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Blending past and present, this brief history of economics is the perfect book for introducing students to the field.A Brief History of Economics illustrates how the ideas of the great economists not only influenced societies but were themselves shaped by their cultural milieu. Understanding the economists' visions ? lucidly and vividly unveiled by Canterbery ?
2011
Level: advanced
A Brief History of Economics
Understanding the financial crisis from four very different economic theories: Social Economics, Institutional Economics, Post Keynesian economics.
Level: beginner
Economics from a pluralist perspective
Why is it that some countries become rich while others remain poor? Do markets require regulation to function efficiently? If markets offer an efficient way of exchanging goods, why do individuals even create firms?
2019
Level: beginner
Institutional Economics - An Introduction
"A serious reconsideration of the 'economics of science' is long overdue," say Philip Mirowski and Esther-Mirjam Sent in the introduction to Science Bought and Sold. Indeed, it is only recently that one could speak of a field of economics of science at all.
2002
Level: advanced
Science Bought and Sold
This classic text offers a broader intellectual foundation than traditional principles textbooks. It introduces students to both traditional economic views and their progressive critique.
2015
Level: advanced
Economics
Want to learn more about behavioural economics and its application to public policy? Take this free course from the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government.
Level: beginner
Behavioural insights for public policy
After long-time negligence, the Global South and the North-South divide are back on the agenda of development economics again. This book is a neat, accessible introduction into the topic, covering both the current situation and potential remedies from different points of view.
2001
Level: beginner
Readings in the Theory of Economic Development
David Harvey illustrates the five most common narratives on why the financial and economic crisis took place – from human frailty to policy failure.
2010
Level: beginner
RSA ANIMATE: Crises of Capitalism
First some properties about the Sum of squared residuals and the linear regression function are restated. In particular three properties that an ideal fitted regression line must fulfill are discussed. Then, the R squared is defined using the measures of the Sum of squared residuals, the total sum of squares and the sum of explained squares.
2013
Level: advanced
Econometrics // Lecture 3: OLS and Goodness-Of-Fit (R-Squared)
In this keynote speech, Roger Backhouse gives a historical overview of theories on secular stagnation: how it evolved from a description of the economic situation, especially in the U.S. of the 1930s to an analytical tool and then lost importance until its current revival. Backhouse touches upon the contributions of J. A. Hobson, Alvin Hansen, Evsey Domar and Paul Samuelson.
2015
Level: advanced
Theories of stagnation in historical perspective
This multimedia dossier is part of the series „Understanding Finance“ by Finance Watch. The dossier focuses on universal banks – banks that pursue commercial and investment banking and points out several problems of those megabanks, especially in the context of the financial crisis (too big to fail).
2014
Level: beginner
Splitting megabanks?
The page "Positive Money" gathers text and short videos which explain how money is created by banks by giving loans. It furthermore presents the consequences of this process on housing prices, inequality and the environment and its role in the financial crisis. The dossier is provided by the campaign "Positive Money" which aims at a democratic control over money creation. Besides texts by the campaign, the page makes available links to journal and conference articles on the topic. The page focuses on the banking system of the UK.
Level: beginner
Positive Money
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
Based on Modern Money Theory (MMT), Stephanie Kelton compares the cryptocurrency to the fiat money system (or simply what we have today).
2017
Level: beginner
Cryptocurrency and Fiat Money
In this post, Rethinking Economics sets out what it means to decolonise economics education and how we can do that. The article first breaks decolonising down into a "mind-set" and a "process", then applies this process to economics education. It finishes with a reading list and some suggested actions to get you started decolonising economics today.
2019
Level: beginner
Let's Decolonise Economics Education!
This panel discusses the role of mathematics and history in economics. Lord Robert Skidelsky and Dr. Ha-Joon Chang advocate for a more prominent role of history and a less prominent role of mathematics within economics. Prof. Steve Pisckhe and Prof. Francesco Caselli defend the dominant role of mathematics within economics. Each of the speakers gives a 10-15 minutes talk advocating his position, before the panel is opened up for Q&A. The discussion is moderated by Prof. James Foreman-Peck.
2015
Level: beginner
Too much Maths, too little History: The problem of Economics
Andrew McAfee about the history of human progress and the modern uncoupling of our prosperity from resource consumption. They discuss the pitfalls and hidden virtues of capitalism, technological progress, environmental policy, the future of the developing world, and other topics.
2019
Level: beginner
The Great Uncoupling A Conversation with Andrew McAfee
The authors discuss how identity affects economic outcomes by bringing together psychological and sociological perspectives and economics. For economic outcomes of a single individual, it might be interesting which kind of social groups this individual belongs to. This may influence individual daily decisions and hence economic outcomes. It can, however, not only affect individual economic outcomes but also economic outcomes of organizations, institutions and other groups. This paper describes these influences with respect to gender in the workplace, to the economics of poverty and social exclusion, and to the household division of labour.
Level: advanced
Economics and Identity
Overview page for the collection of nobel laureateas on Exploring Economics
2020
Level: beginner
Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences - A critical overview
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
Marxist scholar David Harvey explains key concepts of capital from Marx. Applying Marx's analysis of capital to today's world, showing both the longevity and relevance of Marx's Capital, 150 years after its publication.
2017
Level: advanced
Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason
Neoclassical Economics imposed itself over the past decades as the core of mainstream economics, largely influencing academia and policy making.
2020
Level: beginner
Clips on Climate: Neoclassical Economics
"Bank Underground" is the staff blog of the Bank of England, founded to publish the views and insights of the people working for one of the world's oldest central banks. The blog covers a wide range of macroeconomic topics, mostly linked to the effects of monetary policy, of course, but not all the time. It provides timely, relevant analysis of contemporary challenges in economic policy and is thus often a perfect primer.
Level: advanced
Bank Underground
In this one-on-one interview, co-host Gerardo Serra talks with Felwine Sarr, author of Afrotopia (2016) and professor of economics at Gaston Berger University in Senegal. Topics include the relevance (or lack thereof) of development economics to conditions in African economies, the significance of African philosophy for thinking about the economic problems of the continent, and the status of the field of history of economic thought in Africa.
2018
Level: beginner
Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar - A History of Economics Podcast
Modern authors have identified a variety of striking economic patterns, most importantly those involving the distribution of incomes and profit rates. In recent times, the econophysics literature has demonstrated that bottom incomes follow an exponential distribution, top incomes follow a Pareto, profit rates display a tent-shaped distribution. This paper is concerned with the theory underlying various explanations of these phenomena. Traditional econophysics relies on energy-conserving “particle collision” models in which simulation is often used to derive a stationary distribution. Those in the Jaynesian tradition rely on entropy maximization, subject to certain constraints, to infer the final distribution. This paper argues that economic phenomena should be derived as results of explicit economic processes. For instance, the entry and exit process motivated by supply decisions of firms underlies the drift-diffusion form of wage, interest and profit rates arbitrage. These processes give rise to stationary distributions that turn out to be also entropy maximizing. In arbitrage approach, entropy maximization is a result. In the Jaynesian approaches, entropy maximization is the means.
2019
Level: advanced
The Econ in Econophysics
Economists like to base their theories on individual decision making. Individuals, the idea goes, have their own interests and preferences, and if we don’t include these in our theory we can’t be sure how people will react to changes in their economic circumstances and policy. While there may be social influences, in an important sense the buck stops with individuals. Understanding how individuals process information to come to decisions about their health, wealth and happiness is crucial. You can count me as someone who thinks that on the whole, this is quite a sensible view.
2020
Level: beginner
Decision by Sampling, or ‘Psychologists Reclaim Their Turf’
This brief note explores the possibility of working towards an enlarged self-definition of economics through economists’ study and appreciation of economic sociology. Common ground between economic sociology and heterodox economics is explored, and some of Richard Sennett’s ideas are used as prompts to raise some pertinent and hopefully interesting questions about economics. In particular, the note revisits the question of whether there is a possibility of changing our understanding of what kind of social scientific work falls within the domain of economics proper once we start critically engaging with work conventionally considered to be outside of that domain. In part, the note is intended to offer undergraduate students in economics – and possibly even those further down the road in their education – food for thought about what constitutes economics.
2016
Level: advanced
On the Possibility of an Enlarged Self-Definition of Economics
This blogpost discusses the bias the Economics discipline has towards Africa. It points out how important conferences on issues regarding Africa take place in Western countries at the expense of those based in Africa.
2015
Level: beginner
Economics has an Africa Problem
Mark Carney explains how we have come to esteem financial value over human value and how we have gone from market economies to market societies, how economic theory foundation affect the society as a whole, how we understand our world today and ultimately how this affects our lives.
2020
Level: beginner
How We Get What We Value
Yao Graham, coordinator of Third World Network- Africa, reflects on lessons learned from past Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), specifically as they relate to the Post-Cotonou Agreement.
2020
Level: beginner
Lessons From Economic Partnership Agreements to the Post- Cotonou Framework
In this article, Jihen Chandoul discusses the importance of food sovereignty in Africa, reflecting on the continent’s early post independence movements for self sufficiency.
2021
Level: beginner
Food and the Struggle for Africa’s Sovereignty
Sporting events can be seen as controlled, real-world, miniature laboratory environments, approaching the idea of “holding other things equal” when exploring the implications of decisions, incentives, and constraints in a competitive setting (Goff and Tollison 1990, Torgler 2009). Thus, a growing number of studies have used sports data to study decision-making questions that have guided behavioral economics literature.
2021
Level: beginner
Sport as a Behavioral Economics Lab

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