New Economics and Planning

Slide 1: new economics and planning what can we learn from contemporary economic thinking?

Slide 2: Paul Feldwick – planning legend Tyler Cowen – economist, author of Discover Your Inner Economist

Slide 3: 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

Slide 4: Nassim Nicholas Taleb – trader, philosophical economist and author of The Black Swan

Slide 5: what is ‘new’ economics? movement began in Paris, 2000 – against the ‘autistic’ orthodoxy of economics – anti-neoclassicism

Slide 6: 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

Slide 7: We no longer want to have this autistic science imposed on us.

Slide 8: ‘Economics is monopolised by a single approach to the explanation and analysis of economic phenomena…

Slide 9: ‘At the heart of this approach lies a commitment to formal modes of reasoning that must be employed for research to be considered valid’

Slide 10: the myth of rational man And rational organisations – belief in the rational is in itself irrational Feldwick, Poe

Slide 11: How do you start a fire under a wet blanket?

Slide 12: ‘fit your theory onto a postcard’

Slide 13: post-autistic economics

Slide 14: 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

Slide 15: postmodernism Michel Foucault Jacques Derrida >

Slide 16: ‘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

Slide 18: Will Computers Really Decentralisethe 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

Slide 19: nassim nicholas taleb The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Slide 21: mediocristan or extremistan? shattering the bell curve embrace power law

Slide 28: embrace failure

Slide 29: ‘maximise serendipity’

Slide 30: take risks

Slide 31: there’s more to come …