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In this lecture, Konstantinos Katsikopoulos presents the concept of bounded rationality and contrasts two - as he calls it - cultures of research and analysis within Behavioral Economics: an "idealistic" and a "pragmatic" approach. Thereby, Katsikopoulos discusses amongst others their different assumptions on decision making (utility optimization vs. achievement of a satisfactory outcome), the psychological process as well as the epistemic aim and implications on policy recommendations (nudging vs. education).
2014
Level: beginner
Bounded Rationality: The Two Cultures
Ha Joon Chang exposes the main ideas of his book Bad Samaritans, namely that historically states have developed and industrialized by making policy interventions related to industry protection, tariffs and subsidies and not by opening their markets to free trade. Chang elaborates on the examples of Japan, the US, Singapore and Germany amongst others to show that an interventionist path to development has been the regularity and not an anomaly. In the end of the lecture, he argues that they idea of a level playing field should be replaced by a trade order that accounts for differences in power and economic capacities of different countries. The last 20 minutes are questions and answers.
2008
Level: beginner
Ha-Joon Chang - Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
This multimedia dossier is part of the series „Understanding Finance“ by Finance Watch and explores the following questions: What is bank capital and how is it regulated? It further presents controversies on the size of bank capital in the aftermath of the financial crisis and on how bank capital affects economic activity.
2016
Level: beginner
Bank capital – what is it and how is it regulated?
Founded in 1968, The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) is an interdisciplinary membership organization of academics and of activists. Its mission is to promote the study, development and application of radical political economic analysis to social problems. Concretely, this involves a continuing critique of both the capitalist system, and of all forms of exploitation and oppression. URPE’s mission also includes, coming out of this critique, helping to construct a progressive social policy, and a human-centered radical alternative to capitalism.
Level: beginner
Union for Radical Political Economics
First historical instances of colonialism such as the crusades are revisited. Then a lengthy account of the colonial experience of the Spanish Kingdom in South America and of the British Empire in India is given. The Indian case is illustrated with large amounts of archival materials from a colonial administrator. There the workings of the colonial bureaucracy and law and its (positive) achievements as well as the ignorance and arrogance of the external rulers are demonstrated. After narrating the Indian independence to some depth some recent colonial wars (Algeria, Vietnam, Congo, Angola) are briefly examined. In the end, the impact of colonialism on current, i.e. 1970s, (economic) international relations is discussed. The general tenor is that colonialism is a dysfunctional system. Still, agency is mostly placed with the empire rather than with the ruled.
1977
Level: beginner
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 4 The Colonial Idea
The dossier first discusses the impact of colonialism on introducing foreign plants and thus disrupting ecosystems. Subsequently the case of the knotweed, a plant introduced from Japan to the UK and now considered a threat to biodiversity is explored. The complex economy built around the plant consisting of regulations, pesticides, experts, and landowners is then explored.
2015
Level: beginner
Knotweed – I-PEEL.org
The dossier explores the nature of care work and the gendered constructions and dichotomies that are associated with it. Drawing from feminist analysis the double burden, the undervaluation of feminised labour, the commodification of affective labour and the remittance economy are inquired into. Moreover, it is discussed how welfare regimes rely on the different organization of care work.
2015
Level: beginner
Care – I-PEEL.org
Özlem Onaran analyses the current problems of secular stagnation from a global perspective. At the core of global economic problems is insufficient demand caused by falling wage shares, because most individual countries, and the world as a whole are “wage-led”. Hence a strategy for global growth is to aim at increasing wages and thus the wage share, and the abandonment of policies focusing purely on national competitiveness. Financialization has broken the link between corporate profitability and investment. Reregulation of finance and higher public investment is required in order to crowd in private investment, in this way, reversing the declining trend of potential output growth.
2015
Level: advanced
Current Problems of Secular Stagnation from a Global Perspective
Irene van Staveren, professor of pluralist development economics, presents her pluralist teaching method for the introductory level. Based on her textbook “Economics After the Crisis: An Introduction to Economics from a Pluralist and Global Perspective” she suggests to focus on real-world problems and pari passu apply economic theories such as Social economics, Institutional economics, Post-Keynesian economics as well as Neoclassical economics without wasting time to single out the latter. Besides pointing out advantages of such a pluralist method Irene illustrates her approach based on interesting topics such as growth or feminist economics.
2016
Level: beginner
Beyond stimulus versus Austerity: Pluralist capacity building in Macroeconomics
This video animates part of the talk “On Economics” by Ha-Joon Chang in which he states that economics is not a science for experts but for everyone. Chang further argues why it is important to take into account different perspectives on economics – he identifies at least nine school of thoughts which all have their strengths and weaknesses and presents examples on free trade and well-being. Chang further elaborates on the difficulties of changing the economic status quo.
2016
Level: beginner
Economics Is For Everyone!
The Lecturer Prof. Francesco Lissoni presents basic concepts of the Economics of Innovation. Firstly, he distinguishes between invention, innovation and diffusion and relates innovation to economic growth. Subsequently, he elucidates learning and network effects.
2012
Level: advanced
Economics of Innovation 1/2
In this lecture, Beatrice Cherrier explains why it is worth to research the history of JEL codes. The changing relationship between theory and application and the rise and death of new economic topics in the XXth century through the successive revisions of the classification system economists use to publish, recruit and navigate their discipline.
2017
Level: beginner
Understanding the transformation of Economics through the history of JEL codes
In order to describe the global structure of the monetary and financial system and its effects on the global economy, most economics textbooks rely on unappropriated theories that provide nothing but outdated descriptions. In this talk, key speakers in economics, economic history and banking try to make this complex system a little more understandable by relying on real-world insights.
2016
Level: advanced
Global Money: Past, Present, Future
The MINE website explores the interplay between nature and economy. Focusing on such fundamental concepts as time, thermodynamics, evolution, homo politicus and justice, a new outline of economic activity emerges within nature. The dominant approach of Mainstream Economics, which considers nature as a subsystem of the economy, is thus replaced by a broader and more integrated framework. The visual map and its links between concepts provides an orientation. The visitor can approach the content from their own starting point and follow their own path to discovery. Each concept starts with the historical background and moves on through theory and practice. The research behind MINE began in the 1970s at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in an interdisciplinary group spearheaded by Professor Malte Faber, including scientists from economics to mathematics, physics and philosophy. The research has contributed to the field of Ecological Economics. MINE is directed at students, scientists and decion-makers. More on http://nature-economy.de/faq/
2019
Level: beginner
MINE - Mapping the interplay between Nature and Economy
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?
2019
Level: advanced
Is Behavioural Economics the New Mainstream?
In this blog article Steve Keen elaborates on flawed climate change modelling and mainstream economics forecasts. In specific, he stresses the climate change forecasts of the DICE model (“Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy”) by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner William Nordhaus.
2019
Level: advanced
The Cost of Climate Change
This Blog Post describes the U.S. federal reserve money system from the perspective of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Therefore it presents a theory of money creation, gives simple examples how this influences the economy and the historical process of why the monetary system of the US has developed this way.
2019
Level: beginner
An Introduction in the Federal Reserve Money system
The world is coping with a global disaster, as the new Coronavirus takes a toll on many lost lives and a severe impact on economic activity. To provide a long-run perspective, this column documents the international response to a variety of disasters since 1790. Based on a new comprehensive database on loans extended by governments and central banks, official (sovereign-to-sovereign) international lending is much larger than generally known. Official lending spikes in times of global turmoil, such as wars, financial crises or natural disasters. Indeed, in these periods, official capital flows have repeatedly surpassed total private capital flows in the past two centuries. Wars, in particular, were accompanied by large surges in the volume of official cross-border lending.
2020
Level: advanced
Coping with disasters: Lessons from two centuries of international response
For some days, global financial markets are in turmoil. Central banks and governments are dealing with the unfolding crisis on a daily basis with seemingly u...
2020
Level: beginner
Replay of the financial crisis of 2008? What is different today, and what to expect?
Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece and the co-founder of the international DiEM25 platform, discusses the economic and political impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic, in particular with regards to the Eurozone and southern European countries.
2020
Level: beginner
Coronavirus Economics and the Eurozone
John Christensen from the Tax Justice Network addresses the Modern Monetary Theory idea that governments don't need tax revenues if they want to spend money. Doing so, he sums up the main points made by MMT proponents and their critics, and shows how MMT can be reconciled with another progressive economic narrative: "Modern Tax Theory". While MMT made valuable contributions to the policy debate on fiscal policy, it misrepresents the importance of taxation as a political matter and as a way to generate public revenues. This is where MMT steps in.
2019
Level: beginner
The Magic Money Tree: From Modern Monetary Theory to Modern Tax Theory
As part of a larger series on Just Transitions, the author describes how the current corona crisis comes with new economic policy responses which would have been considered unthinkable only a year ago. Arguing that with the current high levels of confidence in politicians and scientific advice, combined with the realisation that the market has not been able to solve this problem on its own, we are now in a unique position to implement a radically different solution than was politically possible previously.
2020
Level: beginner
A Social-Green Deal, with just transition—the European answer to the coronavirus crisis
We collect selected high quality working papers from the leading international universities and research institutes in the field of plural and heterodox economics. The working papers in our selection present economic schools of thought and debates in a first-class way and give an insight into the latest research.
2021
Level: beginner
Exploring Economics Working Paper Selection
The documentary features a talk of the US-American writer and economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin summarising the main points of his 2011 book "The Third Industrial Revolution."
2018
Level: beginner
The Third Industrial Revolution: A Radical New Sharing Economy
This article examines the spread of financialization in Germany before the financial crisis. It provides an up-to date overview on the literature on financialization and reviews which of the phenomena typically associated with financialization have emerged in Germany. In particular, the article aims to clarify how the prevailing institutional structure and its changes had contributed to or had countervailed the spread of financialization and how it had shaped the specific German variant of financialization. For this end, it combines the rich literature on Germany's institutional structure with the more macroeconomic oriented literature on financializaton. With the combination of those different perspectives the article sheds light on the reasons for the spread of financialization and the specific forms it has taken in Germany.
2019
Level: beginner
Financialization made in Germany: A review
The mandate of central banks has seemed clear for decades : keep inflation low. Nevertheless borders between monetary, financial and economic policy have been blurry even before the pandemic.. Faced with the challenges of the climate crisis, slow growth, unemployment and inequality, does the financial and monetary system need a new constitutional purpose.
2020
Level: beginner
Beyond Price Stability
The webinar covers three different topics that relate to reconciling with the Indigenous people in Australia: financial resilience, childcare/child development and economic participation through business procurement. Despite showing significant strength and resilience in the face of colonial injustices, Australian Indigenous people and their families continue to be affected by past trauma.
2021
Level: beginner
How can economics contribute to Indigenous Reconciliation?
The infographic focuses on women's hidden work that goes unrewarded due to the patriarchal setup and how it can be economically analysed. The article on which the infographic is based is written in an Indian context, although the phenomenon isn't confined to a single nation alone.
2013
Level: beginner
Capitalism + Patriarchy = Women's Hidden Work
The article summarizes the effects that the war in Ukraine, the resulting economic sanctions as well as associated financial turbulences have for cryptocurrencies and their role in the global financial system.
2022
Level: beginner
Cryptocurrencies and the war in Ukraine
This video provides key insights into the functioning of Western sanctions imposed on Russia due to the current Ukrainian conflict.
2022
Level: beginner
How The West Broke Russia's Economy
In this teaching pack, we look at the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk. In particular, we focus on what it means to take a company private and how the deal was financed.
2022
Level: beginner
Musk buys Twitter
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.
2019
Level: beginner
Indian Economic Reform: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

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