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921 results

An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
2020
Level: advanced
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Economic Impact and Possible Disruptions
Exploring Economics, an open-access e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
2021
Level: beginner
The Political Economy of Inequalities
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.
2020
Level: beginner
Stock Flow Consistent Macroeconomics
The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the deep structural rifts in modern capitalist economies. It has exposed and exacerbated the long-lasting systemic inequalities in income, wealth, healthcare, housing, and other aspects of economic success across a variety of dimensions including class, gender, race, regions, and nations. This workshop explores the causes of economic inequality in contemporary capitalist economies and its consequences for the economy and society in the post-pandemic reality, as well as what steps can be taken to alleviate economic inequality in the future. Drawing from a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary insights, the workshop encourages you to reflect on your personal experiences of inequality and aims to challenge the way in which the issue is typically approached in economics.
2022
Level: beginner
Inequality in the Post-pandemic Era
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.
2024
Level: beginner
Anti-fascist economics? For sure! But what does that mean?
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a school of monetary and macroeconomic thought that focuses on the analysis of the monetary and credit system, and in particular on the question of credit creation by the state.
2020
Level: beginner
Modern Monetary Theory
Deforestation is estimated to be responsible for about 12-29% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This essay will explore ecological economics as an alternative lens through which to approach forest conservation and the acceleration of climate change.
2018
Level: beginner
Ecological Economics: A Solution to Deforestation?
Health Economics traditionally involves two distinct strands. One focuses on the application of core  neoclassical economic theories of the firm, the consumer and the market to health-seeking behaviour  and other health issues. It suggests a role for government intervention only in the case of specific  market failures (for example externalities, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and public goods)  that distort market outcomes. The second strand is evaluation techniques, used to assess the cost effectiveness of competing health interventions.
2022
Level: beginner
Health Economics
Here we look at the effect of the 2008 Climate Change Act passed in Parliament in the United Kingdom as an effort to curb emissions in all sectors. The Act aside from setting goals to become a low-carbon economy sets up an independent committee on Climate Change to ensure the implementation of policies to comply with the ultimate goal of 80% reduction in total emissions in 2050. I make use of the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to create a comparative case study in which the creation of a synthetic UK serves as a counterfactual where the treatment never occurred (Cunningham, 2018).
2020
Level: beginner
Synthetic Control Method for Estimating the Effect of the Climate Change Act of 2008 in Britain
This course will fundamentally ask whether we can, or even should use the word ‘decolonising’ in our pursuit of a better economics?
2022
Level: beginner
Decolonising Economics?
In parallel to rising inflation numbers, the concept of profit inflation has clearly risen to prominence in recent years. But what is it exactly? This dossier aims not only to collect the most important publications on profit inflation but also intends to map out the development of the discourse and the different positions within the debate.
2024
Level: advanced
Profit Inflation: Mapping the debate
Peter Bofinger argues that the Modern Monetary Theory gives theoretical justification for bold answers to the corona crisis.
2020
Level: beginner
Coronavirus crisis: now is the hour of Modern Monetary Theory
The Economics and Geopolitics of Russia Selling Yuan and Gold Reserves It is important for students to understand the workings of international and public finance and that the goal of governments and politicians is not always economic efficiency when making financial decisions. Normative goals other than efficiency can motivate economic decisions. A good economist is able to recognise, clearly name and take into account the values and goals behind economic behaviour, when making sense of the world.
2023
Level: beginner
Russia sells foreign reserves
This text summarizes the content of the 2018 Nobel Prize winner W. Nordhaus. It is extended by some critical perspectives on this topic. The short dossier gives an overview of the most important texts we have read in the climate economics reading group.
2018
Level: beginner
Climate Economics and the DICE Model
Big challenges lie ahead for our society: increased automation of work, and the threat of catastrophic climate change. But so, too, are the huge possibilities presented by new technology and better ways of organising our economy in the wake of neoliberalism's failure.
2018
Level: advanced
Economics for the Many
The authors show how consumers, business, the Federal Reserve, and government take into account what's going on around them to make critical decisions like buying new products, building new factories, changing interest rates, or setting budget goals. The book provides a clear roadmap to understanding the whole story behind the global economy.
2014
Level: advanced
Big Picture Economics
Austerity has been at the center of political controversy following the 2008 financial crisis, invoked by politicians and academics across the political spectrum as the answer to, or cause of, our post-crash economic malaise.
2019
Level: beginner
Austerity
Economics should schematically explain the key elements and main strands of this core part of social life: the actual workings of our economies. This book argues that orthodox, modern neoclassical economics does not fulfil this core task. Standard economics models do not address the real functioning of our market economies, but rather an imagined economy.
2022
Level: beginner
Economics and the Real World
Microeconomics in Context lays out the principles of microeconomics in a manner that is thorough, up to date, and relevant to students. Like its counterpart, Macroeconomics in Context, the book is uniquely attuned to economic realities. The "in Context" books offer affordability, accessible presentation, and engaging coverage of current policy issues from economic inequality and global climate change to taxes.
2013
Level: advanced
Microeconomics in Context
The global financial crisis (GFC) led to increasing distrust in economic research and the economics profession, in the process of which the current state of economics and economic education in particular were heavily criticized. Against this background we conducted a study with undergraduate students of economics in order to capture their view of economic education.
2018
Level: beginner
What economics education is missing: The real world
Institutional economics focuses on the role of social institutions in terms of laws or contracts, but also those of social norms and patterns of human behaviour that are connected to the social organisation of production, distribution and consumption in the economy.
Institutionalist Economics
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.
2021
Level: beginner
Stratification Economics
Usually, Critical Theory and Economics are, for better or worse, no longer seen to be in a continuum. This article by Lukas Meisner serves as an introduction to Critical Theory for all (heterodox) economists, who want to understand and explain what they can, otherwise, just state and describe.
2024
Level: beginner
Critical Theory for Heterodox Economists: Questioning the Premises of Supply and Demand
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
This text provides an easy to understand introduction to complexity economics for non-specialist audiences such as bachelor's students.
2023
Level: beginner
Think Complexity Economics is too Complicated? Then this is for you.
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?
2020
Level: beginner
Economic crisis only because of the Corona pandemic?
Introduction Economics is by necessity a multi paradigmatic science Several theoretical structures exist side by side and each theory can never be more than a partial theory Rothschild 1999 Likening scientific work to the self coordinating invisible hand of the market Michael Polanyi cautioned strongly against centralized attempts to steer …
2021
Level: beginner
Making Many Maps: Why We Need an Interested Pluralism in Economics and How to Get There
Behavioural economics deals with observing behaviour and economic decision making behaviour.
Behavioral Economics
In this essay the author outlines the basis for embracing a post-work agenda, rooted in an emancipatory potential from the domination of waged work, which could help answer both feminist and ecological concerns with work.
2018
Level: beginner
Towards a post-work future: a necessary agenda to reconcile feminist & ecological concerns with work
This chapter by the Centre for Economy Studies explores how courses on the history of economic thought and methods could look if they were pluralist and interdisciplinary.
2021
Level: beginner
Rethinking the History of Economic Thought & Methods
This course introduces students to the relevance of gender relations in economics as a discipline and in economic processes and outcomes. The course covers three main components of gender in economics and the economy: (1) the gendered nature of the construction and reproduction of economic theory and thought; (2) the relevance and role of gender in economic decision-making; and (3) differences in economic outcomes based on gender. We will touch on the relevance of gender and gender relations in at least each of the following topics: economic theory; the history of economic thought; human capital accumulation; labor market discrimination; macroeconomic policy, including gender budgeting; household economics; basic econometrics; economic history; and economic crises.
2019
Level: beginner
Feminist Economics

In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land.

The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism—the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe.

2012
Level: beginner
Zombie Economics

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