This fifth volume in the International Papers in Political Economy (IPPE) series focuses on the theme of path dependency and macroeconomics in terms of both theory and applications. The volume examines how path dependency is linked with notions of fundamental uncertainty, non-ergodicity and hysteresis.

Thorstein Veblen and Hyman Minsky are seminal thinkers who place great importance on the interaction between processes that link finance and financial markets with economic and social evolution. This book makes a contribution to the recontextualisation of the habitual, non-evolutionary and laissez-faire macroeconomic theory and policy, thus exposing the relevant contribution of the macro-theories of Veblen and Minsky. The book starts with an elucidation of Veblen’s cultural theory of insufficient private demand, waste and financial fragility and instability. It shows how speculative and parasitic leverage engenders solvency illusions and risk, pecuniary efficiency, low quality liability structures and socially destructive boom-bust cycles. Minsky’s creative destruction liquidity processes and coordination failures of cash flow escalate the aforementioned path-dependent developments and explosive dynamics of capitalist economies. The main themes of the book are the cultural, evolutionary and holistic vision of macroeconomics, the evolving habits of mind, routines and financial institutions, the speculative, manipulated and unstable financial markets, as well as the financial macroeconomic destabilizing effects of pecuniary and parasitic consumption and investment. This book will be of great interest to researchers, intellectuals and students pursuing economics and finance.

That the chapters in the volume cover such a wide range of important, often fundamental, topics is a proper tribute to Basil Moore s influence and contributions over his working life. From the foreword by G.C. Harcourt, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK During a distinguished career, Basil Moore has made numerous important contributions to macroeconomics and monetary economics, and is renowned as the progenitor of the horizontalist analysis of endogenous money. More recently, he has embraced complexity theory as part of an ongoing effort to understand macroeconomics as an evolving, path-dependent process. This book celebrates and explores Basil Moore s interests in and contributions to monetary and macroeconomic theory. Complexity, Endogenous Money and Macroeconomic Theory features original essays by internationally acclaimed and expert authors. It comprises a selection of papers on five distinct but interrelated themes: economic concepts, tools and methodology; complexity, uncertainty and path dependence; the macroeconomics of endogenous money; the macroeconomics of exogenous interest rates; and unemployment, inflation and the determination of aggregate income. These papers combine to provide a comprehensive methodological and theoretical discussion of the macroeconomics of a monetary production economy. The book will be of interest to professionals and research students in the fields of macroeconomics and monetary economics especially those with an interest in the Post Keynesian approach to analyzing these fields, including the wide audience that has been reached by the contributions of Basil Moore himself.

Methodological practice is at the heart of divisions between schools of macroeconomic thought. Jesper Jespersen s book explains why and precisely how, and gives the reader the insight to choose between rival approaches. His own inspiration comes from Critical Realism and Popper s Three World analysis, with Keynes as the main exponent of a realist approach. The starting point of realist theory is a view of how the world is, rather than axioms, and the test is whether the theory can make, as Jespersen puts it, the round trip back to reality , to give practical guidance to policy. This is only the focal point of a rich and attractive canvas. How I wish this book had been available when I taught methodology! And how I wish economists from all schools of thought would read it! Victoria Chick, University College London, UK This welcome volume by Jesper Jespersen offers an up-to-date realist approach to macroeconomics, drawing on recent developments in methodology, notably critical realism, as well as earlier Popperian ideas. He shows how economics in the Post-Keynesian tradition, using this approach, can address the important macro policy issues, and sets out a seven-point agenda for future theory development. This book provides an important launching-off point for addressing macroeconomic questions without the need for the abstractions as narrowly rational representative agents. Rather Jespersen explores the interdependencies between the macro and micro levels in real economic processes under conditions of uncertain knowledge. Sheila Dow, University of Stirling, UK Jesper Jespersen presents a treatise on the importance of the choice of methodology within macroeconomics. Given that no scientifically based macroeconomic policy recommendation should be established without an evaluation of the methods employed, this book gives a clear exposition of how proper macroeconomic analysis should be undertaken. Furthermore, it is convincingly argued that one of the lasting contributions of John Maynard Keynes was his emphasis on methodology; that macroeconomic consequences of uncertainty could not be analysed within the established general equilibrium framework. It is due to post-Keynesian economics supported by critical realism that the understanding of Keynes s methodology has been resurrected, which has eventually resulted in renewed debate on realistic macroeconomic policies to restore full employment without inflation. Macroeconomic Methodology is an inquiry into the question of how to conduct a proper scientific analysis of uncertainty within macroeconomics. It will be of great interest to scholars of the philosophy of social sciences and methodology, as well as post-Keynesian and heterodox economists.

How should Europe cope with the negative and still unfolding economic consequences of the current economic crisis? And why does Europe seem to be more conservative than the USA in dealing with the crisis? Since the outbreak of the current international economic crisis in 2008, the USA and many of the European countries have been tormented by high levels of unemployment and low levels of inflation, interest rates close to zero and fiscal policies of austerity. As such, the modern economic mainstream has been challenged by these empirical facts. Today, several years after the outbreak of the international economic crisis, supply side effects do not seem to be increasing employment as the modern mainstream claimed they would. Aggregate demand has to play a more important role in macroeconomic analysis than hitherto. That is, there is a need for alternative explanations of how a modern macro economy is expected to function and how the macroeconomic outcome could be manipulated by the right economic policy proposals. As expressed by the contents of the present book, a Post Keynesian understanding proposes such an alternative theoretically, methodologically and in terms of policy measures. This book will present new materials and approaches, especially new evidence and new views on the potential problems of public debt, the European Union and the present crisis, Central Banking, hysteresis in an agent based framework, the foundations of macroeconomics and the problems of uncertainty.

The top left hand side of the keyboard reads "Q-W-E-R-T-Y." Is this inefficient layout an inefficient early development to which we are now forever committed? The "economics of QWERTY" describes cases in which it has been claimed that technologies which have become accepted are not as good as rival technologies. Perhaps they have been "locked in" at an early stage, preventing newer, better possibilities from taking hold. Distinguished economists Stan Liebowitz and Steven Margolis have critically examined the various aspects of the economics of QWERTY and its implications, calling into question the historical accuracy of the standard account of QWERTY and similar cases such as those of Beta/VHS and Macintosh/Windows. They contend that no plausible case of inferior standards being locked in has ever been documented, though much antitrust activity and legislative policy has been based on the belief in the occurrence of such cases. The Economics of Qwerty brings together into one volume Liebowitz and Margolis's essential contributions, remarkable for their eloquence and relevance, to consider these issues, which are of real and enduring importance for the functioning of the market economy. Together they constitute a complete account of the critique of the economics of QWERTY.

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.