Structuralist and Behavioral Macroeconomics

Mainstream macroeconomics is founded on the idea of perfectly rational representative agents. Yet there is a growing realization that economic theories based on such agents are inadequate guides to real-world decision making. The behavioural evidence has had significant impacts on microeconomics but the same cannot be said of macroeconomics. This book is part of the movement to do for macroeconomics what behavioural thinking has done for microeconomics. Using behavioural evidence and insights from Keynesian and institutionalist traditions, it presents an empirically grounded alternative to the paradigm that currently dominates macroeconomic theory. It highlights how dynamic interactions across markets can generate instability, endogenous cycles and secular stagnation. It fully engages with macroeconomic theory, provides a multi-faceted view that explains how and why it is time to rethink its foundations and offers a path forward.

1. Introduction: the state of macroeconomics; 2. The Lucas critique and representative agents; 3. Household consumption and saving; 4. Saving in a corporate economy; 5. Phillips curves and the natural rate of unemployment; 6. Fairness, money illusion and path dependency; 7. Earnings inequality, power bias and mismatch; 8. Macroeconomic adjustment and Keynes' instability argument; 9. Growth and cycles; 10. Endogenous growth cycles with or without price flexibility; 11. Secular stagnation and functional finance; 12. Concluding comments: evidence-based macroeconomics and economic theory; Index.

Peter Skott is Professor Emeritus at University of Massachusetts and Professor of Economics at Aalborg University. He has published widely in mainstream and heterodox journals on growth and development, business cycles, income distribution and financial instability. He is the author of the book Conflict and Effective Demand in Economic Growth.