Assoc Prof. Steve Keen
Debunking economics.
Topic
Profile
Steve Keen is Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney, and author of the popular book Debunking Economics and website debunkingeconomics.com. Steve’s excellent communication skills were honed in his pre-academic career, which included stints as a school librarian, education officer for an NGO, conference organizer, computer programmer, journalist for the computer press, and economic commentator for ABC Radio National and Radio Australia.
Previous experience
Publications: Steve Keen has over 40 academic publications on topics as diverse as financial instability, the money creation process, mathematical flaws in the conventional model of supply and demand, flaws in Marxian economics, the application of physics to economics, Islamic finance, and the role of chaos and complexity theory in economics. His work has been translated into Chinese, German and Russian. In Debunking Economics – the naked emperor of the social sciences, Steve challenged many widely believed economic models that dominate academic thinking about finance today, even after the Global Financial Crisis.
Research: Since 1995, Steve’s main research focus has been the development an alternative, empirically grounded theory, known as the ‘Financial Instability Hypothesis’, which argues that finance markets are inherently unstable. Steve’s book on this topic, Finance and Economic Breakdown, will be published by Edward Elgar (UK) in 2011.
Report: Steve predicted the Global Financial Crisis as long ago as December 2005, and since November 2006 has published Debtwatch, a monthly report which explains the dangers of excessive private debt. This report, which is freely available on his blog (debtdeflation.com/blogs) has received extensive coverage in the Australian media, and is reproduced by other noted commentators around the world, including Nouriel Roubini’s RGE Monitor (rgemonitor.com) and Alan Kohler’s Business Spectator (businessspectator.com.au).
Feedback
He is a man interested in ideas and looking at beyond what is the obvious... an intellectual warrior.
Whether or not one agreed with Professor Keen, he demonstrated why he is recognised as one of the best presenters in the whole of the Australian economics community and someone with a perspective not often enough heard.
