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As seen with the United Nations significant promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the past few years, the issue of global development is of growing concern to many international organizations. As humanity continues to become more interconnected through globalization, the inequalities and injustices experienced by inhabitants of impacted countries becomes increasingly clear. While this issue can be observed in the papers of different types (e.g., different schools of thought) of economists throughout the world, the work of behavioral and complexity economists offer a unique, collaborative perspective on how to frame decisions for individuals in a way that can positively reverberate throughout society and throughout time.
Behavioural vs Complexity Economics: Approaches to Development
Derek Neal writes that economists must analyze public education policy in the same way they analyze other procurement problems. He shows how standard tools from economics research speak directly to issues in education. For mastering the models and tools that economists of education should use in their work, there is no better resource available.--
Information, Incentives, and Education Policy
The Elgar Companion to Neo-Schumpeterian Economics surveys the achievements of the most visible scholars in this area. The contributions to the Companion give both a brief survey on the various fields of neo-Schumpeterian economics as well as insights into recent research at the scientific frontiers.
Elgar Companion to Neo-Schumpeterian Economics
This article, looks at the complex interaction between an urban economy and the vegetation within that urban area. In summary, numerous studies have found a positive link between increased vegetation and social as well as personal health. It makes a case for increasing urban vegetation as a way to benefit local economies.
Urban Arbonomics | The Complex Nature of Urban Vegetation
MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur or Common Southern Market) was the first formalized attempt to integrate South American countries economically and politically.
How can MERCOSUR move forward?
Approaching the law of nature that determines all forms of economy. The bulk of economic theory addresses the economic process by setting out on a catalogue of aspects, seeking the laws in the aspects and hoping to get together a reliable view of the whole.
Economic theory, methodology, and secure foundations
A central question in development economics literature is, “Why do countries stay poor?” The key disagreements are whether the lack of economic growth stems from institutions or from geography (Nunn 2009). From an institutional perspective, hostile tariff regimes and commodity price dependencies form a barrier to a sectoral shift that would otherwise lead to economic development in developing countries (Blink and Dorton 2011) (Stiglitz 2006).[i]
Trade Barriers to Development explored through various lenses
In his 2010 published book “The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism” multi-talented US geographer, anthropologist and Marxist economist David Harvey aims to analyse the capitalist system that has shaped western society and the globalized world of today.
The Enigma of Capital
In this book, Kalyan Sanyal reviews the traditional notion of capitalism and propounds an original theory of capitalist development in the post-colonial context. In order to substantiate his theory, concepts such as primitive accumulation, governmentality and post-colonial capitalist formation are discussed in detail.
Rethinking Capitalist Development
This book represents a new foundation for the study of microeconomics, viewed from a broad perspective that takes into account new developments at the intersections with psychology, political science, the natural sciences and philosophy.
Microeconomics. A fresh start
In this episode of the Planet Money podcast the Caribbean island of Barbuda is used as an example to explore the notion of property rights Until the island was struck by Hurricane Irma in November 2017 the island belonged to all Barbudans First there is a brief historic background given …
"The Island No One Owns" - Property Rights in Barbuda
The novel coronavirus (Covid-19) is rapidly spreading around the world. The real economy is simultaneously hit by a supply shock and a demand shock by the spread of coronavirus. Such a twin shock is a rare phenomenon in recent economic history.
How to Manage the Economic Fallout of the Coronavirus
The vast uncertainty surrounding the possible spread of COVID 19 and the duration of the near economic standstill required to combat it make forecasting little different from guessing Clearly this is a whatever it takes moment for large scale outside the box fiscal and monetary policies Carmen M Reinhart Project …
This Time Truly Is Different | by Carmen M. Reinhart
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?
Economic crisis only because of the Corona pandemic?
In this Blog Post on developmenteconomics org Christina C Laskaridis PhD candidate in Economics at SOAS elaborates on the economic fallout of the corona pandemic and especially its impact on the Global South The author focuses in particular on the issue of debt moratoria and debt restructuring and the measures …
Debt Moratoria in the Global South in the Age of Coronavirus
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 Coronavirus and the End of Economics
In this TedTalk Dan O Neil explains why GDP and infinite growth are concepts that we should leave behind and which other perspectives have been developed Degrowth post growth well being or steady state economy The goal is to rethink a new paradigm that puts society and the environment at …
The Economics of Enough
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?
The core of Georgism is a policy known as the Land Value Tax (LVT), a policy which Georgists claim will solve many of society and the economy’s ills. Georgism is an interesting school of thought because it has the twin properties that (1) despite a cult following, few people in either mainstream or (non-Georgist) heterodox economics pay it much heed; (2) despite not paying it much heed, both mainstream and heterodox economists largely tend to agree with Georgists. I will focus on the potential benefits Georgists argue an LVT will bring and see if they are borne out empirically. But I will begin by giving a nod to the compelling theoretical and ethical dimensions of George’s analysis, which are impossible to ignore.
It’s the Land, Stupid!
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
Markets are the focus in modern economics: when they work, when they don’t and what we can or can’t do about it. There are many ways to study markets and how we do so will inevitably affect our conclusions about them, including policy recommendations which can influence governments and other major organisations. Pluralism can be a vital corrective to enacting real policies based on only one perspective and a plethora of approaches provide alternatives to the canonical view. Although they have differing implications, these approaches share the idea that we should take a historical approach, analysing markets on a case-by-case basis; and they share a faith in the power of both individuals and collectives to overcome the problems encountered when organising economic activity.
Markets, How Do They Work?
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.
The ‘How Firms Work’ Approach to How Firms Work
Environmental catastrophe looms large over politics: from the young person’s climate march to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, increasing amounts of political space are devoted to the issue. Central to this debate is the question of whether economic growth inevitably leads to environmental issues such as depleted finite resources and increased waste, disruption of natural cycles and ecosystems, and of course climate change. Growth is the focal point of the de-growth and zero-growth movements who charge that despite efficiency gains, increased GDP always results in increased use of energy and emissions. On the other side of the debate, advocates of continued growth (largely mainstream economists) believe that technological progress and policies can ‘decouple’ growth from emissions.
To Grow or Not to Grow?
How countries achieve long-term GDP growth is up there with the most important topics in economics. As Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas put it “the consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.” Ricardo Hausmann et al take a refreshing approach to this question in their Atlas of Economic Complexity. They argue a country’s growth depends on the complexity of its economy: it must have a diverse economy which produces a wide variety of products, including ones that cannot be produced much elsewhere. The Atlas goes into detail on exactly what complexity means, how it fits the data, and what this implies for development. Below I will offer a summary of their arguments, including some cool data visualisations.
GDP Growth: It’s Complicated
Philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill laid several foundations for liberal thinking, amongst others with the harm principle: everyone should be given the individual freedom - and not be hindered by e.g. state intervention - to act as s/he wants as long as no other person is harmed by this action. A short insight in his book On Liberty.
The Harm Principle: How to live your life the way you want to
Draw me the economy gives a short introduction in the measurement of the Gross Domestic Product and Purchasing Power Parity and comments on what needs to be taken into consideration when comparing countries and mentions some shortcomings of GDP as criterion of wealth.
What is gross domestic product?
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 Crisis of Credit Visualized
Renowned scholars elaborate a critique on neoclassical economics and how it was unable to predict and even favoured the financial crisis. They refer to DSGE models, equilibrium theory and rational agents – a brief insight in the critique on neoclassic economics.
Financial Instability Mini-Documentary
Economic sociology is an entire subfield and one could write an series on it, so I’m going to stick to probably the most prominent economic sociologist and the founder of ‘new economic sociology’, Mark Granovetter.
Economic Sociology: the Contributions of Mark Granovetter
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
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?
What is the working class under present circumstances and in particular in urban lives? David Harvey explains how the concept of the working class is still suitable for the current organization of work – even if working conditions changed, now being more service-oriented and diffused. Harvey further discusses how this diffused working class can organize via urban neighbourhoods.
The Revolutionary Class Today
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