Why current definitions of family income are misleading, and why this matters for measures of inequality

Is degrowth bad economics? To properly answer this question, it is essential to understand what economic growth really is. The term ‘growth’ is often associated with an increase in wealth, a term loosely defined, but according to the degrowth-movement, economic growth is a narrower concept only describing an increase in Gross Domestic …

Ernest Mandel, a heterodox Marxist economist, shows here how a political economist can analyse systems such as the Soviet Union.

This course will introduce key concepts, theories and methods from socioeconomics. The first part of the course, will deal with the main economic actors and how their interactions are governed. Markets are seen as sets of social institutions. Institutions shape how consumers, firms and other economic actors behave. While it is difficult to understand how novelty emerges, we can study the conditions that are conducive to innovation. We will review how economic performance, social progress and human wellbeing are measured and what progress has been made. In the second part of the course, we will study a specific macroeconomic model that accounts for biophysical boundaries and inequality.

In this essay, Professor Robert Pollin explores the short falls of the degrowth perspective in handling the impending environmental collapse as well as elaborates on the efficacies of a green new deal.