The Contributions of Tom Asimakopulos to Post-Keynesian Economics (2008)

Tom and I knew one another for 35 years.† Our close friendship dates from the late 1960s, after Tom had made a major shift in his approach to economics. This followed his year at MIT in 1965–66 where, listening to Bob Solow’s lectures, the significance of Joan Robinson’s critique of neoclassical theory and method fell into place (see Harcourt, 1991, 42, and Abe Tarasofsky’s moving account of this episode quoted in the Preface of Harcourt et al. (eds), 1994, xii). Tom immediately took up the implications of the critique and started to spell them out in his own work. This was a courageous decision. It removed him from being regarded as one of the most promising young theorists in mainstream economics in Canada to an unpopular maverick position for which there was little understanding and even less tolerance among his peers.