Having gone through a handful of the most frequently used textbooks of economics at the undergraduate level today, I can only conclude that the models that are presented in these modern mainstream textbooks try to describe and analyze complex and heterogeneous real economies with a single rational-expectations-robot-imitation-representative-agent.
That is, with something that has absolutely nothing to do with reality.….Lars P. Syll’s Blog
For almost forty years mainstream economics itself has lived with a theorem that shows the impossibility of extending the microanalysis of consumer behaviour to the macro level (unless making patently and admittedly insane assumptions). Still after all these years pretending in their textbooks that this theorem does not exist — none of the textbooks I investigated even mention the existence of the Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu theorem — is really outrageous.
Reformulating the economics curriculum
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University
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