Webinar | Clara E. Mattei: Using history to understand contemporary political economy, 16 March 2023

In this talk, Prof. Clara E. Mattei explained the inner workings of researching the origin story of austerity that integrates and studies the connections between economists’ theoretical writings, political interventions, and public commentaries. The talk was hosted jointly with the Southern Africa Labour and Research Development Unit, University of Cape Town.

Clara E. Mattei is an Associate Professor in Economics at The New School for Social Research, New York City, and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton during 2018 – 2019.

Her research focuses on the relationship between fiscal, monetary, and industrial policies in contemporary capitalism. In particular, she studies the logic of austerity policies and how they shape our society. Her recent book, Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (University of Chicago Press, 2022) has received widespread acclamation and was selected by Financial Times as one of the Best Books of the Year.