I joined Cambridge Economics in 2011 as an assistant professor. For...
Pontus Rendahl@pontus_rendahl
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Dec 06, 2025
~2 min read
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I joined Cambridge Economics in 2011 as an assistant professor. For historical reasons, Cambridge is still a bastion of heterodox economics - not so much in the department, but definitely in the colleges. (The college structure deserves its own thread.) 1/10
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What struck me immediately was the rudeness. The one thing uniting many heterodox economists there wasn’t a coherent framework - it was a deep disdain for mainstream economics. And right after the financial crisis, that attitude was everywhere. 2/10
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I decided - foolishly, in hindsight - to genuinely engage. I met with “pluralist economics” student groups, was a discussant on heterodox papers, debated Steve Keen live, attended seminars… I really tried. And I came in with an open mind, hoping to learn something. 3/10
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But what I learned was disappointing. There were endless smokescreens and evasions. Ask for evidence and you get: “You need to read up,” followed by a list of 10–20 books. The goalposts never stayed still. 4/10
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Eventually, I stopped. Despite all the promises and big rhetoric, there were no real insights. Claims of alternative theories always collapsed into the simplest old equations dressed up as novelty. 5/10
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Example: A “revolutionary” consumption theory not based on expected utility, taking into account “radical uncertainty” turns out to be C = a + b·(Y – T).
Unlimited money printing with no inflation? mv = py, but they simply assume p doesn’t move. 6/10
Unlimited money printing with no inflation? mv = py, but they simply assume p doesn’t move. 6/10
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One person (Peters) built a career on “non-ergodicity” using the same straw-man example for decades. Another (Keen) rolls ODEs forward to show chaotic behaviour, or limit cycles, and calls it a breakthrough. It’s all sleight of hand. 7/10
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There’s just nothing there. And over time I became so jaded that I stopped even being curious. The bold claims never survive scrutiny, yet the simplicity is seductive to a certain audience. 8/10
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Some of that audience resembles conspiracy theorists or anti-vaxxers - people who enjoy feeling like they’ve uncovered a secret the experts are too blind to see. Others are well-meaning students or journalists who don’t yet have the background to evaluate the claims. 9/10
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It’s sad, because I genuinely hoped there was something valuable to learn. But after years of engagement, debate, and effort, the conclusion is unavoidable: the heterodox crowd wasn’t offering insight - only grandstanding wrapped in oversimplified models. 10/10.
