Die komplexen Wurzeln des Wirtschafts-liberalismus
Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2015 | 14:00 Uhr
Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2015 | 14:00 Uhr
Referent
Organisation
Liberalism, when applied to economic activity, has, in its various forms, emphasised the desirability of leaving as much freedom of choice as possible to the individual. Yet, implicit in such arguments is the idea that, by so doing, the economy will self organise into a state which has a number of desirable properties. In particular, economic theory, has, over the past century moved to the position that markets, in which individuals are left to their own devices will self organise into an equilibrium and we have shown that such equilibria have desirable social welfare properties.
However the Achilles heel of modern economic theory is the problem of stability. By insisting on studying the properties of equilibrium states without being able to show that an economy would ever arrive in such a state, we have put to one side what is possibly the most important problem in economics. One escape route, used by macroeconomists, has been to simply assume that the economy is always in equilibrium. But, by avoiding the analysis of its out of equilibrium characteristics, we are doomed to fail to account for endogenous crises, such as that from which we are currently still suffering.
An inspection of historical writings on this subject shows that our predecessors were well aware of this problem. Some wrote it off, Others like Hayek argued that there were mechanisms that would achieve an adjustment to equilibrium but his analysis was far from complete, and Debreu thought that the task was impossible.
Yet, treating the economy as a complex adaptive system, an idea which also has long historical roots, may help to resolve the question. In such systems aggregate behaviour emerges from the interaction between individuals. It cannot be understood by looking at the typical or «representative» agent, any more than the collective development of an ant colony can be deduced from the behaviour of the typical ant. However the sort of evolution of an economic system that would be consistent with such a view, is far from the simple convergence to equilibrium usually assumed. One simply cannot assume as we have done, that economies left to their own devices will settle to a satisfactory state and indeed, all the empirical evidence suggests that they will lurch from one crisis to another. Unfortunately, taking such a view, while it will give us a more reasonable basis for analysing economic phenomena, may finally destroy the hope, made explicit by Walras, that one day economics would be a science in the same category as astrophysics.
(Abstract nur auf Englisch verfügbar)
1950‐1957 | Dulwich College (G.B.) |
1957‐1960 | Oxford University (Jesus College) B.A. 1960 M.A.1965 |
1965 | Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna (Italy) diplom |
1965‐1966 | University of Minnesota (USA) First year of gradauate studies in economics. |
1966‐1969 | Princeton University (USA) Ph. D. 1971 |
Distinctions
1990 | Elected Fellow of the Econometric Society |
1995 | Membre de l’Institut Universitaire de France |
1995 | Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung prize |
2003 | Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques |
2004 | Fellow of the European Economic Association |
2010 | Fondation Urrutia Prize for Economic Visiting professor, University of Bolzano |
Current situation
Professeur émerite de Sciences Economiques à l’Université d’Aix‐Marseille III and Directeur d’Etudes à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales Previous
Employment
1987-1995 | Professor of Economics at the European University Institute, Florence. |
1976-1979 | Professeur de Sciences Economiques à l’Université d’Aix‐Marseille II |
1973‐1994 | Reader in economics Warwick University. |
1974-1976 | Professor of economics Warwick University. |
1972-1973 | Professeur Extraordinaire à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles |
1970-1972 | Professeur Associé au CORE,Louvain‐La-Neuve et Professeur Visiteur à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles |
1969-1970 | Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore |
1969-1970 | Teaching Fellow, Princeton University |
1965-1966 | Teaching Assistant at the University of Minnesota |
1961-1964 | Head of the Department of Geography, Ratcliffe College, Leicester |
1960-1961 | Schoolmaster at Bedford Modern School, Bedford |
(CV nur auf Englisch verfügbar)
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