Routledge Handbook of Macroeconomic Methodology

6 Macroeconomics and ethics

Finn Olesen¹

DOI: 10.4324/9781315745992-8

Introduction

The lessons learnt from the years of the Great Recession became somewhat of a revelation to many economists. Criticism arose theoretically as well as methodologically, not only by most members of heterodox schools of thought, but also by some former mainstream macroeconomists.² You need to be more pluralistic than just to accept that the framework of The New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) and their DSGE models can unfold everything of macroeconomic importance. Modern internationally and financially linked economies are not performing to perfection. They hardly ever follow an intertemporal equilibrium path of full employment in the longer run nor, of course, in ...