Econintersect: George Soros founded the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) in October 2009, with the objective of supporting academic research and teaching in economics to develop new theories and axioms for the study and application of economics. The initial focus has been to characterize the nature of the shortcomings of established economic thinking when applied to the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) which peaked in 2008. Soros feels that part of the mission has been substantially completed. He now wants INET support to focus on rethinking the hypotheses, assumptions and axioms of economics “from the ground up“.
Video may be viewed after the Read more >> jump.
Here is the summary of the video at YouTube:
In this short interview, Institute for New Economic Thinking co-founder George Soros tackles the question at the heart of the Institute’s mission: What’s wrong with economics and what can we do to change it?
“Economic theory needs to be rethought from the ground-up,” Soros says. He specifically criticizes economists who are trying to produce theories that behave like laws in Newtonian physics, which Soros has long believed is impossible.
To change this, Soros says economics needs to reexamine its own behavior. “You need a new approach with different methods and also different criteria of what is acceptable,” he says. And he says that economic thinking needs to begin addressing real-world policy questions rather than simply creating more mathematical equations.
Hat tip to Roger Erickson.
Sources:
- About INET (Institute for New Economic Thinking, 26 June 2013)
- George Soros: Why We Need To Rethink Economics (INET Economics, YouTube, 26 June 2013)
