this concept of optimality emerged. This approach developed from two ideas. First, economists characterized inflation as a tax on money holdings in the...

It is shown from empirical data that the Keynesian policy of continual stimulus of the US economy over decades has led to a mountain of debt and a destruction of economic growth. The causal mechanism of how this occurs has been identified. Excessive Keynesian monetary stimulation of aggregate...

The General Theory showed that the main determinant of the level of output and of employment at any point of time was the level of effective demand. It did so in an environment of uncertainty using analysis in historical time. Unfortunately, most of Keynes's insights were soon lost to the...

This paper reframes the standard liquidity trap model by capturing the costly feedback loop between idiosyncratic risk and aggregate demand at the zero lower bound. I first show that a liquidity trap can result from excess demand for precautionary savings in times of high uncertainty. The model...

The volume of profits in an economy is a magnitude, which is out of sight of orthodox macroeconomic textbooks and effectively ignored by neoclassical macroeconomics. In contrast, Kalecki's approach brings to the forefront the sources of profits and makes possible their further analysis. In a...