Reconstructing Economics in Light of the 2007–? Financial Crisis

Abstract

The lessons learned from the recent financial crisis should significantly reshape the economics profession's thinking, including, importantly, what we teach our students. Five such lessons are that we live in a monetary economy and therefore aggregate demand and policies that affect aggregate demand are determinants of real economic outcomes; that what actually matters for this purpose is not money but the volume, availability, and price of credit; that the fact that most lending is done by financial institutions matters as well; that the prices set in our financial markets do not always exhibit the “rationality” economists normally claim for them; and that both frictions and the uneven impact of economic events prevent us from adapting to disturbances in the way textbook economics suggests.

Keywords:

• financial crisis
• teaching macroeconomics

JEL codes:

• A22
• G01

Notes

1. The theme runs throughout much of Minsky's work. For an early statement, see Minsky (1970), especially section II.