Conclusions

This concluding chapter summarizes the previous chapters, outlining the critical issues that require further developments in a richer way than has been done so far. The authors critically discuss the troubled marriage between macroeconomics and general equilibrium theory, and the abuse of the ill-defined ideas of shocks and imperfections in macroeconomics. They suggest revising the exclusive framing of macroeconomic models around the shocks/steady state polarity, and the need to explore persistent real effects from the financial to the real side of the economy. The chapter calls attention to out-of-equilibrium stock-flows dynamics, and a different approach to the nature of markets and competition, in which banks and finance play a central role that cannot be ignored. Rigorous insights from the history of economics and economic history offer critical tools to rebuild macroeconomics towards a better understanding of the interaction of the real and financial sides of the economy.