After the crisis: Perspectives for post-Keynesian economics

Over the last few years, there has been a flurry of articles claiming that neoclassical economics had changed, questioning whether mainstream economics even ought still to be called neoclassical economics, or discussing the future of post-Keynesian economics or the future of heterodox economics at large. David Colander (1996, 2000, 2003, 2009a, 2009b) has been in the vanguard of this movement, along with Colander, Holt and Rosser (2004, 2007-8), but they have been accompanied by many more authors such as Davis (2006, 2008), Garrett (2006) and Fontana and Gerrard (2006), with contributions to specific concerns of post-Keynesian economics by King (2002) and Davidson (2005), not forgetting the abundant writings of Tony Lawson (2006, 2009a) . Very appropriate responses, in my view, have been written by Dutt (2003), King (2009a, 2009b), Lee (2009), Vernengo (2009) and Stockhammer and Ramskogler (2008). On many occasions, browsing through yet another of these papers giving advice to heterodox or post-Keynesian authors, I have been tempted to get into the discussion, but I have relented to do so up to now, thinking that I would be wasting my time, and also because, as mentioned above, some of the responses have been quite adequate. I cannot but confess that I have experienced a great deal of frustration reading some of the advice being offered by colleagues, some of which have themselves hardly ever attempted to publish any empirical work or formal models. As a result of this, I now have some sympathy for neoclassical authors who have invested heavily in technical tools and refuse to reply to outside methodological critiques. Be that as it may, here is my take on all these issues. I will try not to vent my frustrations, achieving this by outlining without much controversial comment the various suggestions which have been made. I start by outlining the past evolution of post-Keynesian economics. I then present a nomenclature that should help to clear out the distinction between orthodox and heterodox economics. I then list and assess the things that post-Keynesians have been told not to do, followed by the positive advice that they have been asked to follow. I finish with advice that I very much agree with, as well as my own suggestions…