Zombie economics : how dead ideas still walk among us / John Quiggin, with a new chapter by the author.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-263) and index.

1. The great moderation. Birth: calm after the storms -- Life: the great risk shift -- Death: the dissenters and their vindication -- Reanimation: a global crisis or a transitory blip? -- After the zombies: rethinking the experience of the twentieth century -- Further reading -- 2. The efficient markets hypothesis. Birth: from casino to calculating machine -- Life: black-scholes, bankers, and bubbles -- Death: the crisis of 2008 -- Reanimation: Chicago revives the dead -- After the zombies: the state and the market -- Further reading -- 3. Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium. Birth: from the Phillips curve to the NAIRU, and beyond -- Life: rationality and the representative agent -- Death: how did economists get it so wrong? -- Reanimation: how Obama caused the global financial crisis -- After the zombies: toward a realistic macroeconomics -- Further reading -- 4. Trickle-down economics. Birth: from supply-side economics to dynamic scoring -- Life: excuses for inequality -- Death: the rich get richer and the poor go nowhere -- Reanimation: mobility without movement -- After the zombies: economics, inequality, and equity -- Further reading -- 5. Privitization. Birth: we are all market liberals now -- Life: a policy in search of a rationale -- Death: puzzles and failures -- Reanimation: dead for good? -- After the zombies: the mixed economy -- 6. Expansionary austerity. Birth: the treasury view -- Life: the Great Depression -- Death: the success of Keynesianism -- Reanimation: expansionary austerity and the Euro -- After the zombies: the case for hard Keynesianism -- Further reading -- Conclusion: Economics for the twenty-first century -- A new approach to risk and uncertainty -- What is needed in economics.

"In the Graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land. The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated main stream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many--members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess. In Zombie Economics, John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future. In a new chapter, Quiggin brings the book up to date with a discussion of the re-emergence of pre-Keynesian ideas about austerity and balanced budgets as a response to recession."--Jacket.