This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

MCT is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, including:

• Max Contraction Training, a bodybuilding/strength system developed by John Little.
• Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
• Modified Covenant Theology
• Munich ChronoType, chronotype evaluations questionnaire from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• MOS Controlled Thyristors (MCTs)

Astronomy[link]

• Maksutov-Cassegrain, A Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope
• Morning Civil Twilight, from when the center of the Sun is less than 6° below the horizon to sunrise.
• MOS controlled thyristors
• Mystic Canyon Thugz

Biochemistry[link]

• Medium-chain triglycerides, a class of fat with specific dietary and technical properties.
• Monocarboxylate transporters, a family of proton-linked plasma membrane transporters that carry molecules having one carboxylate]group (monocarboxylates), such as lactate and pyruvate, across biological membranes.

Companies[link]

• Marine Current Turbines
• Menard Competition Technologies
• McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, the news service formerly known as Knight Ridder Tribune
• Midwest Coast Transport
• Millenium Concert Travel
• Multi Channel Television, an Italian based company, broadcasting though satellite, erotic programming
• MonoCroTaline,used to induce Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension(PAH) in lab-rat experiments

Computing[link]

• Microsoft Certified Trainer
• Mobile Computer Terminal

Economics[link]

• Motivation crowding theory

Engineering[link]

• Maximum Continuous Thrust, an aviation abbreviation for a Jet engine rating
• Mercury Cadmium Telluride (HgCdTe), Used in Mid and Far Infrared Detectors (e.g. night vision)
• MOS Controlled Thyristor, a type of thyristor (a solid-state semiconductor device)
• Multi Cable Transit, a block system provides sealed cable and pipes transits for ships and oilrigs

Entertainment[link]

• Minimum Correct Thing, fictional military slang for how to properly behave around civilians (coined by Orson Scott Card for his novelization of the movie The Abyss).
• Miss Chinese Toronto Pageant, the annual Toronto beauty pageant for Chinese Canadians
• Missoula Children's Theatre
• Montgomery Community Television
• Music Copyright Thailand, the organization in Thailand that is much like ASCAP in the USA

Mathematics[link]

• Monotone convergence theorem

Military[link]

• Marine Combat Training, the month-long infantry training course for US Marines with non-infantry military occupational specialties
• Movement Control Team

Physics[link]

• Mode Coupling Theory

Transportation[link]

• Madison County Transit
• Mindanao Container Terminal
• Minimum Connect Time, in commercial aviation, the smallest allowable interval between the arrival time of one flight and the departure time of a subsequent flight, if the two flights are to be listed as "connecting flights." Varies by airport and airline. See Direct flight.
• Muscat International Airport, the airport serving Muscat, Oman, whose IATA code is MCT.

Steve Keen

Post-Keynesian economics
File:SteveKeen01.jpg
Born	(1953-03-28) March 28, 1953 (age 59)
Nationality	Australia
Opposed	Neoclassical economics
Influences	Hyman Minsky Piero Sraffa Joseph Alois Schumpeter François Quesnay
Contributions	Mathematical models of financial crises and debt-deflation

Steve Keen is a professor in economics and finance at the University of Western Sydney. He classes himself as a post-Keynesian, criticizing both modern neoclassical economics and Marxian economics as inconsistent, unscientific and empirically unsupported. The major influences on Keen's thinking about economics include John Maynard Keynes, Hyman Minsky, Piero Sraffa, Joseph Alois Schumpeter, and François Quesnay. His recent work mostly concentrates on mathematical modeling and simulation of financial instability. He is a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Development.

Financial instability and debt deflation[link]

Most of Steve Keen's recent work focuses on modeling Hyman Minsky's financial instability hypothesis and Irving Fisher's debt deflation.^[1][2] The hypothesis predicts that an overly large debt to GDP ratio can cause deflation and depression. Here, the falling of the price level results in a continually rising real quantity of outstanding debt. Moreover, the continued deleveraging of outstanding debts increases the rate of deflation. Thus, debt and deflation act on and react to one another, resulting in a debt-deflation spiral. The outcome is a depression. Steve Keen argues that the current global economic crisis is the result of too much debt.

[edit] Debunking Economics

Keen's full-range critique of neoclassical economics is contained in his book Debunking Economics.^[3] Keen presents a wide variety of critiques on neoclassical economic theory, and argues that they show neoclassical assumptions are fundamentally flawed. Keen points out that several neoclassical assumptions are empirically unsupported (that is, they are unsupported by observable and repeatable phenomena) nor are they desirable for society at large (that is, they do not necessarily produce either efficiency or equity for the majority). He argues that economists' overall conclusions are very sensitive to small changes in these assumptions.

Keen's book closes with a survey of various schools of heterodox economics, concluding "None of these is at present strong enough or complete enough to declare itself a contender for the title of ‘the’ economic theory of the 21st century." However, he argues that neoclassical economics is a degenerative research program, not generating new knowledge but growing a belt of protective auxiliary hypotheses to shield its core beliefs from critique. There is an accompanying web site which provides more detailed mathematical expositions.

Critique of neoclassical theory of the firm[link]

Keen's work (as opposed to his popularization) has also focused on refuting the neoclassical theory of the firm, which argues that firms will set marginal revenue equal to marginal cost. Keen notes that empirical research finds real firms set price well above marginal cost: they charge a markup, often cost-plus pricing; compare fellow post-Keynesian Alfred Eichner, who also argued for markup pricing.

He cites Eiteman & Guthrie,^[4] finding 89% of firms set prices above the level where marginal revenue is equal to marginal cost, as well as more recent work by Alan Blinder.^[5]

Keen's article on "profit maximization, industry structure, and competition"^[6] has had counter-arguments by Paul Anglin.^[7]

Criticisms[link]

Some reviewers contend that Keen has not shown what he claims and that he misrepresents economic theory.^[8] Keen agrees that some more nuanced and qualified versions of neoclassical economics exist at very high levels. However he claims that his critique is aimed at the core neoclassical ideas that are taught in universities at undergraduate and postgraduate level and which are often used as the basis for policy prescriptions. As a cover blurb from Alan Isaac states, Keen's book is "A wide-ranging yet accessible critique of the staples of neoclassical pedagogy."

Firms setting price to marginal cost is consistent with the neoclassical theory of the firm if those firms have some market power.^[9] However, Keen argues"^[6] that economic theory neglects the effect on price of increasing or reducing supply by a single item and finds that charging a markup is actually a more stable, profitable equilibrium. In neoclassical theory, a firm would also charge a markup above marginal cost.^[9] In fact, part of the purpose of the work by Eiteman & Guthrie and by Blinder that Keen cites as evidence, was to show that real life firms have some monopoly power, within the standard context of a neoclassical model.

Other publications[link]

• Lee, Frederic S. and Steve Keen (2004): "The Incoherent Emperor: A Heterodox Critique of Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory", Review of Social Economy, V. 62, Iss. 2: 169-199
• Co-editor of: Commerce, Complexity and Evolution: Topics in Economics, Finance, Marketing, and Management: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62030-9.

See also[link]

• Paul Ormerod

References[link]

1. ^ The Roving Cavaliers of Credit
2. ^ Steve Keen (1995): "Finance and economic breakdown: modelling Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis", Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Vol. 17, No. 4, 607–635
3. ^ Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences (2001, Pluto Press Australia) ISBN 1-86403-070-4
4. ^ Eiteman & Guthrie (1952): "The shape of the average cost curve", American Economic Review 42: 832–838
5. ^ Blinder, Alan; et al. (1998): Asking about prices: a new approach to understanding price stickiness, Russell Sage Foundation, New York
6. ^ ^{a b} Steve Keen & Russel Standish (2006):"Profit Maximization, Industry Structure, and Competition: A critique of neoclassical theory", Physica A 370: 81-85
7. ^ Paul Anglin (2008): On the proper behavior of atoms: A comment on a critique Physica A 387: 277-280
8. ^ David Stern, "BOOK REVIEWS: Debunking Economics", Ecological Economics Volume 39, Issue 2, November 2001,pages 319–320 [1]
9. ^ ^{a b} Tirole, Jean, 'The Theory of Industrial Organization', MIT Press 1998

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steve Keen

• Website of "Debunking Economics" and Steve Keen's personal web site
• Steve Keen's Debtwatch blog
• List of Steve Keen's publications
• There is madness in their method A sample chapter from Debunking Economics.

• A more detailed presentation of the contents in the Physica A article.
• A news feature on an Econophysics paper co-written by Prof. Keen appeared in the journal Nature, accompanied by an editorial.
• Interview conducted on the 13th of Dec 2009 by Dominic Frisby about Steve Keen's predictions for 2010
• Steven Keen 04 February 2010 (video from Switzer TV)
• Steve Keen interviewed on BBC's Hard Talk
• Steve Keen interviewed on RT's Capital Account (10 Nov 2011)