Help Kickstart Minsky

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As reg­u­lar read­ers would know, I have been devel­op­ing a com­put­er pro­gram for build­ing strict­ly mon­e­tary dynam­ic macro­eco­nom­ic mod­els. New read­ers might have seen this arti­cle in The Econ­o­mist:

Reform­ing macro­eco­nom­ics: Clau­dio Borio on the finan­cial cycle

where my work received the fol­low­ing men­tion:

Steve Keen, an Aus­tralian econ­o­mist, has long argued that macro needs to incor­po­rate these ideas, and has devel­oped a pro­to­type of a com­put­er pro­gram, called “Min­sky,” that can be used to mod­el economies as mon­e­tary sys­tems. So while most econ­o­mists have not embraced Mr Bori­o’s agen­da for the ref­or­ma­tion of macro, some have. That is encour­ag­ing news. (Click here for Clau­dio Bori­o’s paper)

The pro­gram is called Min­sky in hon­or of the late and great mon­e­tary econ­o­mist Hyman Min­sky. It is not a mod­el of the econ­o­my as such, but a visu­al tool by which mod­els can be devel­oped.

It has been under devel­op­ment for rough­ly a year now, thanks to a US$128,000 grant from the Insti­tute for New Eco­nom­ic Think­ing. That has enabled me to hire one bril­liant pro­gram­mer, Dr. Rus­sell Stan­dish, for about 10–20 hours a week–the most that a con­tract pro­gram­mer can afford to devote to a sin­gle project. Con­se­quent­ly, the pro­gram as it cur­rent­ly exists rep­re­sents about 3–4 months of pro­gram­ming time. That’s pro­duced a func­tion­al pro­gram, but it is still in its infan­cy. I want to take it to adult­hood, and for that I need seri­ous fund­ing that will enable me to hire sev­er­al top-notch pro­gram­mers for sev­er­al years.

That’s where you come in–if you are will­ing. Next Wednes­day I will launch a cam­paign on Kick­starter to raise devel­op­ment fund­ing for Min­sky.

Producing a combined model Keen and Krugman's visions of lending in Minsky

Pro­duc­ing a com­bined mod­el Keen and Krug­man’s visions of lend­ing in Min­sky

The amount I’m ask­ing for on Kickstarter–US$50,000–is quite mod­est. To push the anal­o­gy, that’s enough to get the pro­gram from infant stage to tod­dler. But obvi­ous­ly I’m hop­ing to raise a lot more–enough to get Min­sky to the end of high school, so to speak.

That would require hir­ing Rus­sell full-time for at least 3 years (oth­er­wise he’ll only be able to devote half or less of his time to Min­sky), as well as two bril­liant and ded­i­cat­ed young pro­gram­mers Nathan Moses and Kevin Pereira, who have almost com­plet­ed the devel­op­ment of a ver­sion of Min­sky that can be run from a web­site and on tablets. That will take about US$1 mil­lion.

So if you agree that eco­nom­ics needs reform, if you’ve enjoyed my work to warn of the eco­nom­ic cri­sis over the last sev­en years, and if you’d like to help eco­nom­ics final­ly over­come its fear of mon­ey and dynam­ics, please make a con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of Min­sky.

You can pre­view the cam­paign here:

Pre­view of Kick­starter Cam­paign

The cam­paign will go live on Wednes­day Decem­ber 19th. Please get ready to put some finance into build­ing Min­sky. To make a con­tri­bu­tion, all you need at your end is an account at Ama­zon.

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About Steve Keen

I am Professor of Economics and Head of Economics, History and Politics at Kingston University London, and a long time critic of conventional economic thought. As well as attacking mainstream thought in Debunking Economics, I am also developing an alternative dynamic approach to economic modelling. The key issue I am tackling here is the prospect for a debt-deflation on the back of the enormous private debts accumulated globally, and our very low rate of inflation.