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Inequality and Stagnation by Policy Design

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  • Thomas I. Palley

Abstract

This paper argues the mainstream economics profession is threatened by theories of the financial crisis and ensuing stagnation that attribute those events to the policies recommended and justified by the profession. Such theories are existentially threatening to the dominant point of view. Consequently, mainstream economists resist engaging them as doing so would legitimize those theories. That resistance has contributed to blocking the politics and policies needed to address stagnation, thereby contributing to a political vacuum which is being filled by odious forces. Those ugly political consequences are unintended, but they are still there and show the dangerous consequences of the death of pluralism in economics. The critique of mainstream economists is not about "values" or lack of "change": it is about academic practice that suppresses ideas which are existentially threatening.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas I. Palley, 2019. "Inequality and Stagnation by Policy Design," FMM Working Paper 42-2019, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:imk:fmmpap:42-2019
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    File URL: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_fmm_imk_wp_42_2019.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Paul Krugman, 2012. "Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap: A Fisher-Minsky-Koo Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1469-1513.
    2. John B. Taylor, 2007. "Housing and monetary policy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 463-476.
    3. Thomas I. Palley, 1997. "The Academic Jungle: Social Practice and the Survival of Economic Ideas," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 22-33, September.
    4. George A. Kahn & Andrew Palmer, 2016. "Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: Revelations from the FOMC's Summary of Economic Projections," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q I, pages 5-37.
    5. Raghuram G. Rajan, 2010. "Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9111.
    6. George A. Kahn & Andrew Palmer, 2016. "Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound: Revelations from the Summary of Economic Projections," Macro Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 1-4, April.
    7. Lawrence H Summers, 2014. "U.S. Economic Prospects: Secular Stagnation, Hysteresis, and the Zero Lower Bound," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 49(2), pages 65-73, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income inequality; stagnation; neoliberalism; Keynesianism; pluralism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A0 - General Economics and Teaching - - General
    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • B50 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - General
    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory

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