Conversations on the Economy

Through Facebook, three of my good friends, Bonn Juego, Marvin Beduya (please visit http://synthesistblog.com), and Michael Ocampo, and I have been discussing interesting issues on the economic profession, the economic schools of thought, the status of mainstream economics, and other thoughts on heterodox evolutionary economics (Nelson and Winter had been mentioned several times in the course of the discussions). Looking at heterodox economics is important specially in the light of its failure to aid development of Southern countries and explain the current economic ailments of the Northern developed countries.

What is considered mainstream economics? What schools of thoughts constitute the mainstream? It is instructive that mainstream economics is sometimes called as the neoclassical synthesis (the term was supposedly developed by John Hicks and popularized by Paul Samuelson), being largely Keynesian on macroeconomics and neoclassical on microeconomics. But the mainstream is still evolving, incorporating elements of Milton Friedman's Monetarism (as practiced by Paul Volcker),  new classical economics by Robert Lucas (Chicago), Thomas Sargent (Stanford), and Robert Barro (Harvard), and supply side economics promoted by the likes of Arthur Laffer and manifesting in Reaganomics and Thatcherism of the 80s.

I hope this conversation will contribute in promoting interest on the history of economic thought and starting  debates and discourses amongst Filipino economists, political-economists, and students of development on the current status of mainstream economics and alternative schools. It is now more than ever that we should discuss what constitutes an effective economic development strategy for the Philippines, and this begins with the discussion on the warring schools of economic thought.