Microbes and Macroeconomics: Understanding the Pandemic and the Global Slump

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.

Der Aufstieg des Asset Manager Kapitalismus ändert die Besitzstruktur fossiler Energiekonzerne fundamental. Doch trotz ihrer Exposition gegenüber systemischen Klimarisiken bleiben Asset Manager Akteur*innen des Status Quo, argumentieren Vera Huwe und Stephan Stuckmann zum Auftakt der neuen Economists for Future-Serie.

La « décroissance » est-elle souhaitable ? Interview avec Eloi Laurent, économiste, conseiller scientifique à l'OFCE, maître de conférences à Sciences-Po et auteur de “ Sortir de la croissance : mode d’emploi “ (Les Liens qui Libérent, 2019).

In the fifth part of the Economics of COVID-19 Webinar by SOAS, Jo Michell sketches out the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the wider macroeconomy and warns against a resurgence of austerity politics.

The author identifies three principal economic phenomena, which are explained: long run productivity growth as the central driver of increasing economic activity, short-term and long-term debt cycles. The latter two are explained to some detailed with reference to money creation, central banking and long term crisis tendencies. With regards to the long run debt cycle, which leads into deleveraging and recession, some policy measures which can smoothen the crisis are discussed.

The podcast discusses how to deal with the rising inflation and presents a comparative perspective between the US and the EMU. Basically the speakers discuss whether we are heading to a stagflation in Europe similar to the 1970s and they compare the macroeconomic dynamics in the United States vs. the EMU.