Toward real sustainability: incorporating insight from Ecological economics into Post-Keynesian Institutionalism

Abstract

Post-Keynesian Institutionalism (PKI) seeks mainly to help sustain macroeconomic expansions and foster broadly shared economic prosperity. It has given much less attention to environmental sustainability. Today, however, macroeconomic sustainability is not enough; the world faces a climate change crisis that threatens not only our economic system, but also the very survival of humanity. Thus, the scope of what we mean by sustainability must be expanded to include environmental as well as economic sustainability. This chapter aims to point PKI in that direction by incorporating insight from Ecological economics. The chapter includes an overview of Ecological economics, an examination of Institutionalist and Post-Keynesian Institutionalist literature involving environmental issues, lessons and suggestions for advancing the research agenda of PKI, and special attention to the relationship between climate change and today's "money manager" capitalism, a relationship that provides a logical starting place for incorporating Ecological economics into contemporary PKI.