The Legacy of Wynne Godley

He has been considered “the most insightful macroeconomic forecaster of his generation,” gaining this reputation through his research on the British economy during his time as head of Cambridge’s Department of Applied Economics, and later on for his work on the US and world economy when he moved to the Levy Economics Institute. He provided a prescient alert to both the 2001 recession and the Great Recession of 2007, and gave warnings on the consequences of adopting the euro under the rules of the Maastricht Treaty.

His books with Francis Cripps (Macroeconomics, OUP 1983) and Marc Lavoie (Monetary Economics, Palgrave Macmillan 2007) laid the foundations for the “stock-flow consistent approach” to macroeconomics, which is being embraced by a growing number of scholars and practitioners to analyze the interactions of real and financial markets, and is providing a robust alternative to the mainstream approach based on microfoundations and market clearing.

On the 10th anniversary of his departure, we brought together some of the people who worked with him to offer memories or provide insights based on his work.

This virtual conference took place on the Google Meet platform at Universita’ degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale and was recorded. Individual videos are now available.

To view the event schedule and links to the session videos, please visit the conference website.