new economics and planning

what can we learn from contemporary economic thinking?

Paul Feldwick –planning legend

Tyler Cowen –economist, author of Discover Your Inner Economist

John Quelch –author of Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy

Eamonn Butler –Author of The Best Book on the Market:How to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Economy

Nassim Nicholas Taleb –trader, philosophical economist and author of The Black Swan

what is ‘new’economics?

movement began in Paris, 2000 –against the ‘autistic’ orthodoxyof economics – anti-neoclassicism

a paradigm shift in the ‘dismal science’

• complex contemporary economic debates cannot be ‘solved’ with maths alone

• pluralistic rather than dogmatic in approach

• a focus on the real rather than the imaginary / theoretical

We no longer want to have this

autistic scienceimposed on us.

‘Economics is monopolised by a single approach to the explanation and analysis of

economic phenomena…

‘At the heart of this approach lies a

commitment to formal modes of reasoning that

must be employed for research to be

considered valid’

the myth of rational man

And rational organisations – belief in the rational is in itself irrationalFeldwick, Poe

How do you start a fire under a wet blanket?

‘fit your theory onto a postcard’

post-autistic economics

How many economists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Two: One to change the bulb and one to assume the existence of a ladder

Eight: One to screw in the light bulb and seven to hold everything else constant

None: They are all waiting for an invisible hand

postmodernism

Michel Foucault

Jacques Derrida >

‘I actually think there is a small chance one could bin the 60% of advertising thinking which is essentially crap (especially that based around the idea of persuasion), and replace it with material from Post-Autistic Economics. By doing so, you could create an extraordinary business.’

- Rory Sutherland

Will Computers ReallyDecentralisethe Economy?

‘It is a ubiquitous assumption of the technorati that future advances in computer technology will further decentralize advanced economies. But this assumption is probably autistic, and the reality a lot more complicated.’

Ian Fletcher

nassimnicholas taleb

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

mediocristan or extremistan?

shattering the bell curve embrace power law

embrace failure

‘maximise serendipity’

take risks

there’s more to come …