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The glaring failure of modern macroeconomics to predict the Global Financial Crisis, and to provide remedies for the Great Recession which followed, has led to renewed interest in alternative approaches to Macroeconomics. There is huge amount of ongoing work aimed at creating a Macroeconomics for the 21st Century. The task is of the highest priority, as failures of economic theory have led to misery for millions. Wrong measures of GDP, and cost-benefit calculation which fail to account for environmental costs, and prioritize private profits over social welfare, have created a climate catastrophe which threatens to destroy the planet. In accordance with the importance of this task, we are expanding the scope of this journal, to cover all new approaches to economics, which fall outside of the boxes of conventional macro, micro, and econometrics of the 20th Century. This article outlines seven broad categories of research directions, and four different methodological principles which fall outside the boundaries of the conventional approach, and offer promise for building a Macroeconomics for the 21st Century. We hope to invite contributions in these areas for future issues.

This paper aims, in its beginning, to present in a very short way how three schools of economic thought visualize financial markets and asset pricing. Next, the paper discusses the main differences between these schools, as well as its convergence points. We argue that many of the discordances in the perception of the role and the efficiency of financial markets are consequences of three basic questions: what is the main objective of economic agents in financial markets, how rational are their choices, and how important is the uncertainty in comparison with risk. Additionally, there are important differences about the questions proposed by each theory, which makes sometimes the object studied by each school diverse. We aim then, to evaluate the specific objectives of the three theories, as well as the impact of the realism of assumptions over the capacity to reach concrete results by each school. It is possible to verify that conventional finance, especially considering portfolio decision models, has considerable practical application, mainly for portfolio managers and investors. Post Keynesian theory, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of psychological and behavioral issues on market operations, especially on speculative procedures. In this sense, Post Keynesian theory, together with behavioral finance theory, is more adherent to economic reality. However, because these assumptions create great complexity, the aptitude to deliver objective results departing from Post Keynesian models is considerable limited., O presente trabalho tem o objetivo inicial de apresentar resumidamente como três correntes da teoria econômica visualizam os mercados financeiros e a precificação de ativos. Em seguida, o artigo discute as principais diferenças entre essas correntes, bem como alguns de seus pontos de convergência. Argumenta-se que muitas das discordâncias nas percepções do papel e da eficiência dos mercados financeiros ocorrem em função de três questões básicas: qual o principal objetivo dos agentes no mercado financeiro, qual o grau de racionalidade do seu comportamento e qual a importância da incerteza frente ao risco. Além disso, existem diferenças importantes em relação às questões que cada teoria se propõe a responder, tornando o objeto de estudo dessas correntes por vezes distinto. Procura-se, então, avaliar quais são os objetivos específicos dessas três correntes, bem como o impacto do realismo das hipóteses consideradas por cada linha teórica sobre a obtenção de resultados concretos. Observa-se que a teoria convencional das finanças, no que se refere aos modelos de avaliação de portfolios, tem grande aplicação prática, especialmente para os gestores de fundos de investimentos e carteiras de ativos. A teoria pós-keynesiana, por outro lado, enfatiza a relevância dos fatores psicológicos e comportamentais dos agentes nas operações do mercado, especialmente nas que envolvem elementos especulativos. Nesse sentido, a teoria pós-keynesiana, em conjunto com as finanças comportamentais, apresenta maior aderência com a realidade observada no funcionamento dos mercados financeiros. Não obstante, devido à complexidade gerada pelas hipóteses adotadas pelos pós-keynesianos, sua capacidade de entregar resultados objetivos obtidos a partir de modelos formais é bastante limitada.