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397 Ergebnisse
Mit dem seit Ende März allseits konstatierten Beginn einer Wirtschaftskrise stellen sich vorrangig zwei Fragen: Inwieweit ist die Corona-Pandemie der Ausgangspunkt (oder gar die Ursache) dieser Krise? Und zweitens: Kann mit den beschlossenen Hilfsprogrammen eine tiefgreifende, langanhaltende Rezession verhindert werden?
Steve Keen analyses how mainstream economics fails when confronted with the covid-19-pandemic. Mainstream economics has propagated the dismantling of the state and the globalization of production - both of which make the crisis now so devastating. More fundamentally, mainstream economics deals with market systems, when what is needed to limit the virus’s spread is a command system.
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.
Firms are the primary places where economic activity takes place in modern capitalist economies: they are where most stuff is produced; where many of us spend 40 hours a week; and where big decisions are made about how to allocate resources. Establishing how they work is hugely important because it helps us to understand patterns of production and consumption, including how firms will react to changes in economic conditions and policy. And a well-established literature – led by post-Keynesians and institutionalists – holds that the best way to determine how firms work is to…wait for it...ask firms how they work. This a clearly sensible proposition that is contested in economics for some reason, but we’ll ignore the controversy here and just explore the theory that springs from this approach.
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.
If there’s one method economists have neglected the most, it’s qualitative research. Whereas economists favour mathematical models and statistics, qualitative research seeks to understand the world through intensive investigation of particular circumstances, which usually entails interviewing people directly about their experiences. While this may sound simple to quantitative types the style, purpose, context, and interpretation of an interview can vary widely. Because of this variety, I have written a longer post than usual on this topic rather than doing it a disservice. Having said that, examples of qualitative research in economics are sadly scant enough that it doesn’t warrant multiple posts. In this post I will introduce qualitative research in general with nods to several applications including the study of firm behaviour, race, Austrian economics, and health economics. More than usual I will utilise block quotes, which I feel is in the spirit of the topic.
This paper starts with an evaluation of three common arguments against pluralism in economics: (1) the claim that economics is already pluralist, (2) the argument that if there was the need for greater plurality, it would emerge on its own, and (3) the assertion that pluralism means ‘anything goes’ and is thus unscientific. Pluralist responses to all three arguments are summarized. The third argument is identified to relate to a greater challenge for pluralism: an epistemological trade-off between diversity and consensus that suggests moving from a discussion about ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ towards a discussion about the adequate degree of plurality. We instantiate the trade-off by showing how it originates from two main challenges: the need to derive adequate quality criteria for a pluralist economics, and the necessity to propose strategies that ensure the communication across different research programs. The paper concludes with some strategies to meet these challenges.
Wirtschaftswachstum in den Ländern des Globalen Nordens zu kritisieren ist eine Sache, aber was bedeutet Wachstumskritik für die Länder des Globalen Südens? Inwiefern ist die Frage nach Wachstum und Postwachstum für den Globalen Süden und die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit relevant? Mit drei Redner*innen aus dem Globalen Süden wurden diese Fragen im Seminar „Entwicklungszusammenarbeit in einer Postwachstums-Ära“ diskutiert.
This module examines current socio-political issues through the lens of pluralism, that is pluralism of theory, pluralism of method and interdisciplinary pluralism
‘We cannot afford their peace & We cannot bear their wars’:
Value, Exploitation, Profitability Crises & ‘Rectification’
The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the deep structural rifts in modern capitalist economies. It has exposed and exacerbated the long-lasting systemic inequalities in income, wealth, healthcare, housing, and other aspects of economic success across a variety of dimensions including class, gender, race, regions, and nations. This workshop explores the causes of economic inequality in contemporary capitalist economies and its consequences for the economy and society in the post-pandemic reality, as well as what steps can be taken to alleviate economic inequality in the future. Drawing from a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary insights, the workshop encourages you to reflect on your personal experiences of inequality and aims to challenge the way in which the issue is typically approached in economics.
This syllabus provides an overview of the contents of the course "Understanding Economic Models" at the University of Helsinki.
Capitalism is dissolving boundaries - not only in the sense of ever-expanding global trade flows, but also in the concrete everyday working lives of individuals. What implications does this have for our understanding of freedom, work and borders?
Der Fokus der Institutionenökonomik liegt auf der Rolle von sozialen Institutionen, wie Verträgen, Gesetzen oder auch Verhaltensweisen, in der Produktion, der Verteilung und dem Konsum sowie auf den aus ihnen resultierenden sozialen Beziehungen.
Der Fokus der Ökologischen Ökonomik ergibt sich aus der Einsicht, dass wirtschaftliche Aktivität mit absoluten Grenzen konfrontiert ist. Somit werden Wechselwirkungen zwischen Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und natürlicher Umwelt analysiert, mit dem Ziel einer Transformation hin zu (mehr) Nachhaltigkeit.
This multimedia dossier explores the production chain of smartphones. In particular due to the violation of workers' rights and low payments, the author Benjamin Selwyn calls those production structures global poverty chains. In this context, he points to the importance of workers' struggles.
Anwar Shaikh seeks in his lectures for alternative explanations for empirically observed macro and microeconomic patterns of economic fluctuations price volatility and economic development In contrast to many other economic theorists he rejects micro foundations based on the idea of utility maximization and economic equilibria and develops a theory of …
Donald Trump won in 2016 largely because enough voters in three states, all in the Rustbelt, which had voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012, switched their electoral votes from Democratic to Republican.
How long the COVID-19 crisis will last, and what its immediate economic costs will be, is anyone's guess. But even if the pandemic's economic impact is contained, it may have already set the stage for a debt meltdown long in the making, starting in many of the Asian emerging and developing economies on the front lines of the outbreak.
In this podcast, Laura Basu speaks with a range of expert academics and public speakers – such as Jayati Ghosh, Yanis Varoufakis, Walden Bello, and Ashish Kothari about how the rules of the global economy are fostering the inequality and underdevelopment we see today.
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.
“Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses1.” This is how Lionel Robbins came to define economics in the early 1930s and there is a good chance that many of you heard a variant of this definition in your first Economics 101 lecture.
Das Ziel des Seminars ist die Vermittlung grundlegender Elemente sozioökonomischen Denkens, insbesondere Kenntnisse über zentrale Fragestellungen, die historische Genese, aktuelle Forschungsprobleme und zeitgenössische Anwendungen der Sozioökonomie. Die TeilnehmerInnen werden dabei schrittweise in unterschiedliche Aspekte sozioökonomischer Forschungstätigkeit eingeführt und haben dabei die Möglichkeit das erworbene Wissen in praktischen Übungen anzuwenden.
Das Seminar wirft einen historischen Blick auf Fragen ökonomischer Entwicklung und ökonomischer Theorie und verbindet eine Einführung in die Wirtschaftsgeschichte mit einer vergleichenden Diskussion unterschiedlicher ökonomischer Denkrichtungen und Theorien.
This part is devoted to simulation experiments based on the simulation model developed in part I from the value theoretic reconstruction of the main parts of Marx s critique of Political Economy After introducing the main parameters and the range of their variation Section 1 a singular run as well …
Recent events such as the Black Lives Matter protests the the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis US and the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol UK have exposed existing racism colonialism and sexism in our society and in Economics While calls to improve diversity in Economics …
The need for the movement Black Lives Matter and the tragic events that preceded it are the clear manifestation of the problem of discrimination today, which we all intuitively perceive as a poignant socio-economic question of our times.
Karl Marx was the greatest champion of the labor theory of value. The logical problems of this theory have, however, split scholars of Marx into two factions: those who regard it as an indivisible component of Marxism, and those who wish to continue the spirit of analysis begun by Marx without the labor theory of value.
Yao Graham, coordinator of Third World Network- Africa, reflects on lessons learned from past Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), specifically as they relate to the Post-Cotonou Agreement.
Marx Reloaded is a cultural documentary that examines the relevance of German socialist and philosopher Karl Marx s ideas for understanding the global economic and financial crisis of 2008 09 The crisis triggered the deepest global recession in 70 years and prompted the US government to spend more than 1 …
The world has seen the emergence of a rather different system of international lender of last resort organized as a network of central bank liquidity swap lines largely limited to the core countries of the Global North In this system central banks swap their own currency for dollars which they …
The article discusses whether the turning point in EU's Russia policy with sanctions aimed directly at Putin's war chest of foreign reserves will change the landscape of countries' foreign assets.