Book review: GC Harcourt and Peter Kriesler (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Post-Keynesian Economics

Abstract

preference has increased. Whether such an approach will be effective in increasing spending as an alternative to holding money though is a serious question given Keynes’ (1936) analysis in the General Theory that significant uncertainty negates the animal spirits of entrepreneurs and reduces their willingness to spend even in the face of low interest rates (p. 164). Pixley and Harcourt’s book thus addresses an important but challenging set of issues. In the light of the Global Financial Crisis, there have been numerous calls from a range of quarters for research which draws upon multiple perspectives to examine what went wrong with financial markets and their oversight in the early 2000s. But as Orlean points out, genuinely interdisciplinary work is extremely difficult to undertake in modern universities, and there seems little prospect that this is changing if the recent demotion of historically related economics journals in the Australian Business Deans’ Council journal list is any indication. This makes the project of the book all the more important, and this is why it should be read and further work aimed at extending its analysis undertaken.