aurelien-goutsmedt

Aurélien Goutsmedt

Post-Doctorate

UCLouvain, ISPOLE; FNRS

aurelien.goutsmedt@uclouvain.be

Macroeconomics Phillips Curve Stagflation Central banks Network analysis Bibliometrics

Robert E. Lucas Thomas Sargent Robert J. Gordon

About

My research in the past focused on the transformations of macroeconomics in the 1970s and what is generally called the “New Classical revolution”. I highlighted that the process of transformations was far from being as direct as what a standard narrative uses to tell. I rejected a reading in terms of a succession of schools (the New Classical economics and RBC modellers overthrew the Keynesian paradigm, before the coming of New Keynesians and the emergence of a “New Neoclassical synthesis”). I focused on how macroeconomists interpreted stagflation at the time. It enables to understand how Keynesians reacted to New Classical criticisms (and thus to see that the ground for a supposed “New Keynesian” reaction was already settled), as it allows to observe the persistence of large-scale macroeconometric modelling. This empirical and contextual rereading of history of macroeconomics displays several similarities with the state of the field since the 2008 financial crisis.

The next step in my research journey is to study the effect of these transformations of macroeconomics on economic expertise and economic policies. As many historians and political scientists regard the late 1970s and early 1980s as a crucial turn (sometimes labelled “the neoliberal turn”) in terms of policy, it could be appealing to draw a direct line from changes in macroeconomics to changes in economic policies. Having endeavoured to underline the complexity and the different ways to interpret the 1970s in macroeconomics, the situation also appeared less linear regarding economic expertise. For instance, in terms of macroeconometric modelling, the large-scale models sternly criticised by New Classical economists remained in use in many policymaking institutions and kept modified and improved. The DSGE models of the new synthesis just appeared in the second part of the 1990s, that is to say, more than 20 years after the Lucas Critique.

One of my current interest is the study of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. Enacted in October 1978 in the United-States, it established explicit goals of 4% unemployment rate (for 1983) and 0% inflation rate (for 1988). The President of the U.S. has to commit to these targets, and the Fed has to write reports explaining how it will help to reach these goals. Sometimes considered as the beginning of the “Dual Mandate” of the Fed, the first version of the project (in 1974) only bore on unemployment. It was supported by civil rights movements as well as by supporters of economic planning. Relying on a large set of documents and archives, I am studying the role of economists in the elaboration of the project, as well as in the discussions about it in the following year and the final enactment of a very different version.

I am currently involved in a collective project funded by Rebuilding Macroeconomics on “Excavating the Academia/Policy Pipeline: Economic analysis at the Bank of England Pre and Post-Crisis”.

I am also working on a quantitative history of macroeconomics (1970-2020) with Alexandre Truc. This project is funded by the History of Economics Society and aims at developing an interactive platform displaying our results. We are developing R packages to apply network analysis to bibliometric data.

External links

Publications

2024

  • Acosta, J., Cherrier, B., Claveau, F., Fontan, C., Goutsmedt, A., & Sergi, F. (2024). Six Decades of Economic Research at the Bank of England. History of Political Economy, 56(1).

2023

  • Goutsmedt, A., Claveau, F., & Herfeld, C. (2023). Quantitative and Computational Approaches in the Social Studies of Economics. Œconomia - History, Methodology, Philosophy, 13(2).

  • Goutsmedt, A., & Fontan, C. (2023). The ECB and the Inflation Monsters: Strategic Framing and the Responsibility Imperative (1998-2023). Journal of European Public Policy, Forthcoming 2024.

  • Goutsmedt, A., Sergi, F., Cherrier, B., Claveau, F., Fontan, C., & Acosta, J. (2023). To Change or Not to Change: The Evolution of Forecasting Models at the Bank of England. Journal of Economic Methodology, Forthcoming 2024.

  • Goutsmedt, A., Sergi, F., Claveau, F., & Fontan, C. (2023). The Different Paths of Scientization at the Bank of England. Working Paper for a Special Issue in Finance & Society.

  • Goutsmedt, A., & Truc, A. (2023). An Independent European Macroeconomics? A History of European Macroeconomics through the Lens of the European Economic Review. European Economic Review, 158.

  • Goutsmedt, A., Truc, A., & Claveau, F. (2023). Biblionetwork: An R Package for Creating Different Types of Bibliometric Networks.

  • Chassonnery-Zaigouche, C., & Goutsmedt, A. (2023). Programming Expertise: The Political Element in Micro-Simulation. Working Paper for a Special Issue in Science in Context.

  • Chassonnery-Zaigouche, C., & Goutsmedt, A. (2023). Symposium on Elisabeth Popp Berman’s _Thinking Like an Economist_. 13, 3.

2022

  • Goutsmedt, A. (2022). How the Phillips Curve Shaped Full Employment Policy in the 1970s: The Debates on the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. History of Political Economy, 54(2), 619–653.

  • Goutsmedt, A., & Truc, A. (2022). Networkflow: Functions For A Workflow To Manipulate Networks.

2021

  • Goutsmedt, A. (2021). From the Stagflation to the Great Inflation: Explaining the US Economy of the 1970s. Revue d’Economie Politique, 131(3), 557–582.

  • Goutsmedt, A., Renault, M., & Sergi, F. (2021). European Economics and the Early Years of the International Seminar on Macroeconomics. Revue d’Economie Politique, 131(4), 693–722.

  • Goutsmedt, A., Renault, M., & Sergi, F. (2021). European Economics and the Early Years of the ‘International Seminar on Macroeconomics.’ Revue d’Economie Politique, Forthcoming.

2019

  • Goutsmedt, A. (2019). James Forder, Macroeconomics and the Phillips Curve Myth. Œconomia. History, Methodology, Philosophy, 9-3, 589–594.

  • Goutsmedt, A. (2019). Stagflation and the crossroad in macroeconomics, the struggle between structural and New Classical macroeconometrics. Document De Travail Du Centre d’Economie De La Sorbonne.

  • Goutsmedt, A., Guizzo, D., & Sergi, F. (2019). An agenda without a plan, Robert E Lucas’s trajectory through the public debate. Œconomia, 9(2).

  • Goutsmedt, A., Pinzon-Fuchs, E., Renault, M., & Sergi, F. (2019). Reacting to the Lucas Critique, The Keynesians’ Pragmatic Replies. History of Political Economy, 51(3), 535–556.

2018

  • Goutsmedt, A. (2018). Thomas Sargent face à Robert Lucas, une autre ambition pour la Nouvelle Economie Classique. Œconomia, 8(2).

  • Goutsmedt, A., & Rubin, G. (2018). Robert J. Gordon and the introduction of the Natural Rate Hypothesis in the Keynesian Framework. History of Economic Ideas, 26(3), 157–187.

2017

  • Goutsmedt, A. (2017). The Macroeconomists and Stagflation, Essays on the Transformations of Macroeconomics in the 1970s [PhD thesis]. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

2015

  • Goutsmedt, A., Pinzon-Fuchs, E., Renault, M., & Sergi, F. (2015). Criticizing the Lucas Critique, macroeconometricians’ response to Robert Lucas. Document De Travail Du Centre d’Economie De La Sorbonne.