Introduction

Abstract

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of economics is its ability to provide inner views of the functioning of the economic system that are not apparent at all to the layman and, sometimes not even so, to many of the economics trained professionals. The real world economy is a rather complex and badly understood system, but nowadays economists know much more about it than economists from 20 to 30 years ago. And of course this is as it should be for the sake of the advancement in science. Despite all the accumulated knowledge and all the new advances, economics remains a kind of mysterious affair for the common folk, notwithstanding that if very few people pretend to know anything from astrophysics or the medical sciences, aficionados are not scarce as far as economic chat goes. Since the equivalent of the penicillin, or the more modest aspirin, has yet to be discovered in economics, people find much room for intellectual and friendly speculation on how the economy -as our social body- can be put under our firm control.