Paul Ormerod: Linking the past and the future

Volterra Partner Paul Ormerod recently addressed the Trinity College, Cambridge Student Economics Society. A welcome guest was Professor Emeritus Robert Neild, himself a Fellow of Trinity who, at the very start of his distinguished career, actually met Keynes himself!  Paul spoke on the topic ‘Networks: the Missing Link in Macroeconomics’. He argued that Keynes’ great work, the General Theory of Employment, can be formalised in the context of modern advances in network theory.  Keynes’ key concept of ‘animal spirits’, the optimism/pessimism of companies, is perfectly suited to a network interpretation. The presentation he gave is available here.

Image: Panorama 2 of Neville Court, Trinity College Cambridge by Chris Huang licensed under CC BY 2.0