Introduction

The introduction deals firstly with the historical scenario of the period spanning from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. It traces the trajectory from the 1980s, a decade of sluggish growth accompanied by a profound neoliberal shift, through the 1990s, a decade of accelerated globalization and sustained economic expansion, yet also increasing international financial instability, culminating in the 2007–2008 Great Recession. The text then presents a synthesis of the development of economic theory during this period, from the crisis of Keynesianism, through the attempts to construct a new neoclassical paradigm led by proponents of New Chicago economics, to the emergence of alternative research trajectories—notably New Keynesians, behavioral economics, and complexity economics, and the debate on the financial and economic crisis at the end of the first decade of the new millennium. Finally, the map of economic theory is sketched. While American economics maintained global preeminence from the late 1970s onward, the internal configuration changed. The Chicago network consolidated its position. The Harvard-MIT network emerged as the hub of the critical reaction to New (Neo)Classical framework, through the development of New Keynesian economics. Stanford also played a foundational role in advancing the new Behavioral Economics. Meanwhile, the complexity approach took root at the Santa Fe Institute.