This is a kickstarter campaign by Australian economist Professor Steve Keen. Visual data modelling for economists is what the Minsky tool represents. Essentially this tool makes modelling much easier to understand and so I am all in favour of it and have backed it.
Computer program for building & visually simulating dynamic, monetary economic models. A vital tool for a new approach to economics Launched: Feb 10, 2013
Funding ends: Mar 18, 2013 263 backers $47,105 pledged of $50,000 goal 26 days to go so it has great support.
Why Minsky?
“In late 2007, the world walked blindfolded into the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Economists, who should have warned about it, were in general useless. The vast majority expected economic tranquility ahead; only a handful warned of the crisis—and I was one of that handful.
The key reason why most economists were unable to see the crisis coming is that they have convinced themselves that banks are irrelevant to how the economy operates, and too hard to model anyway. I’ve argued for decades that banks are crucial to how the economy operates, and I’ve worked out an easy way to model them in my program Minsky….
With a realistic approach to economics, this crisis was entirely predictable. I am one of at least 12 economists who did see it coming, and who warned of it before the event. In 2010, I won the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist who most cogently warned of the crisis, and whose work will do most to prevent a future one (Nouriel Roubini came second, and Paul Krugman came seventh).
I was able to warn of the crisis because I have extended the realistic approach to economics developed by Hyman Minsky, which he called the “Financial Instability Hypothesis”. This led me to focus on the role of private debt in economic activity, and I knew that a crisis would hit as soon as the rate of growth of private debt slowed down. It did in late 2007, and the crisis I had been expecting began.”
Steve Keen is a Professor of Economics and Finance, author of Debunking Economics, and winner of the 2010 Revere Award of Economics from the Real-World Economic Review for being the economist “who first and most clearly anticipated and gave public warning of the Global Financial Collapse and whose work is most likely to prevent another GFC in the future.”
