Prof Dirk Bezemer on 2007/2008 Financial Crisis

This is a new online course at bachelor level. It presents an introduction into macroeconomics with a specific focus on the euro area. The theoretical part provides a critical presentation of the two key macroeconomic models: the (neo)classical approach and the Keynesian approach. This allows a comparative analysis of important macroeconomic topics: unemployment inflation government debt and Modern Monetary Theory banks and financial crises. The policy-oriented part discusses the monetary policy of the ECB and the specific challenges for fiscal policy in the euro area. The course also presents other euro area specific topics: Optimum currency area, euro crises, Next Generation EU and Green New Deal.

Most mainstream neoclassical economists completely failed to anticipate the crisis which broke in 2007 and 2008. There is however a long tradition of economic analysis which emphasises how growth in a capitalist economy leads to an accumulation of tensions and results in periodic crises. This paper first reviews the work of Karl Marx who was one of the first writers to incorporate an analysis of periodic crisis in his analysis of capitalist accumulation. The paper then considers the approach of various subsequent Marxian writers, most of whom locate periodic cyclical crises within the framework of longer-term phases of capitalist development, the most recent of which is generally seen as having begun in the 1980s. The paper also looks at the analyses of Thorstein Veblen and Wesley Claire Mitchell, two US institutionalist economists who stressed the role of finance and its contribution to generating periodic crises, and the Italian Circuitist writers who stress the problematic challenge of ensuring that bank advances to productive enterprises can successfully be repaid.

Viele Länder Europas leiden seit Jahren unter den Folgen der Euro-Krise. Doch was dagegen zu tun ist, darüber sind sich Politiker und Ökonomen uneins. Hier geben sechs Expertinnen und Experten sechs unterschiedliche Antworten auf sechs zentrale Fragen zur Zukunft des Euro.

Welche Rolle können Zentralbanken, staatliche Banken wie KfW und EIB und private Finanzwirtschaft spielen, um den anstehenden Umbau voranzubringen? Müssen Zentralbanken eingreifen, wenn Politik versagt?