Date: Wednesday 6 May 2020
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Robert Rowthorn 
Talk Title: 'Keynesian Economics is Alive and Well'
Location: Ramsden Room, St Catharine's College

The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Journal of Economics and the Economics and Policy Group at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Speaker:
Robert Rowthorn is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of King's College. He studied mathematics at the University of Oxford. As a postgraduate he studied logic and the methodology of science. He returned to Oxford to study economics under the supervision of Sir John Hicks. He is the author of several books (including De-industrialisation and Foreign Trade – with John Wells) and many academic articles on economic growth, inflation, structural change, employment and migration. His writings on the conflict theory of inflation and on wages and demand have been highly influential in heterodox circles and beyond. He has been a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the UN Commission on Trade and Development and the International Labour organisation, as well as to British government departments and a variety of private sector firms and organisations. He delivered the Godley-Tobin Lecture to the Easter Economic Association in 2019. He is currently writing an article on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

Talk Overview:
Professor Robert Rowthorn’s presentation in St. Catherine’s College will be based on his Godley-Tobin Lecture that was published in January 2020 in the Review of Keynesian Economics. The lecture surveyed some of the main developments in macroeconomics since the anti-Keynesian counter-revolution forty years ago. It covered both mainstream and heterodox economics. Amongst the topics discussed were: New Keynesian economics, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), expansionary fiscal contraction, unconventional monetary policy, the Phillips curve, hysteresis and heterodox theories of growth and distribution. The conclusion was that Keynesian economics is alive and well, and that there has been a degree of convergence between heterodox and mainstream economics. The presentation in St. Catherine’s College will echo this conclusion. Even some of the former advocates of “expansionary fiscal contraction” now support Keynesian fiscal policy. The presentation will cover a variety of topics, including the return of fiscal policy as an instrument of demand management, and the status of the Phillips curve as a theory of inflation. It will pay particular attention to Modern Monetary Theory which acquired something of a cult following amongst heterodox economists and is now attracting interest from main stream economists.