Glasnost and Perestroika in Economics

James Galbraith says academic economics is in need of radical reform "Openness" and "restructuring" led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. But if it also led to the collapse of orthodox economics, James Galbraith wouldn't mind. The University of Texas economist outlines how the profession has become "self-dealing"—creating a tribal and restrictive hierarchy through journals and university appointments that keep diverse scholarship out. Economics wasn't this way just a few decades ago, but now its closed-mindedness keeps independent scholars from getting the platform they need to do real, pathbreaking research. Galbraith also discusses the work of his University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP), which is working to develop a new series of measurements of economic inequality at a global scale.