Philip Arestis is responding to the following questions:

You are looking back on more than 40 years of academic life and you will enter your 70th year of life this year. What was your motivation to become an economist and what were the major steps in your career as a professional economist?

How did you get in contact with post-Keynesian economics?

In the 1960s and 1970s it looked as if post-Keynesian economics had a potential to replace neoclassical economics as the mainstream. From the perspective of today, why did it not succeed in doing so?

Nowadays, you were among the very early critics of the New Consensus Model and obviously this model has failed in the present crisis. Will the New Consensus Model be replaced? Or will it be amended in one way or the other, but without touching its core?

Let us assume a more or less post-Keynesian policy programme would come into force. What key elements in your view would be part of this policy programme, especially against the background of the crisis of the financial system?

Fiscal policy plays a prominent role in your approach. You are advocating it by following the Functional Finance approach originated by Abba Lerner. Does this approach not include a problem of public debt?

What are the implications of your policy programme for the European Monetary Union?