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Education policy seeks to ensure equality in access, equality within the classroom and in teaching- learning processes, and equality in outcomes. This course encourages students to assess and evaluate the extent to which these objectives are met in practice and the ways in which educational outcomes are shaped by, as well as alter, gendered social norms.
Level: beginner
Education, Gender and Development
Due to the economic crisis of 2008/2009, households faced drastic decreases in their incomes, the availability of jobs. Additionally, the structure of the labour market changed, while austerity measures and public spending cuts left households with less support and safeguards provided by the state. How have these developments affected the burden of unpaid labour and what influence did this have on gender relations?
2017
Level: beginner
The effect of austerity on unpaid work and gender relations in Europe
"Despite the rediscovery of the inequality topic by economists as well as other social scientists in recent times, relatively little is known about how economic inequality is mediated to the wider public of ordinary citizens and workers. That is precisely where this book steps in: It draws on a cross-national empirical study to examine how mainstream news media discuss, respond to, and engage with such important and politically sensitive issues and trends.
2020
Level: advanced
Economic Inequality and News Media
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.
2025
Level: advanced
On Democratic Economic Planning and Macroeconomic Transformation
This course teaches basic concepts relevant in political economy. Topics include the contractual nature of the state, public versus private goods, property rights and economic externalities, the logic of collective action and social choice theory. It also refers to the fundamentals of political philosophy, bringing two ideas of liberty into the picture. The relevance and limitations of the economic approach to the study of law and politics are then discussed.
Level: advanced
State, Law and the Economy
A review of: [1] Intermediate Microeconomics, H.R. Varian [2] Mikrooekonomie, R.S. Pindyck, D.L. Rubinfeld [3] Grundzuege der mikrooekonomischen Theorie, J. Schumann, U. Meyer, W. Stroebele
2016
Level: beginner
The Dichotomy, Inconsistency, and Peculiar Outmodedness of the "Mainstream" Textbook
This essay suggests to bring together two aspects of economic thought which so far have developed largely separately: degrowth and feminist economics. In this strive, the concept of care work and its role in feminist economics will be introduced and the downsides of the commodification of care work will be discussed. Subsequently, contributions to the discussion on the (re)valuation of care work will be taken into account.
2017
Level: beginner
Who cares? A convergence of feminist economics and degrowth
Based on a paper by Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis Decoupling refers to the separation of economic value creation material extraction and pollution. Ecological limits pose a challenge to growth-led development and the low historical and predicted rate of decoupling suggests that long-term sustainable growth-led development is impossible.
2021
Level: beginner
Degrowth and Environmental Justice: Decoupling
Post-Keynesian and heterodox economics challenge the mainstream economics theories that dominate the teaching at universities and government economic policies. And it was these latter theories that helped to cause the great depression the United States and the rest of the world is in.
2012
Level: advanced
In Defense of Post-Keynesian and Heterodox Economics
Recovery from the Covid-19 crisis provides a chance to implement economic measures that are also beneficial from environmental and social perspectives. While ‘green’ recovery packages are crucial to support economies tracking a low-carbon transition in the short-term, green measures such as carbon pricing are also key to improving welfare in the long-term. This commentary specifies the need for carbon pricing, outlines its implications for our everyday lives, and explains how it works alongside value-based change in the context of climate action and societal well-being.
2021
Level: beginner
Carbon Pricing: The Key to Open the Way Toward a Sustainable Recovery and Long-Term Wellbeing

Tony Lawson has become a major figure of intellectual controversy on the back of juxtaposing two relatively simple and seemingly innocuous ideas. He has argued firstly that success in science depends on finding and using methods, including modes of reasoning, appropriate to the nature of the phenomena being studied, and also that there are important differences between the nature of the objects of study of natural sciences and those of social science.

2009
Level: advanced
Ontology and Economics
This study offers a unique evolutionary economics perspective on energy and innovation policies in the wider context of the transition to sustainable development. The authors include: - an analysis of the environmental policy implications of evolutionary economics - a critical examination of current Dutch environmental and innovation policies and policy documents - systematic evaluation of three specific energy technologies, namely fuel cells, nuclear fusion and photovoltaic cells, within the evolutionary-economic framework.
2007
Level: advanced
Evolutionary Economics and Environmental Policy
The current global financial system may not withstand the next global financial crisis. In order to promote the resilience and stability of our global financial system against future shocks and crises, a fundamental reconceptualisation of financial regulation is necessary. This reconceptualisation must begin with a deep understanding of how today's financial markets, regulatory initiatives and laws operate and interact at the global level.
2016
Level: advanced
Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation
Shadow banking became one of the main features of modern market based financial capitalism and financial globalisation. Daniel Gabor locates this development in a Super-Cycle framework and sketches out opportunities to launch a new cycle that is green and just through financial regulation and publicly organised sustainable finance.
2019
Level: advanced
Shadow banking and financial market regulation
In this interview, the political activist, author and lecturer Dr. Vandana Shiva explains the linkage between ecology, feminism and economics along the lines of current effects and implications of the Corona-Crisis in India and around the world.
2020
Level: beginner
Ecology, feminism and economics in times of Covid-19 pandemic
In most economics classes we focus on the production and consumption of goods and services, but what happens to the product and its packaging after it’s consumed? Waste disposal is a crucial step in the production process and as the theme of this month’s World Environment Day is #BeatPlasticPollution, we use the example of plastic bottles.
2023
Level: beginner
Production and Waste: Plastic Pollution – Economy Studies
The documentary recounts the history of the first World War and gives a biography of Lenin. The concept of imperialism is briefly explored and it is concluded that by the end of world war one the old certainties and old ruling alliances between aristocracy and traditional capitalists were broken up.
1977
Level: beginner
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 5 Lenin and The Great Ungluing
John K. Galbraith recounts episodes in the history of money such as the creation of the bank of Amsterdam, John Law's fraudulent Bank Royal, the inception of the Bank of England and of the Federal Reserve to illustrate concepts such as money creation by commercial banks, the bank rate, open market operations or the money supply in general. The emotions, myths and struggles surrounding money are addressed and explained in a clear and consistent manner.
1977
Level: beginner
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 6 The Rise and Fall of Money
Hunt (economics, U. of Utah) provides a concise history of the rise and triumph of capitalism, centering mainly on England until 1800 and the U.S. since 1800. He traces the evolution of some of the most significant institutions of capitalism, analyzes the recurring ideological defenses and the radical critiques of capitalism, and examines intellectual developments which were occurring at the same time.
2003
Level: advanced
Property and Prophets
In the interview, Robert Skidelsky discusses the emergence of political influence of a certain school of economic thought and how the success of an economic theory depends on the power relations in the society. He introduces the historical example of Keynesian economics and its replacement by liberal economic theory and policy in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and transfers this historical case to the dominant paradigm of austerity policies in the Europe as response to rising public debts caused by the Financial Crisis. He contrasts austerity policies with a Keynesian approach. Furthermore, he relates the targets of policy to the underlying power structures, for example when not the reduction of unemployment but the protection of financial capital is politically addressed.
2015
Level: advanced
Economics and Political Power during the Crisis
Mark Blyth criticises the political inability to solve the persistent economic crisis in Europe against the background of a deflationary environment. Ideological blockades and impotent institutions are the mutually reinforcing causes of European stagnation. The deeper roots lie in the structural change of the economic system since the 1980s, when neoliberalism emerged as hegemonic ideology. This ideology prepared the ground for austerity and resulting deflationary pressures and a strategy of all seeking to export their way out of trouble. Worryingly this is breeding populist and nationalist resentments in Europe.
2015
Level: beginner
Policies to avert stagnation: The Crisis and the Future(s) of the Euro
This short video visualizes the destabilizing effects financial markets can have on food prices, based on a paper by Jayati Ghosh. It introduces and explains the idea of future contracts and how those are used to speculate with basic food stuffs. After establishing the concepts, the video sketches out how the increase in those practices resulted in a substantial rise and later collapse of food prices around 2008 with severe consequences for many developing countries and their people.
2021
Level: beginner
Food and Finance
This paper is a product of an online workshop held in Nigeria on the topic Unemployment: Policy Review and Recommendations. It explores the various unemployment policies introduced by the Nigerian Government and analysis how effective they are and suggests some practicable solutions to solving unemployment problems in the country. The workshop was organized by Rethinking Economics The Uploaders (RETU) as part of the project Solving the Major Economic Problem in Nigeria (SMEPN), an output of the Global Pluralist Economics Training (GPET). More details here: https://www.retheuploaders.org/programs/SMEPN
2021
Level: beginner
Unemployment in Nigeria: Policy Review and Recommendations
Fabian Georgi analyses how migration and borders are connected to capitalism.
2024
Level: advanced
Recruiting skilled labour, while closing borders? The connection between migration, border regimes and capitalism
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.
2019
Level: advanced
Economic theory, methodology, and secure foundations
An essay of the writing workshop on contemporary issues in the field of Nigerian economics: The adverse effect of climate change is overwhelming, not just in Nigeria but globally. Global warming is the result of hostile human activities that have impacted the environment negatively. This is the principal variable the government should tackle through practical innovations such as the acceptable implementation of Adaptation Policies and also through the adequate implementation of environmental tax. These will enhance pro-environmental behaviour which is fit for socio-political and economic activities for sustainability.
Level: beginner
The Role of Fiscal Policy in Climate Change Mitigation Via Environmental Management and Sustenance in Nigeria
This workshop offers an introduction to Degrowth and Ecological Economics. It starts by surveying the socio-ecological crisis and its pseudo-solutions, and then moves to Ecological Macroeconomics as a relatively recent field of scholarship within Ecological Economics.
2021
Level: beginner
Ecological Economics and Degrowth
How do people make decisions? There is a class of models in psychology which seek to answer this question but have received scant attention in economics despite some clear empirical successes. In a previous post I discussed one of these, Decision by Sampling, and this post will look at another: the so-called Fast and Frugal heuristics pioneered by the German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. Here the individual seeks out sufficient information to make a reasonable decision. They are ‘fast’ because they do not require massive computational effort to make a decision so can be done in seconds, and they are ‘frugal’ because they use as little information as possible to make the decision effectively.
2020
Level: beginner
Bounded Rationality: the Case of ‘Fast and Frugal’ Heuristics
Despite the Doha declaration of November 2001, the failure to start a new round of global trade negotiations at Seattle in December 1999 and the hostility of protesters to the trade liberalization process and growing global economic and social disparities was a wake-up call for the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
2002
Level: advanced
The WTO, Agriculture and Sustainable Development
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?
2014
Level: beginner
The Gender and Labor of Globalization
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.
Level: beginner
Labour market: Applicable Labour Market Models and Gender Issues
This graduate-level course examines issues related to women’s paid and unpaid work during a time of rapid integration of world markets. Students will analyze the role of government policy, unions, corporate responsibility, and social movements in raising women's wages, promoting equal opportunity, fighting discrimination in the workplace, and improving working conditions.
Level: advanced
Women and Work

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