"Specialise!" is the advice often given by career advisers, school teachers and the like. David Epstein takes the opposite position: In an ever more specialised, highly complex world, it pays to have good old-fashioned broad common knowledge in as many areas as you take interest in, both in terms of intellectual curiosity and professional success. To have a decent grasp of various aspects of life means to be able to discern the links between them, thus developing a better understanding of how our world works and what drives events as they unfold.

This innovative book offers targeted strategies for effectively and efficiently teaching economics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It provides professors and other teachers of economics various techniques to engage and retain the interest of students, and challenges them to apply both knowledge and methodological tools to a range of economic problems.

Macroeconomics in Context: A European Perspective lays out the principles of macroeconomics in a manner that is thorough, up to date, and relevant to students. With a clear presentation of economic theory throughout, this latest addition to the bestselling "In Context" set of textbooks is written with a specific focus on European data, institutions, and historical events, offering engaging treatment of high-interest topics, including sustainability, Brexit, the euro crisis, and rising inequality. Policy issues are presented in context (historical, institutional, social, political, and ethical), and always with reference to human well-being.

The book is offered, in the first instance, to students who are beginners in economics, but some parts of it may be of wider interest. The three topics, Economic Doctrines, Analysis and Modern Problems, might be the subject of concurrent courses or they may be studied consecutively.

The historical situation of low interest rates after the Fed's response to the 2001 crisis alongside with huge foreign money inflow to the US are presented as the historical context in which subprime lending and financial instruments like CDOs and CDS evolved. Then those instruments as well as the concept of leverage are explained briefly.

The authors show how consumers, business, the Federal Reserve, and government take into account what's going on around them to make critical decisions like buying new products, building new factories, changing interest rates, or setting budget goals. The book provides a clear roadmap to understanding the whole story behind the global economy.

Islamic finance's phenomenal growth owes to the Shariah compliant nature of its financial instruments. Shariah forbids the charging of interest (Riba) and instead promulgates risk-sharing and trade-based modes of financing. The Islamic financial industry has been subject to both critique and admiration. Critics argue that Islamic instruments (bearing debt-based structures) differ from their conventional counterparts only in legal lexicon and not in economic impact.

In this lecture Ben Fine aims at stimulating interest for and explaining the relevance of Marxist Political Economy. Ben Fine dedicates the first half of his comprehensible lecture to the question on how mainstream economics became the way it is by explaining its key concepts and how those evolved during the past 150 years. While critically reflecting those concept he also emphasizes that mainstream economics does not consider historical processes. This is the point of departure on his presentation of the core terms and crucial categories of Marxist Political Economy: e.g. the production process and class relations (Part 1). Part 2 examines the consequences of the capitalist mode of production and its propensity to crises. Ben Fine illustrates this Marxist analysis with the example of the current crisis and explains current conditions for the accumulation of capital.

In this lecture Ben Fine aims at stimulating interest for and explaining the relevance of Marxist Political Economy. Ben Fine dedicates the first half of his comprehensible lecture to the question on how mainstream economics became the way it is by explaining its key concepts and how those evolved during the past 150 years. While critically reflecting those concept he also emphasizes that mainstream economics does not consider historical processes. This is the point of departure on his presentation of the core terms and crucial categories of Marxist Political Economy: e.g. the production process and class relations (Part 1). Part 2 examines the consequences of the capitalist mode of production and its propensity to crises. Ben Fine illustrates this Marxist analysis with the example of the current crisis and explains current conditions for the accumulation of capital.

Stiglitz answers the question why globalization and world trade has not delivered on its promise of increased well being as much as classical economists thought, by pointing to the power asymmetries: firstly, between industrialized nations and developing nations and secondly, between special corporate interest and social interests. In his analysis, developed countries and MNCs were able to extract the benefits, while shifting the costs (i.e. pollution) to states and communities with lesser power. Amongst many other historical examples the pharmaceutical and the mining industry are discussed to some length.

Since Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Memorial Price in Economic Sciences in 2002, a new branch of economics gained academic and popular interest. That is, the so-called area of behavioural economics. However, some scholars claim that this new area of economics is not changing much of the mainstream paradigm. Why?

Although money plays a key role in our lives, the workings of our monetary system are a mystery to most of us. ‘The Waterworks of Money’ by cartographer Carlijn Kingma is an attempt to demystify the world of big finance. It visualizes the flow of money through our society, its hidden power made manifest. If you see money as water, our monetary system is the irrigation system that waters the economy. The better the flow, the more prosperous society will be. Just as water makes crops thrive, so money sets the economy in motion. Or at least that’s the idea. In reality, inequality is growing in many countries and people are dealing with a ‘cost of living crisis’. Meanwhile, the progress with making our economies sustainable is stalling, and financial instability remains an ongoing threat. These problems cannot be seen in isolation from the architecture of our money system. If we truly want to tackle them, we will have to address the design flaws of our current money system. For more info check: https://www.waterworksofmoney.com or https://www.carlijnkingma.com For the Dutch version of the animation check: https://www.ftm.nl/waterwerk Current exhibitions: 'The Future of Money' at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, 14 April, 2023 - 8 September 2023. 'Plumbing The System' at the Dutch Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, 20 May 2023 - 26 November 2023 The second animation video of this series will be released in September 2023. The Waterworks of Money is a collaboration of cartographer Carlijn Kingma, investigative financial journalist Thomas Bollen, and professor New Finance Martijn van der Linden. Kingma spent 2300 drawing hours, based on in-depth research and interviews with more than 100 experts –ranging from central bank governors and board members of pension funds and banks to politicians and monetary activists. The structure of our monetary system is not a natural phenomenon. We can choose to change its architecture. Designing the money system– and the laws and institutions that govern it–is ultimately a democratic task, and not a commercial or technocratic one. In practice, however, there is a major obstacle impeding the democratic process: financial illiteracy. By making finance and money needlessly complex, economists, bankers and tax specialists have turned most of us into ‘financial illiterates’. Everyone who doesn’t speak their financial jargon is excluded from the democratic debate on how our monetary system should work. The Waterworks of Money bypasses the financial jargon. It is an attempt to boost systemic financial literacy. Only if ordinary citizens develop their own vocabulary to participate in the debate about their financial future, can they tell their politicians which kind of ‘financial irrigation system’ they want. Authors: Carlijn Kingma, Thomas Bollen, Martijn Jeroen van der Linden Animation: Tiepes, Christian Schinkel, Cathleen van den Akker Narrator: Loveday Smith Translation: Erica Moore Voice recording: Huub Krom Music and sound: Rob Peters Photography: Studio OPPA Partners: Follow the Money, De Haagse Hogeschool, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, Brave New Works, Rabobank, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Rijksmuseum Twenthe

Industrial policy has been a central part of policy prescription by many heterodox schools arguably since mercantilism, but the theories behind it and types of policy advocated for have evolved over time. Recently some neoclassical economists have shown renewed interest in it, but is this mainstream acceptance a step back or a step forward from earlier heterodox ideas?

What influence do changes in tax policy or state decisions on expenditure have on economic growth? For decades, this question has been controversially debated.

The Great Recession 2.0 is unfolding before our very eyes. It is still in its early phase. But dynamics have been set in motion that are not easily stopped, or even slowed. If the virus effect were resolved by early summer—as some politicians wishfully believe—the economic dynamics set in motion would still continue. The US and global economies have been seriously ‘wounded’ and will not recover easily or soon. Those who believe it will be a ‘V-shape’ recovery are deluding themselves. Economists among them should know better but are among the most confused. They only need to look at historical parallels to convince themselves otherwise.

What’s inflation? Why is it relevant? And is there an agreed theory about its roots and causes, or is it a contentious concept? That’s what this text is all about: We define what inflation actually means before we delve into the theoretical debate with an interdisciplinary and pluralist approach: What gives rise to it, what factors might influence it, and, consequently, what might be done about it?

The notion that the demand and supply side are independent is a key feature of textbook undergraduate economics and of modern macroeconomic models. Economic output is thought to be constrained by the productive capabilities of the economy - the ‘supply-side' - through technology, demographics and capital investment. In the short run a boost in demand may increase GDP and employment due to frictions such as sticky wages, but over the long-term successive rises in demand without corresponding improvements on the supply side can only create inflation as the economy reaches capacity. In this post I will explore the alternative idea of demand-led growth, where an increase in demand can translate into long-run supply side gains. This theory is most commonly associated with post-Keynesian economics, though it has been increasingly recognised in the mainstream literature.

Post-Keynesians focus on the analysis of capitalist economies, perceived as highly productive, but unstable and conflictive systems. Economic activity is determined by effective demand, which is typically insufficient to generate full employment and full utilisation of capacity.

Austrian economics focuses on the economic coordination of individuals in a market economy. Austrian economics emphasises individualism, subjectivism, laissez-faire politics, uncertainty and the role of the entrepreneur, amongst others.

Extractivism is a development model based on exploiting and exporting raw materials. It is fundamental to reproducing entire societies, mainly in the Global South, while generating manifold dilemmas. This text situates extractivism within the broader landscape of global economic asymmetries, emphasizing the role of rents—excess revenues generated from resource extraction due to international price differentials—as a central analytical lens.

Mainstream inflation theories in economics do little to explain the recent acceleration in price increases. The associated economic policy recommendations further increase the misery of low-income groups.

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a school of monetary and macroeconomic thought that focuses on the analysis of the monetary and credit system, and in particular on the question of credit creation by the state.

The core idea of ecological economics is that human economic activity is bound by absolute limits. Interactions between the economy, society and the environment are analysed, while always keeping in mind the goal of a transition towards sustainability.

A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics

Deforestation is estimated to be responsible for about 12-29% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This essay will explore ecological economics as an alternative lens through which to approach forest conservation and the acceleration of climate change.

Wechselkurstheorie in drei Standardlehrbüchern der Volkswirtschaftslehre Jan Priewe Quelle van Treeck Till and Janina Urban Wirtschaft neu denken Blinde Flecken in der Lehrbuchökonomie iRights Media 2016 Das Buch kann hier bestellt werden http irights media de publikationen wirtschaft neu denken Rezensierte Bücher Krugman P Obstfeld M Melitz M J 2015 …

‘We cannot afford their peace & We cannot bear their wars’: ​​​​​​​Value, Exploitation, Profitability Crises & ‘Rectification’

The article pursues the two related questions of how economists pretend to know and why they want to know at all. It is argued that both the economic form of knowledge and the motivation of knowing have undergone a fundamental change during the course of the 20th century. The knowledge of important contemporary economic textbooks has little in common with an objective, decidedly scientifically motivated knowledge. Rather, their contents and forms follow a productive end, aiming at the subjectivity of their readers.

In parallel to rising inflation numbers, the concept of profit inflation has clearly risen to prominence in recent years. But what is it exactly? This dossier aims not only to collect the most important publications on profit inflation but also intends to map out the development of the discourse and the different positions within the debate.

With the onset of an economic crisis that has been universally acknowledged since the end of March, two main questions arise: To what extent is the corona pandemic the starting point (or even the cause) of this crisis? And secondly: can the aid programmes that have been adopted prevent a deep and prolonged recession?

An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

This essay focuses on the sources of government revenue within the Middle East and North African (MENA) region and proposes the implementation of a regional tax reset through increased taxation and tax reforms, deregulation in the private sector and economic diversification to reduce macroeconomic volatilities caused by the hydrocarbon industry.