[Séminaire conjoint CEE - AxPo] Heterodox Monetary Thought in Central-Banking Practice: Hyman Minsky, the Federal Reserve, and the Use of Economics at Cross-Purposes

Sciences Po, Exclusively on Zoom

How do economists influence policy? The two approaches that have dominated sociological research on this question—one rooted in political sociology, the other in science-and-technology studies—increasingly encounter cases that neither can explain in isolation, while a synthesis has so far proved elusive. This article develops a metapolitical framework. Economists can employ rhetorical strategies such as feigned naivety (suppressing the political dimension of an intervention), while policy-makers can counter with strategies such as accusations of misdirection (rejecting a proposal as a mere technicality that deflects attention from more politically salient issues). Using the framework to analyze archival data, the article renders visible a surprising link between the theory and practice of central banking. The Federal Reserve did not, as is widely assumed, ignore the heterodox economist Hyman Minsky but retained him as an advisor from 1965 to 1969, and later used his technical insights to stabilize the financial system, even as central bankers publicly professed their belief in the self-regulation of markets.

Speaker 

Pierre-Christian Fink, University of Virginia