"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana, 1905

50 Years of Verified Macro Predictions

When you can't afford to be wrong.

Professor Steve Keen and the Ravel Advisory team build stock-flow consistent debt, energy, and banking models so sovereigns and institutions can see systemic risk before it breaks the system.

Steve modeled the next one in December 2005, 36 months before Lehman.

Media Appearances

Heard by millions. Used by decision makers.

11M+ combined views. Watched by policy teams and institutional allocators as a primer on debt-driven instability.

The Diary of a CEO

7.0M

"In 3 months we'll enter a famine."

w/ Steven Bartlett. The conversation that explains the systemic mistakes the IMF and Fed keep repeating.

BBC HARDtalk

110K

"Called 2008, 18 months before consensus."

The early-warning track record that puts Keen in the room with central bank advisors.

Piers Morgan Uncensored

575K

The housing-crash math, live on air.

Public-facing version of the framework used by housing and sovereign-risk practitioners.

ABC News Australia · The Business

28K

"Tariffs could push the US to recession."

National financial news, May 2025. The framework applied to the current macro cycle.

Lex Fridman · #303

3.1M

Long-form on debt, energy + climate risk.

3-hour discussion. Cited by quants and policy researchers as the definitive Keen primer.

Al Jazeera English

International broadcast

Sovereign debt, energy, and what the West misses about MENA.

The MENA-specific reading of the framework, on a major international news network.

Selected appearances. View counts as of 2026.

Requested By Teams Inside

Selected when boards and ministers want an external view independent of Wall Street and Brussels.

BBC The Coca-Cola Company World Bank Google Microsoft

The Proof

The 2008 case.

A documented, peer-reviewed early warning. Three years before Lehman. While the IMF and the Federal Reserve were calling "soft landing." The framework that produced the call is the same one Ravel Advisory engages with sovereigns and institutions today.

The Receipts, On The Same Chart

What the textbooks said. What the math said. What actually happened.

Wrong

Mainstream consensus model

"Containable. Soft landing through 2008."

2005 2010

Source: IMF World Economic Outlook + US Federal Reserve commentary, Q3 2007.

Outcome: ~$15 trillion global wealth destroyed. Zero mainstream models flagged the crash.

Right

Ravel© model

"Systemic crash imminent. The math forces it."

2005 2010 Lehman, Sept 2008

Source: Steve Keen, Debtwatch, December 2005.

Outcome: Lehman collapsed September 2008. Awarded the Revere Prize for the most cogent early warning.

On The Record

Published evidence, December 2005.

Not a hindsight claim. Time-stamped, peer-visible, and dated 36 months before Lehman. Click either to enlarge.

How We Work

Engagements for sovereigns and long-horizon capital.

We work with a small number of sovereign ministries, central-bank advisors, sovereign wealth funds, and institutional managers each year. Typical engagements fall into three patterns.

12 to 16 weeks

Sovereign Macro-Risk Radar

Who it is for: Ministries of finance, central bank advisors, sovereign wealth funds.

What we do: Build a stock-flow consistent model of your debt, housing, banking and energy exposure using your data.

What you get: Closed-door briefings, written scenarios, and a model your team can reuse.

8 to 12 weeks

Institutional Tail-Risk Sprint

Who it is for: Hedge funds, family offices, asset managers.

What we do: Map how debt, housing and energy shocks would transmit into your portfolio.

What you get: A tailored scenario pack and ongoing access to our team for a defined period.

Proof of concept

Ravel Model Build + Handover

Who it is for: Teams testing the framework before a full mandate.

What we do: Build a proof-of-concept model around a tightly scoped question using Ravel©.

What you get: A working model, documentation, and briefing notes suitable for inclusion in board or ministry packs.

Custom mandates available for ministry-level engagements. NDA-bound from first call.

What we do

What sovereign and institutional clients hire us for.

01

Macro risk models

  • ·Stock-flow consistent models that link private debt, energy, housing and banking.
  • ·Scenario libraries for interest-rate, credit and energy shocks.
  • ·Customized to your data, your regulatory perimeter, your political constraints.
View methodology →
02

Ravel© modelling software

  • ·Patented engine used to build banking and energy-integrated macro models. Open-source predecessor (Minsky) was funded by INET — the Soros institute — with a $128,000 grant plus $78,025 raised on Kickstarter.
  • ·Audit-ready structure suitable for regulators and board scrutiny. Built with Russell Standish, ex-Director of UNSW High-Performance Computing.
  • ·Delivered with training, or as a black-box service, depending on your team. SourceForge "Project of the Month," January 2014.
Explore the tools →
03

Sovereign and institutional advisory

  • ·Closed-door briefings for ministers, boards and investment committees.
  • ·Project-based mandates from 4-week sprints to multi-year partnerships.
  • ·Designed to sit alongside, not replace, your existing advisers.
Request a briefing →

Selected Briefings

Selected briefings for sovereign and institutional teams.

Macro questions that finance ministries, central bank advisors, and institutional allocators actually need answered. One field for the PDF.

Featured · Debt Macro 8 min briefing

The Debt Spiral: Why 2008 Was Not the Last One

For: Central bank advisors, ministry of finance teams, institutional allocators.

Aggregate private debt as a share of GDP is now higher than 2007. Shows what stock-flow consistent modeling sees ahead of consensus, and how to stress-test your portfolio or balance sheet against it.

Sovereign Risk

Sovereign Default Risk in 2026: The Saudi Arabia Case

For: GCC ministries, sovereign wealth funds, central banks.

Shows how combined debt and energy models change default stress tests for one of the world's most sovereign-stable economies.

Energy + Policy

Energy Macro: The Decade of Resource-Constrained Growth

For: Industry strategy heads, energy ministries, long-horizon allocators.

Energy throughput, not just labor and capital, sets the upper bound on real production. Shows modeling implications for industry, currency, and central bank policy.

Policy + Technology

AI-Era Policy: When Mainstream Models Break

For: Policy units, regulators, sovereign technology partners.

AI-driven productivity shifts are reshaping the assumptions underlying every major macro forecast. Shows where consensus models fail and dynamic stock-flow models hold.

Methodology

Stock-Flow Consistency: Why Most Forecasts Are Wrong by Construction

For: Quants, model-risk teams, regulators.

Audit of central bank forecasting methodologies through the lens of accounting identities. Shows where mainstream models silently violate them.

More briefings published quarterly. Subscribe to the research list →

SK

Professor Steve Keen

Photo coming

The Founder

Professor Steve Keen.

  • 01

    Won the inaugural Revere Award (2010) for the most cogent early warning of the global financial crisis.

    1,152 votes from 2,500+ economists at Real-World Economics Review. More than twice as many as the next two nominees (Roubini, Baker) combined. Listed by Bezemer (2009) as one of only 12 economists who genuinely foresaw the GFC.

  • 02

    Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute for Strategy, Resilience & Security, University College London.

    Honorary Professor at UCL. Former Head of School of Economics, History & Politics at Kingston University London. PhD UNSW. Ranked #19 on Academic Influence's Most Influential Living Economists.

  • 03

    Author of Debunking Economics, Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis?, and The New Economics: A Manifesto.

    The New Economics selected by Martin Wolf as one of the Financial Times Best Books of 2021. Endorsed by Yanis Varoufakis (former Finance Minister of Greece), Kate Raworth, Michael Hudson.

  • 04

    Founder of the patented Ravel© modelling framework. Open-source predecessor (Minsky) funded by INET (the Soros institute).

    $128,000 INET grant + $78,025 Kickstarter. SourceForge "Project of the Month" January 2014. Built with Russell Standish, ex-Director of UNSW High-Performance Computing.

The Working Group

Beyond Professor Keen.

Sovereign and institutional engagements draw on a small working group of senior practitioners across modelling, software, and research communication.

RS

Russell K. Standish

Lead Developer, Ravel©

  • ·Founding Director of the High-Performance Computing Unit at UNSW.
  • ·PhD in physics. 70+ publications across computational science and complex systems.
  • ·Lead architect of Minsky (open-source predecessor to Ravel©, INET-funded). Builds the engine sovereigns and institutions plug into.
TC

Tyrone Keynes

Researcher & Educator

  • ·Founder of Re-Learning Economics (YouTube + Patreon). Translates the framework for non-technical institutional audiences.
  • ·Public-facing pedagogy for boards, policy teams, and sovereign committees that need to onboard the model without spinning up an in-house quant team.
  • ·Long-running collaborator on Professor Keen's research output and educational programming.

Working group expands per engagement. Specialist contributors (climate scientists, applied mathematicians, energy physicists) brought in for cross-disciplinary mandates as required.

Sovereign & institutional inquiries

For sovereigns and institutions facing non-trivial systemic risk.

If a wrong macro call would cost your institution billions or undermine public trust, we should talk. We work with a small number of sovereigns, central banks, funds and strategic technology partners each year.