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The article pursues the two related questions of how economists pretend to know and why they want to know at all. It is argued that both the economic form of knowledge and the motivation of knowing have undergone a fundamental change during the course of the 20th century. The knowledge of important contemporary economic textbooks has little in common with an objective, decidedly scientifically motivated knowledge. Rather, their contents and forms follow a productive end, aiming at the subjectivity of their readers.
An essay on the putative knowledge of textbook economics
The article addresses the current debate on democratic economic planning and the question of how and by which instruments a post-capitalist planning system, embedded in a broader agenda of macroeconomic transformation, can be developed.
On Democratic Economic Planning and Macroeconomic Transformation
In this essay, the author takes a critical perspective on the pursuit of growth as the solution for providing for environmental sustainability and economic stability in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Drawing from the framework of dependency theory and presenting brief insights into European core-periphery relations the author then argues for the implementation of an alternative strategy to development that is built around the concept of self-reliance.
Dependency in Central and Eastern Europe - Self-reliance and the need to move beyond economic growth
This essay focuses on the sources of government revenue within the Middle East and North African (MENA) region and proposes the implementation of a regional tax reset through increased taxation and tax reforms, deregulation in the private sector and economic diversification to reduce macroeconomic volatilities caused by the hydrocarbon industry.
Taxation in the MENA region
An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Role of Women in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The general idea of a Job Guarantee (JG) is that the government offers employment to everybody ready, willing and able to work for a living wage in the last instance as an Employer of Last Resort. The concept tackles societal needs that are not satisfied by market forces and the systemic characteristic of unemployment in capitalist societies. Being a central part of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), attention for the JG concept rose in recent years.
The Job Guarantee
From the two premises that (1) economies are complex systems and (2) the accumulation of knowledge about reality is desirable, I derive the conclusion that pluralism with regard to economic research programs is a more viable position to hold than monism. To substantiate this claim an epistemological framework of how scholars study their objects of inquiry and relate their models to reality is discussed. Furthermore, it is argued that given the current institutions of our scientific system, economics self-organizes towards a state of scientific unity. Since such a state is epistemologically inferior to a state of plurality, critical intervention is desirable.
The Complexity of Economies and Pluralism in Economics
What made the false assumption that saving the economy at all cost during a pandemic so popular? This paper discusses different pathways through the COVID-19 pandemic at national and international level, and their consequences on the health of citizens and their economies.
How not to save the economy? The interplay of economics and health during the COVID-19 pandemic
The outbreak of COVID-19 has substantially accelerated the digitalization of the economy. Yet, this unprecedented growth of digital technology brought novel challenges to the labour market. Rise in income inequalities and precarious working conditions or polarization of jobs. In this essay, we try to assess what tools to use to counter these trends.
Post-pandemic future of work - How does digitization impact labour?
In this essay the authors take a look at how welfare could be provided in a degrowth society.
Bidding farewell to growth: How to provide welfare in a degrowth society
An essay of the writing workshop on contemporary issues in the field of Nigerian economics: Labour and all the dynamics, such as laws, mobility, gender participation, regulation etc., that are associated with it cements the need for this paper which seeks to objectively review, analyse, and if deemed necessary, give plausible recommendations.
Labour market: Applicable Labour Market Models and Gender Issues
This syllabus opens a literary overview of must-read papers in the field of development economics.
Development Economics
After completing the module, participants should be able to analyse the concepts of degrowth, ecological unequal exchange, Green New Deal, and embeddedness by applying theories situated within the fields of academic research of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology.
Political ecology, Degrowth and the Green New Deal
This article explores the production function, the prevailing view of capital that underpins it, and the main alternative perspective. By exploring these perspectives, the authors aim to provide students with a foundational understanding of the controversies surrounding the treatment of capital in production, a topic expressly excluded from mainstream textbooks.
Why We Should Think Twice About Production Functions
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.
Why Feminist Economics is Necessary
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.
Stratification Economics
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.
Global care chains, refugee crisis, and deskilling of workers
Exploring Economics, an open-source e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
A Time for Precaution
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.
Qualitative Methods in Economics: "You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching"
What influence do changes in tax policy or state decisions on expenditure have on economic growth? For decades, this question has been controversially debated.
What is the fiscal multiplier and why is it so controversial?
A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics
Mathematical Economics in the 19th Century
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?
Inflation in economic theory
This film looks at the role economic growth has had in bringing about this crisis, and explores alternatives to it, offering a vision of hope for the future and a better life for all within planetary boundaries.
Fairytales of Growth
In this text, Fred Heussner takes up the debate on anti-fascist economics, places it in the context of existing developments and identifies potential for further development.
Anti-fascist economics? For sure! But what does that mean?
One hundred years ago the idea of 'the economy' didn't exist. Now, improving the economy has come to be seen as perhaps the most important task facing modern societies. Politics and policymaking are conducted in the language of economics and economic logic shapes how political issues are thought about and addressed.
The Econocracy
The global economic and political order is undergoing rapid and profound transformation. We are witnessing a far-reaching "organic" crisis of the global economic world order, which may have started with the financial crisis of 2007/2008 but now enters a new, much more dynamic phase.
Towards a New Economics of Collapse and Construction
Behavioural economics deals with observing behaviour and economic decision making behaviour.
Behavioral Economics
The goal of the class is to acquire familiarity with recently-published research in alternative macroeconomics with a focus on the distribution of income and wealth, cyclical growth models, and technical change.
Theory Seminar Macro-Distribution
Microeconomics: A Critical Companion offers students a clear and concise exposition of mainstream microeconomics from a heterodox perspective.
Microeconomics - A Critical Companion
What are the debates, feminist and otherwise, surrounding the phenomena of globalization? How does a gendered lens complicate our understandings of neoliberal globalization? How are particular labor regimes integral to global restructuring, and how are these gendered? What are the implications of global restructuring for bodies, identities, relations, and movements?
The Gender and Labor of Globalization
Experimental economists are leaving the reservation. They are recruiting subjects in the field rather than in the classroom, using field goods rather than induced valuations, and using field context rather than abstract terminology in instructions.
Field Experiments in Economics
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.
It’s Demand All the Way Down
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