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The purpose of the paper is to argue for attention to be paid, not only to choice of theory, but also to choice of theoretical approach, in order to address issues posed by the crisis.

Since the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis more than a decade ago, world leaders have been searching for ways to make the global financial system more resilient, less crisis-prone, and better able to play its essential role in supporting broadly-shared growth.

The current debate on new Global Financial Architecture is, in a way, the continuation of the debate that was intensified consequent upon the Asian crisis.

Many people regard the recent financial crisis as a painful addition to an already massive body of evidence that demonstrates the inadequacy of today’s economic models of “rational” markets.

The current economic and financial crisis, and it is both, has already imposed great costs on the global economy. Nor is there any guarantee that we have seen the worst and that recovery is now assured.

Economic theory has modeled itself on theoretical physics. It has sought to establish timelessly valid laws that govern economic behavior and can be used reversibly both to explain and to predict events.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking convened many of the world’s most distinguished economists, academics and thought leaders at its inaugural Conference at King’s College, University of Cambridge.

This is not intended to be a purely historical paper. I am interested in the light the Keynesian and Hayekian interpretations of the Great Depression throw on the causes of the Great Recession of 2007-9 and in the policy relevance of the two positions to the management of today’s globalizing economy.

William Janeway’s Far-Ranging Seminar on Fundamental Debates in Innovation and Finance

The aim of the two-semester sequence is to explore a coherent alternative to neoclassical and post-Keynesian theory that does not rely in any way on concepts of utility maximization, rational choice, rational expectations, or perfect/imperfect competition.