Modern macro models are based on the premise that agents will respond to any unforeseen disturbance in such a way that their actions will co-ordinate activity toward the optimal use of resources. The task for policymakers is then merely to reduce economic volatility. This self-stabilising structure appears to be at best questionable in the wake of the Great Recession. In recovery, the spectre of ‘secular stagnation’ has emerged, with no self-correcting mechanism.

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We expect scholars to bring insights from sociology, psychology, anthropology and network theory in order to extend our understanding of preferences and decision making, and the implications for stability. Economists may ask how an inherent instability hypothesis can be usefully incorporated into models and used as a guide to policy. Scientists may query whether agent-based models can be revised, so that they may provide better predictions of policy outcomes or more robust policy options in unstable economies. Or perhaps some entirely new approach will emerge that we have not yet foreseen.