How to do macroeconomics in an age of uncertainty: Methodology & Theory (Lecture 1)

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• Professor Jesper Jespersen, Department of Society and Globalisation, University of Roskilde, Denmark
• Wednesday 23 October 2013, 19:00-21:00
• Little Hall, Sidgwick Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Akanksha Bhat.

Keynes’s name has resumed public recognition as a consequence of the recent economic crisis combined with apparent confusion on what economic policies are useful to overcome the growth-crisis. There are many similarities to the 1930s, where Keynes wrote his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which changed the way macroeconomics was understood for quite a number of years. But the impact petered away after the crises of the 1970s and nearly disappeared in the wake of the methodology of new classical economics.

The prolonged crisis and the changed social and institutional frameworks call for renewed understanding of macroeconomics. Professor Jespersen’s claim is that the methodology of Keynes is still relevant and not yet fully understood. Keynes introduced the concept of ‘uncertainty’ into macroeconomic analysis. For that purpose he searched for a new methodology which could capture the importance of uncertainty (at the micro and macro level) for the making of a realistic analysis of macroeconomic development in the past, the present and for the future.

Lecture one will begin with an analysis of macroeconomic development in the past and how can it be explained? In this lecture the importance of methodology and how to choose a relevant model, where uncertainty is represented, is discussed.

This talk is part of the The Marshall Society series.

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• Economics
• Little Hall, Sidgwick Site
• The Marshall Society

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