The book’s central theme is to develop a new theory of speculative capital related to other forms of capital, the world market, and the state. Unlike most marxist and heterodox theories, the book distinguishes credit and fictitious capital from speculative capital to show its hegemony today in the capital markets.

This blog post reviews "Democratizing Finance", an edited volume that analyses and provides policy proposals to ensure that the financial system serves the public good. Mquzama undertakes the task of summarising the main takeaways from each essay in the book as well as an exposition of its shortfalls. While he acknowledges the necessity of the book's reimaging capitalism and the financial system in a way that is practical within the current economic and political structures, he also highlights its failure to look beyond the United States of America.

The dominant view of inflation holds that it is macroeconomic in origin and must always be tackled with macroeconomic tightening. In contrast, we argue that the US COVID-19 inflation is predominantly a sellers’ inflation that derives from microeconomic origins, namely the ability of firms with market power to hike prices.

Professor David Harvey presents a complete visual representation of the flow of capital in all its forms. Similar to the Water Cycle diagrams, Harvey models the economics of production, consumption, human reproduction, labor, private business, and government redistribution.

The goal of this brief report is to put in one place some of the works that have come out of the movement to reform economics education. True to their training, the student movement for pluralism in economics education has been marked by an impressive amount of research: both on economics education itself and on more topical subjects within economics.

Der Kurs richtet sich an Interessierte, die einen Überblick über gängige Modellierungsansätze in der Makroökonomik erhalten wollen. Dabei habe ich versucht, Ansätze aus unterschiedlichen Paradigmen zu berücksichtigen, notwendigerweise auf Kosten einer gewissen Tiefe bei den einzelnen Modellierungsframeworks. Der Kurs setzt ein gewisses mathematisches Grundverständnis voraus, sollte aber für fortgeschrittene Bachelor-Studierende der Ökonomik und Master-Studierende von interdisziplinären Studienprogrammen gut geeignet sein. Die Themenauswahl ist natürlich notwendigerweise selektiv. Der erste, größere Abschnitt diskutiert Modelle für wirtschaftlichen Wandel in der langen Frist (Wachstumsmodelle). Der zweite, kürzere Abschnitte behandelt dann Modelle, welche versuchen eine langfristige mit einer kurzfristigen Perspektive zu verbinden.

The investigative research conducted by the German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" and the British Daily Newspaper "The Guardian" includes a research-based critique of carbon trading.

Isabella M Weber and Evan Wasner challange the dominant view of inflation that it is macroeconomic in origin and must always be tackled with macroeconomic tightening In contrast they argue that inflation is predominantly a sellers inflation that derives from microeconomic origins namely the ability of firms with market power …

Mohsen Javdani and Ha-Joon Changonline examine the effect of ideological bias among economists through a randomised controlled experiment involving 2,425 economists in 19 countries. The analysis provides clear evidence for the existence of ideological bias as well as of authority bias among economists.

Max Krahé explains the role of economic planning for a green transition.

Die Planwirtschaft hat in den letzten Jahren ein unerwartetes Revival gefeiert Die These Im Zeitalter von Big Data künstlicher Intelligenz und neuen Kommunikationstechnologien sei der Markt eine veraltete Technologie der Vergangenheit Angesichts des Scheiterns effizienter politischer und wirtschaftlicher Koordination in der Pandemie und der Klimakrise kommt diese Debatte gerade rechtzeitig …

In this lecture, Sanjay Reddy reviews the work of János Kornai, especially his critique of the socialist system, which is rooted in his understanding of the eminently political character of socialism.

It is fiercely debated when exactly the growth set off and what the drivers of Indian growth were. Scott Alexander summarises some of the recent literature on this question, demonstrating that not only the liberalisation policies of the 90s might be the driver of the take-off, but potentially public investments, political developments or cultural shifts.

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.

The concept of financialisation has undergone a similar career as ‘globalisation’, ‘neoliberalism’ or even ‘capitalism’, in the course of which it changed from the explanandum to the explanans; the process of financialisation is taken for granted, while the concrete historical and empirical causal conditions of its realisation and perpetuation are being moved into the background.

The Philosophy of Economics Foundational Text provides a systematic and well-structured overview over the field of philosophy of economics.

This text provides an easy to understand introduction to complexity economics for non-specialist audiences such as bachelor's students.

Der Klimawandel dürfte die globalen Migrationsbewegungen in den kommenden Jahren deutlich verstärken – was die Politik gleich an mehreren Fronten unter Handlungsdruck setzt.

Lean Logic is the late David Fleming’s masterpiece, the product of more than thirty years’ work and a testament to the creative brilliance of one of Britain’s most important intellectuals. A dictionary unlike any other, it leads readers through Fleming’s stimulating exploration of fields as diverse as culture, history, science, art, logic, ethics, myth, economics, and anthropology, being made up of four hundred and four engaging essay-entries covering topics such as Boredom, Community, Debt, Growth, Harmless Lunatics, Land, Lean Thinking, Nanotechnology, Play, Religion, Spirit, Trust, and Utopia. The threads running through every entry are Fleming’s deft and original analysis of how our present market-based economy is destroying the very foundations—ecological, economic, and cultural— on which it depends, and his core focus: a compelling, grounded vision for a cohesive society that might weather the consequences

Human Rights Economics strives for an economic system that is just for people and respectful of the planet that promotes social and economic justice that integrates a plurality of views and traditions and that is human rights consistent in both its processes and outcomes It posits that economics is blind …

This article applies insights from behavioral economics to consider how the general public may make decisions around whether or not to receive a future COVID-19 vaccine in a context of frequent side effects and preexisting mistrust. Three common cognitive biases shown to influence human decision-making under a behavioral economics framework are considered confirmation bias, negativity bias, and optimism bias.

The deceleration of world trade since 2011 has been widely discussed How much is due to a reversal of international production fragmentation And how much is due to decreasing demand for trade intensive goods The authors present a consistent framework that quantifies their relative importance A central concept in the …

A comprehensive account of how government deficits and debt drive inflation

Exploring Economics, an open-access e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.

In 18th century Europe figures such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Friedrich List and Jean Baptiste Colbert developed theories regarding international trade, which either embraced free trade seeing it as a positive sum game or recommended more cautious and strategic approaches to trade seeing it as a potential danger and a rivalry and often as a zero-sum game. What about today?

This historic timeline presents economic events, economic thinkers and schools of thought from the 18th century until the 2007/2008 financial and economic crisis with short texts on the respective event or perspective.

An essay of the writing workshop on contemporary issues in the field of Nigerian economics: In Nigeria, it appears that there is nothing in the constitution, which excludes the participation of women in politics. Yet, when it comes to actual practice, there is extensive discrimination. The under-representation of women in political participation gained root due to the patriarchal practice inherent in our society, much of which were obvious from pre-colonial era till date.

Caring activities are one central element of feminist economists' analysis – also since in particular unremunerated work is a blind spot in mainstream economics and most other economic paradigms. Those focus on the market sphere: activities are considered as productive and as real labour if they are remunerated and market-intermediated. Goods and services are considered as labour if they create a value which can be traded on the market. Feminist Economics remarks that this perspective creates certain dichotomies and consequent devaluations: unproductive – productive; private – public; unpaid – remunerated OR paid less – well paid; female – male; soft work – hard work; caring – rationality.

The total sum of squares and the total degrees of freedoms are disaggregated by calculating in sample variance and "between" sample variance and their respective degrees of freedoms. It is demonstrated numerically that both these measures add up to the total sum of squares and the total degrees of freedom.

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

This chapter discusses the role of gender in economic relations, processes, and outcomes. Gender differences in economic outcomes such as labor force participation and wages have received growing attention from economists in the last several decades – a positive and much needed development in economic thinking.

An Introduction to the Political Theory of John Maynard Keynes. John Maynard Keynes was arguably the greatest economist of the 20th century. He discovered the idea that governments should stimulate demand during economic downturns.

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.

The video presents different ways of how to measure the money supply and thereby explains the differences between M0, M1 and M2.

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?

This article reviews insights of existing literature on global care chains. A specific focus is laid on the impact that the refugee crisis has on global care chains and in turn how the crisis impacts the de-skilling of the women in the migrant workforce.

In the history of the social sciences, few individuals have exerted as much influence as has Jeremy Bentham. His attempt to become “the Newton of morals” has left a marked impression upon the methodology and form of analysis that social sciences like economics and political science have chosen as modus operandi.

Stratification economics is defined as a systemic and empirically grounded approach to addressing intergroup inequality. Stratification economics integrates economics, sociology and social psychology to distinctively analyze inequality across groups that are socially differentiated, be it by race, ethnicity, gender, caste, sexuality, religion or any other social differentiation.

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.

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.

According to Karl Marx, work should satisfy people and encourage creativity. But the capitalist production, the separation of labour and the exploitation of workers alienates them from their products.

First the global mean is calculated from a matrix of three sets each containing three observations. Then the sum of squares is calculated. Lastly, the concept of degree of freedom is explained.

This text summarizes the content of the 2018 Nobel Prize winner W. Nordhaus. It is extended by some critical perspectives on this topic. The short dossier gives an overview of the most important texts we have read in the climate economics reading group.

In this article, Perry Mehrling, a professor of economics at Barnard College, presents and discusses three theories of banking which are guiding bank regulation. These are credit creation theory, fractional reserve theory and debt intermediation theory.

As opposed to the conventional over-simplified assumption of self-interested individuals, strong evidence points towards the presence of heterogeneous other-regarding preferences in agents. Incorporating social preferences – specifically, trust and reciprocity - and recognizing the non-constancy of these preferences across individuals can help models better represent the reality.

Galbraith gives an overview of economic history from the 18th century until the end of the 19th century covering issues such as the industrial revolution the enclosure of the Scottish highlands the Irish famine and the colonization of North America Additionally the ideas of economists such as Smith Ricardo Malthus …

This presentation looks at the basic idea of Marxism, specifically the conflict between the different classes in society.

During his life, Keynes was credited with, amongst other things, with helping to save capitalism from the Great Depression, funding the war against the Nazis and building post-war decades of growth and rising prosperity. And when the global crisis struck in 2008, it was his ideas that the world's leaders turned to help avoid another depression.