1253 Ergebnisse
In this tenth lecture in INET’s “How and How Not to Do Economics,” Robert Skidelsky argues that there are two main reasons why economists should study history.
Economic History
As part of the 2019/2020 Exploring Economics Experience, one of our supporters Prof. Steve Keen gave a presentation to our editorial team. Read more
The foundations of monetary macroeconomics - Steve Keen | Exploring Economics Global Lecture
Prof. Yanis Varoufakis talks in this introductory lecture about the future of our economy and the current state of economics with special regard to pluralism in economics.
Introduction to Pluralism in Economics - From an Economics-without-Capitalism to Markets-without-Capitalism
In der Luxemburg Lecture Der Kapitalismus an den Kipppunkten von Natur und Gesellschaft stellt Birgit Mahnkopf die Unvereinbarkeit von Kapitalismus mit einem wirklichen Umwelt und Klimaschutz ebenso wie einer sozial ökonomischen Transformation aus marxistischer Perspektive pointiert dar Dabei identifiziert Mahnkopf diverse soziale und ökologische Kipppunkte die einen wirksamen Klimaschutz innerhalb …
Der Kapitalismus an den Kipppunkten von Natur und Gesellschaft
As part of a larger series on Just Transitions, the author describes how the current corona crisis comes with new economic policy responses which would have been considered unthinkable only a year ago. Arguing that with the current high levels of confidence in politicians and scientific advice, combined with the realisation that the market has not been able to solve this problem on its own, we are now in a unique position to implement a radically different solution than was politically possible previously.
A Social-Green Deal, with just transition—the European answer to the coronavirus crisis
Exploring Economics, an open-source e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
Yes, Money is Endogenous. Who Cares?
How do people make decisions? There is a class of models in psychology which seek to answer this question but have received scant attention in economics despite some clear empirical successes. In a previous post I discussed one of these, Decision by Sampling, and this post will look at another: the so-called Fast and Frugal heuristics pioneered by the German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. Here the individual seeks out sufficient information to make a reasonable decision. They are ‘fast’ because they do not require massive computational effort to make a decision so can be done in seconds, and they are ‘frugal’ because they use as little information as possible to make the decision effectively.
Bounded Rationality: the Case of ‘Fast and Frugal’ Heuristics
An analysis of the modern neoliberal world, its characteristics, flaws and planetary boundaries aiming to end new economic politics and support a global redistribution of power, wealth and roles.
In this online lecture, economist and Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK. Costas Lapavitsas, explains the limitations of the neoliberal market in creating financial stability and growth in both, developing and developed countries.
The Limits to Neoliberalism: how states respond to the crisis
Most mainstream neoclassical economists completely failed to anticipate the crisis which broke in 2007 and 2008. There is however a long tradition of economic analysis which emphasises how growth in a capitalist economy leads to an accumulation of tensions and results in periodic crises. This paper first reviews the work of Karl Marx who was one of the first writers to incorporate an analysis of periodic crisis in his analysis of capitalist accumulation. The paper then considers the approach of various subsequent Marxian writers, most of whom locate periodic cyclical crises within the framework of longer-term phases of capitalist development, the most recent of which is generally seen as having begun in the 1980s. The paper also looks at the analyses of Thorstein Veblen and Wesley Claire Mitchell, two US institutionalist economists who stressed the role of finance and its contribution to generating periodic crises, and the Italian Circuitist writers who stress the problematic challenge of ensuring that bank advances to productive enterprises can successfully be repaid.
Finance and Crisis: Marxian, Institutionalist and Circuitist approaches
Could working less make people and the planet better off? Find out in this dossier by exploring the landscape of working time reduction policies and their potential for reimagining, restructuring, and redistributing time as a political resource in the 21st century economy.
Could Working Time Reduction Policies Save People and the Planet?
Michael Kalecki famously remarked “I have found out what economics is; it is the science of confusing stocks with flows”. Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) models were developed precisely to address this kind of confusion. The basic intuition of SFC models is that the economy is built up as a set of intersecting balance sheets, where transactions between entities are called flows and the value of the assets/liabilities they hold are called stocks. Wages are a flow; bank deposits are a stock, and confusing the two directly is a category error. In this edition of the pluralist showcase I will first describe the logic of SFC models – which is worth exploring in depth – before discussing empirical calibration and applications of the models. Warning that there is a little more maths in this post than usual (i.e. some), but you should be able to skip those parts and still easily get the picture.
Stock Flow Consistent Macroeconomics
This paper investigates how the concept of public purpose is used in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). As a common denominator among political scientists, the idea of public purpose is that economic actions should aim at benefiting the majority of the society. However, the concept is to be considered as an ideal of a vague nature, which is highly dependent on societal context and, hence, subject to change over time. MMT stresses that government spending plans should be designed to pursue a certain socio-economic mandate and not to meet any particular financial outcome. The concept of public purpose is heavily used in this theoretical body of thought and often referred to in the context of policy proposals as the ideas of universal job guarantee and banking reform proposals show. MMT scholars use the concept as a pragmatic benchmark against which policies can be assessed. With regards to the definition of public propose, MMT scholars agree that it is dependent on the social-cultural context. Nevertheless, MMT scholars view universal access to material means of survival as universally applicable and in that sense as the lowest possible common denominator.
Modern Monetary Theory and the public purpose
This lecture of the anthropologist David Graeber gives a brief introduction to the thoughts of his 2011 published book Debt: The First 5000 Years.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Die Geschichte des Kapitalismus ist mit der Geschichte des (naiv realistischen) Alltagsverständnisses einer „objektiven“ Außen-Welt eng verwoben. Damit eine Geldorientierung und der Kapitalismus kulturdurchdringend werden konnten, musste sich die Vorstellung einer objektiven und messbaren „Außen-Welt“ entwickeln und in Lebenspraktiken durchsetzen. Das Paper erläutert die These, dass die Entstehungsgeschichte des Kapitalismus (lebenswirklich und in seiner theoretischen Reflexion) parallel zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Grundkonzepten (lebenswirklich und in ihrer theoretischen Reflexion), wie Ding, Raum und Zeit verlaufen ist bzw. einen gemeinsamen Prozess ausmacht.
Geld und Raum: Anmerkungen zum Homogenisierungsprogramm der beginnenden Neuzeit
Feminist economics is a key component of the movement for pluralism in economics and one that has, to some extent, been acknowledged by the mainstream of the profession. It seeks to highlight issues which affect women because (it claims) they have not traditionally been recognised in a field dominated by men. On top of this, it seeks to carve out a space for women in the discipline, both for intrinsic reasons of fairness and diversity and because it means that women’s issues are more likely to be highlighted going forward.
Why Feminist Economics is Necessary
This paper attempts to clarify how the European economic crisis from 2007 onwards can be understood from the perspective of a Marxian monetary theory of value that emphasizes intrinsic, structural flaws regarding capitalist reproduction. Chapter two provides an empirical description of the European economic crisis, which to some extent already reflects the structural theoretical framework presented in chapter three. Regarding the theoretical framework Michael Heinrich's interpretation of 'the' Marxian monetary theory of value will be presented. Heinrich identifies connections between production and realization, between profit and interest rate as well as between industrial and fictitious capital, which represent contradictory tendencies for which capitalism does not have simple balancing processes. In the context of a discussion of 'structural logical aspects' of Marx's Critique of the Political Economy, explanatory deficits of Heinrich's approach are analyzed. In the following, it is argued that Fred Moseley's view of these 'structural logical aspects' allows empirical 'applications' of Marxian monetary theories of value. It is concluded that a Marxian monetary theory of value, with the characteristics of expansive capital accumulation and its limitations, facilitates a structural analysis of the European economic crisis from 2007 onwards. In this line of argument, expansive production patterns are expressed, among other things, in global restructuring processes, while consumption limitations are mitigated by expansive financial markets and shifts in ex-port destinations.
The European economic crisis from 2007 onwards in the context of a global crisis of over-production of capital - a Marxian monetary theory of value interpretation
Global Value Chains (GVCs) started to play an increasing and key role in the global economy from the 1990s on. The market mechanism in GVCs supports industrialisation in the Global South and under certain conditions product and process upgrading. But GVCs do not lead to the catching-up of countries in the sense of them approaching real GDP per capita levels comparable with developed countries. These arguments are supported by a critical interpretation of the traditional trade theory, the New Trade Theory and specific approaches to explain GVCs, especially different governance structures and power relationships. Several case studies support these arguments. For catching-up, countries need comprehensive horizontal and vertical industrial policy and policies for social coherence. The small number of countries which managed to catch up did this in different variations.
Global Value Chains in economic development
The most successful multialternative theories of decision making assume that people consider individual aspects of a choice and proceed via a process of elimination. Amos Tversky was one of the pioneers of this field, but modern decision theorists – most notably Neil Stewart – have moved things forward. At the current stage the theories are able to explain a number of strictly ‘irrational’ but reasonable quirks of human decision making, including various heuristics and biases. Not only this, but eye movements of participants strongly imply that the decision-making process depicted in the theories is an accurate one.
The Quirks of Human Decisions, Explained
This article examines the spread of financialization in Germany before the financial crisis. It provides an up-to date overview on the literature on financialization and reviews which of the phenomena typically associated with financialization have emerged in Germany. In particular, the article aims to clarify how the prevailing institutional structure and its changes had contributed to or had countervailed the spread of financialization and how it had shaped the specific German variant of financialization. For this end, it combines the rich literature on Germany's institutional structure with the more macroeconomic oriented literature on financializaton. With the combination of those different perspectives the article sheds light on the reasons for the spread of financialization and the specific forms it has taken in Germany.
Financialization made in Germany: A review
Goethes Faust II, genauer das erste Kapitel wurde vielfach als eine Geld- und Inflationstheorie gelesen. Obgleich darin viele Motive anklingen, die in der Erklärung des Geldes eine Rolle spielen, so ist es doch ein Missgriff, Goethe als ökonomische Autorität zu lesen. Allerdings stand er allerdings in regem Austausch mit zeitgenössischen Ökonomen, deren Erkenntnisse weitgehend vergessen wurden. Gerade darin finden sich viele Elemente für eine Theorie und Philosophie des Geldes. Im Text werden zahlreiche dieser Einsichten vorgestellt und im Kontext der Faust-Dichtung vertieft. Die Figur des Mephistopheles als des „neuen“ Narren erweist sich dabei als wichtige Leitfigur für das Verständnis monetärer Prozesse jenseits der Vorurteile einer traditionellen Quantitätstheorie.
Goethe und das Papiergeld
In both economics textbooks and public perceptions central banks are a fact of life. On the wall of my A-level economics classroom there was the Will Rogers quote “there have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking”, summarising how many economists view the institution. There is a widespread belief that there is something different about money which calls for a central authority to manage its operation, a view shared even by staunch free marketeers such as Milton Friedman. This belief is not without justification, since money underpins every transaction in a way that apples do not, but we should always be careful not to take existing institutions for granted and central banking is no exception. In this post I will look at the idea of private or free banking, where banks compete (and cooperate) to issue their own currency.
Whither Central Banks?
An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Economic Impact and Possible Disruptions
An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Role of Women in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
In this paper the main developments in post-Keynesian macroeconomics since the mid- 1990s will be reviewed. For this purpose the main differences between heterodox economics in general, including post-Keynesian economics, and orthodox economics will be reiterated and an overview over the strands of post-Keynesian economics, their commonalities and developments since the 1930s will be outlined. This will provide the grounds for touching upon three important areas of development and progress of post-Keynesian macroeconomics since the mid-1990s: first, the integration of distribution issues and distributional conflict into short- and long-run macroeconomics, both in theoretical and in empirical/applied works; second, the integrated analysis of money, finance and macroeconomics and its application to changing institutional and historical circumstances, like the process of financialisation; and third, the development of full-blown macroeconomic models, providing alternatives to the mainstream 'New Consensus Model' (NCM), and allowing to derive a full macroeconomic policy mix as a more convincing alternative to the one implied and proposed by the mainstream NCM, which has desperately failed in the face of the recent crises.
Post-Keynesian macroeconomics since the mid-1990s: Main developments
Der Aufsatz diskutiert die Berechtigung von wirtschaftlichem Wachstum als wichtigstes gesellschaftliches Ziel der Gegenwart, seine Genese in der Theoriegeschichte seit dem 2. Weltkrieg und welche Wirkungen von diesem Konzept auf das ökonomische Denken ausgegangen sind. Es wird argumentiert, dass es einer neuen ökonomischen Bildung bedarf, die ein Verständnis für reale Zusammenhänge und ein Wissen um konkrete Dinge fördert, die unmittelbar an Fragestellungen des Lebens orientiert sind.
Wirtschaftswachstum und Bildungswiderstand: Von der Freiheit und Unfreiheit des ökonomischen Denkens
On July 2020 ZOE-Institute published a unique platform for transformative policymaking: Sustainable Prosperity. Building on insights from new economic thinking the platform provides knowledge about ideas, arguments and procedures that support effective promotion of political change. It aims to strengthen change makers in public policy institutions, who are working on an ambitious green and just transition. As such, it provides convincing arguments and policy ideas to overcome the reliance of economic policy on GDP growth
Sustainable Prosperity
Recovery from the Covid-19 crisis provides a chance to implement economic measures that are also beneficial from environmental and social perspectives. While ‘green’ recovery packages are crucial to support economies tracking a low-carbon transition in the short-term, green measures such as carbon pricing are also key to improving welfare in the long-term. This commentary specifies the need for carbon pricing, outlines its implications for our everyday lives, and explains how it works alongside value-based change in the context of climate action and societal well-being.
Carbon Pricing: The Key to Open the Way Toward a Sustainable Recovery and Long-Term Wellbeing
Geldökonomien vermitteln nicht einfach Wirtschaftssubjekte; sie führen zu einer charakteristischen Trennung zwischen Arbeitenden und Konsumenten. Während die klassische Ökonomie die Arbeit in den Mittelpunkt rückte, sollen nach neoklassischer Lehre die Konsumenten durch ihre Präferenzen die gesamte Ökonomie über die Preise steuern. Diese Denkfigur wird nachfolgend in ihrer ideologischen Funktion dechiffriert. Die Reduktion der meisten Menschen auf die Rolle passiver Konsumenten, die andererseits beim Gelderwerb dem Diktat des Eigentums als Arbeitskraft subsumiert sind, prägt sowohl die Struktur der modernen kapitalistischen Gesellschaften wie die Psyche der Menschen. Die Dualität von Tätig-Sein und Güter-Haben entpuppt sich als spezifische Herrschaftsform.
Vom Tätig-Sein und Güter-Haben
In spite of the manifold critique about the state of economics in the aftermath of the financial crisis, an even increasing presence of economists and economic experts can be observed in the public sphere during the last years. On the one hand this reflects the still dominant position of economics in the social sciences as well as the sometimes ignorant attitude of economists towards findings of other social sciences. On the other hand this paper shows that the public debate on politico-economic issues among economists is dominated by a specific subgroup of economists, tightly connected to an institutional network of “German neoliberalism”. This group of “public economists” (i) is dominant in public debates even after the financial crisis, (ii) reproduces the formative German economic imaginary of the Social Market Economy in a German neoliberal interpretation and (iii) has a good access to German economic policymaking, rooted in a long history of economic policy advice.
Still the queens of social sciences? (Post-)Crisis power balances of “public economists” in Germany
Als Weltwährung wird die abstrakte Idee einer weltweit gültigen Währung verstanden, mit der manche Ökonomen das derzeitige Weltwährungssystem ersetzt sehen wollen.
Weltwährung
Forderungen nach einer beschleunigten Dekarbonisierung werden häufig mit dem Verweis auf den Emissionshandel abgewehrt. Dabei wäre es vielmehr notwendig, dieses Instrument selbst zu hinterfragen und neu zu denken
Warum gute Klimapolitik über den Emissionshandel hinausgehen muss
Die Economists4Future wollten eine Diskussion über notwendige Konsequenzen der Klimakrise für die Wirtschaftswissenschaften anstoßen – was bisher aber kaum gelungen ist. Das liegt vor allem daran, dass der neoklassische Mainstream weiterhin Diskursverweigerung betreibt. Ein Beitrag von Franziska M. Hoffart und Michael Roos.
Ist die Neoklassik bereit zum Diskurs?
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