The annual conference of the American Economics Association (ASSA 2022) took place last weekend.  This year it was a virtual conference, but there was still a myriad of presentations and sessions in the largest academic economics conference in the world, with many of the big hitters of mainstream economics on the webinars.

I usually divide the conference sessions into two sections; first, the sessions based on the paradigms of mainstream economics ie. neoclassical, marginalist general equilibrium models; and second, the sessions based on radical heterodox economics (post-Keynesians, institutionalists and even Marxist models).  The former sessions are multi-fold and well attended; the latter, usually run by the Union of Radical Political Economics (URPE) are small and poorly attended.  But of course, the latter usually provide the richest addition to our understanding of political economy.

This year’s mainstream sessions were naturally dominated by what is happening and going to happen to the…