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186 results
Firms are the primary places where economic activity takes place in modern capitalist economies: they are where most stuff is produced; where many of us spend 40 hours a week; and where big decisions are made about how to allocate resources. Establishing how they work is hugely important because it helps us to understand patterns of production and consumption, including how firms will react to changes in economic conditions and policy. And a well-established literature – led by post-Keynesians and institutionalists – holds that the best way to determine how firms work is to…wait for it...ask firms how they work. This a clearly sensible proposition that is contested in economics for some reason, but we’ll ignore the controversy here and just explore the theory that springs from this approach.
The ‘How Firms Work’ Approach to How Firms Work
Environmental catastrophe looms large over politics: from the young person’s climate march to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, increasing amounts of political space are devoted to the issue. Central to this debate is the question of whether economic growth inevitably leads to environmental issues such as depleted finite resources and increased waste, disruption of natural cycles and ecosystems, and of course climate change. Growth is the focal point of the de-growth and zero-growth movements who charge that despite efficiency gains, increased GDP always results in increased use of energy and emissions. On the other side of the debate, advocates of continued growth (largely mainstream economists) believe that technological progress and policies can ‘decouple’ growth from emissions.
To Grow or Not to Grow?
A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics
Mathematical Economics in the 19th Century
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
Pluralism includes mainstream economics. Our campaign for pluralism, including this series, have generally focused on ideas outside the mainstream on the basis that it gets plenty of attention already so we want to spend our time exposing people to alternatives. Nevertheless, mainstream ideas deserve some attention. On top of this, a curious feature of modern economics education is that some of the best ideas from mainstream economics are not even taught to undergraduates! During this series I will explore such ideas, starting today with the market construction technique known as ‘matching’.
It's a match!
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
Unemployment in Nigeria: Policy Review and Recommendations
Central banks have once again proven to be the first line of defense in crisis-ridden times. With their far reaching actions they prevented the world from experiencing a collapse of financial markets on top of the severe health and economic crisis caused by Covid-19.
NextGen Central Banking: Central Banking and Climate change - A new era of monetary financing?
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
Exploring Economics, an open-access e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
Impact of FDI on economic growth: The role of country income levels and institutional strength
This reports presents empirical findings of research conducted by Michelle Holder, assistant professor of economics at John Jay College, City University of New York, with regard to the impact of what she terms a "double gap"- gender wage gap and ethnic minority wage gap - on the U.S. labour market.
The "Double Gap" and the Bottom Line: African American Women’s Wage Gap and Corporate Profits
The usual background and distinctions between complexity and neoclassical economics are presented Neoclassical economics deals with perfectly rational representative agents this creates states of equilibrium On the other hand complexity economics relaxes these assumptions to deal with responsive agents in an uncertain dynamic environment this creates states of disequilibrium More …
Foundations of complexity economics
This text provides an easy to understand introduction to complexity economics for non-specialist audiences such as bachelor's students.
Think Complexity Economics is too Complicated? Then this is for you.
Mainstream inflation theories in economics do little to explain the recent acceleration in price increases. The associated economic policy recommendations further increase the misery of low-income groups.
The inflation conundrum
This article outlines the fundamental challenges of democratically planned economies and categorises proposed models into six groups, each of which approaches planning and coordination at different levels of authority and between myriad economic units in a particular way, taking into account efficiency as well as democratic principles and environmental and social sustainability. Through a classification system based on decision-making authority and mediation mechanisms, the article provides a framework for understanding and comparing these models. By examining their different approaches, it offers insights into the complexities and potential paths of democratically planned economies in the 21st century.
Rethinking Democratic Economic Planning: An Overview
Florian Kern replies to Zoltan Pozsar's analysis about the effects of the war in Ukraine on the global financial order and refutes the latter's prognosis of the demise of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency
Why the war in Ukraine does not jeopardise the dollar's reserve currency status
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.
Rethinking the History of Economic Thought & Methods
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
Best-selling books such as Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist have paved the way for the flourishing economics-made-fun genre. While books like these present economics as a strong and explanatory science, the ongoing economic crisis has exposed the shortcomings of economics to the general public.
Economics Made Fun
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
Austrian economics focuses on the economic coordination of individuals in a market economy. Austrian economics emphasises individualism, subjectivism, laissez-faire politics, uncertainty and the role of the entrepreneur, amongst others.
Austrian Economics
Marxian Political Economy focuses on the exploitation of labour by capital. The economy is not conceived as consisting of neutral transactions for exchange and cooperation, but instead as having developed historically out of asymmetric distributions of power, ideology and social conflicts.
Marxian Political Economy
For intermediate courses in economics. A Unified View of the Latest Macroeconomic Events Macroeconomics, Blanchard presents a unified, global view of macroeconomics, enabling readers to see the connections between goods, financial markets, and labor markets worldwide.
Macroeconomics
Evolutionary economics focuses on economic change. Hence processes of change such as growth, innovation, structural and technological change, as well as economic development in general are analysed. Evolutionary economics often gives emphasis to populations and (sub-)systems.
Evolutionary Economics
Readers of economic and political theory as well as students of economic planning will appreciate this classic, now available for the first time in English. Written eighty years ago, when Sorel became disillusioned with the official socialism of the German and French Marxist parties, this new translation presents Sorel's analysis of the rise and fall of the two great modern ideologies: socialism and liberal capitalism.
Social Foundations of Contemporary Economics
This book analyzes the transition of chocolate from an exotic curiosity to an Atlantic commodity. It shows how local, inter-regional, and Atlantic markets interacted with one another and with imperial political economies. It explains how these interactions, intertwined with the resilience of local artisanal production, promoted the partial democratization of chocolate consumption as well as economic growth.
Empire, Political Economy, and the Diffusion of Chocolate in the Atlantic World
All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. People and ideas are important; but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.
Prisoners of Geography
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.
Readings in the Theory of Economic Development
In this refreshingly revisionist history, Erik Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism, and strategic investment, rather than through free trade.
How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor
The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Economics presents a comprehensive overview of the contributions of feminist economics to the discipline of economics and beyond. Each chapter situates the topic within the history of the field, reflects upon current debates, and looks forward to identify cutting-edge research. Consistent with feminist economics' goal of strong objectivity, this Handbook compiles contributions from different traditions in feminist economics (including but not limited to Marxian political economy, institutionalist economics, ecological economics and neoclassical economics) and from different disciplines (such as economics, philosophy and political science). The Handbook delineates the social provisioning methodology and highlights its insights for the development of feminist economics. The contributors are a diverse mix of established and rising scholars of feminist economics from around the globe who skilfully frame the current state and future direction of feminist economic scholarship. This carefully crafted volume will be an essential resource for researchers and instructors of feminist economics.
The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Economics
The objective of the course is to explore the main strengths and weaknesses of orthodox and heterodox paradigms within development economics.
Issues in Development Economics
The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics presents a comprehensive overview of the latest work on economic theory and policy from a 'pluralistic' heterodox perspective.
Contributions throughout the Handbook explore different theoretical perspectives including: Marxian-radical political economics; Post Keynesian-Sraffian economics; institutionalist-evolutionary economics; feminist economics; social economics.
The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics
The chapter by the Centre for Economy Studies introduces interdisciplinary economic subdisciplines and their importance for economics education.
Interdisciplinary Economics
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