Econintersect: What does a professor, who is also a researcher, do when he finds himself adrift after his university folds his department and no longer offers a major in his discipline? That is the situation well known Australian economist Steve Keen (pictured) finds himself in. His research funding was paid through grants to the university; he was cut off from support for his research when the economics department was terminated.
Keen responded by starting his own fund raising campaign to try to get enough support to keep his research going until such time as he has gotten a position at another university or research institution and can write new grants for funding. As reported by GEI News yesterday, Keen has used the fundraising platform Kickstarter for his campaign.
The campaign requires a minimum of $50,000 to be raised by 17 March 2013 in order for the project to be funded. If that minimum is not achieved, the project will be cancelled. That does not appear to be a problem, however. After less than half of the funding period (13 days) $52,000 has been pledged. The campaign still has 23 days left.
The campaign has a long way to go to completely fund Keen’s research. The $50,000 is the amount needed to complete the first economic modeling program, named Minsky, in honor of Hyman Minsky (1919-1996), a U.S. economist. He estimates that it will take about $1 million to complete a final comprehensive model, expanding from the Minsky program starting point. From GEI News:
These models will keep expanding the economic function universe included in models, expand into more and more complicated cross term interactions and all the while create models that “flow” in time by including time as a mathematically independent variable.
Keen’s objective is “to produce the best Open Source economic modeling platform ever.” Yesterday’s GEI News article provides more details about the unique nature of this research. Much additional information is available at the Kickstart campaign site and at the blog Steve Keen’s Debtwatch. (Links listed under Sources.)
The work utilizes modeling tools used in engineering to determine the affects of non-linear time variate functions on the operation of systems. It is not that economic systems will satisfy the physical/mechanical laws that operate in engineering; the functions will be different and will be established by reiterative testing with econometric data. But the mathematical operations are the same as used by engineers. Keen summarizes as follows:
Of course, an economy can’t be modeled in the same way that an engineering system can: you can’t predict precisely what will happen in the future, because human agency will intervene, and unpredictable extra-economic effects do occur. But Minsky will enable the modeling of the financial imperatives, physical constraints and nonlinear feedbacks that exist in the real world, and which are ignored in existing economic models and economic policy. It will also allow issues that current models completely ignore—such as the level and rate of growth of private debt—to be properly considered. That has to lead to a better economics.
Sources:
- Steve Keen: Using Kickstarter to Fund Research (GEI News , 21 February 2013)
- MINSKY: Reforming economics with visual monetary modeling (Steve Keen, Kickstarter, Launched 09 February 2013)
- Ten videos on using Minsky (Steve Keen, Debtwatch, 09 February 2013)
