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260 results

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching implications across the African continent. This discussion brings to light the role of African think tanks, such as the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) in rethinking the continent’s development models, especially, in light of the unprecedented crisis.
2020
Level: beginner
Growth with 'DEPTH' should guide economic transformation in Africa
The present working paper is dedicated to fill a void in the degrowth literature related to the aspect of planning to achieve post-growth models of societies. The authors propose a new framework that focuses on non-market forms of planning and propose multi-level planning institutions to mediate the local level with society-wide and global institutions.
2023
Level: advanced
Planning beyond growth. The case for economic democracy within limits
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
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
Neoclassical economics focuses on the allocation of scarce resources. Economic analysis is mainly concerned with determining the efficient allocation of resources in order to increase welfare.
Neoclassical Economics
Steve Keen analyses how mainstream economics fails when confronted with the covid-19-pandemic. Mainstream economics has propagated the dismantling of the state and the globalization of production - both of which make the crisis now so devastating. More fundamentally, mainstream economics deals with market systems, when what is needed to limit the virus’s spread is a command system.
2020
Level: beginner
The Coronavirus and the End of Economics
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.
This chapter by the Centre of Economy Studies provides a map through the complex jungle of economic theories. It provides key insights and ideas for thirteen core topics in economics, organised by selecting the most relevant theoretical approaches per topic and contrasting them with each other.
2021
Level: beginner
Pragmatic Pluralism
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.
2024
Level: beginner
Why We Should Think Twice About Production Functions
This course will survey contemporary heterodox approaches to economic research, both from a microeconomic and a macroeconomic perspective. Topics will be treated from a general, critical, and mathematical standpoint.
2021
Level: advanced
Heterodox Approaches to Economics
Behavioural economics deals with observing behaviour and economic decision making behaviour.
Behavioral Economics
This paper starts with an evaluation of three common arguments against pluralism in economics: (1) the claim that economics is already pluralist, (2) the argument that if there was the need for greater plurality, it would emerge on its own, and (3) the assertion that pluralism means ‘anything goes’ and is thus unscientific. Pluralist responses to all three arguments are summarized. The third argument is identified to relate to a greater challenge for pluralism: an epistemological trade-off between diversity and consensus that suggests moving from a discussion about ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ towards a discussion about the adequate degree of plurality. We instantiate the trade-off by showing how it originates from two main challenges: the need to derive adequate quality criteria for a pluralist economics, and the necessity to propose strategies that ensure the communication across different research programs. The paper concludes with some strategies to meet these challenges.
2017
Level: beginner
Pluralism in economics: its critiques and their lessons
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.
2020
Level: beginner
The Job Guarantee
Understanding international trade is central to economics and is currently a hot political issue. It’s an area where popular perceptions of mainstream economics are low, since they have historically missed some important downsides of trade agreements, especially the hollowing out of former manufacturing hubs in the Western world. et economists have for long time had a theory of trade with an impressive amount of scientific clout behind it: the gravity trade model.
2020
Level: beginner
A Theory of Enormous Gravity
A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics
2020
Level: beginner
Mathematical Economics in the 19th Century
This module examines current socio-political issues through the lens of pluralism, that is pluralism of theory, pluralism of method and interdisciplinary pluralism
2020
Level: beginner
Pluralist Economic Analysis
The concept of financialisation has undergone a similar career as ‘globalisation’, ‘neoliberalism’ or even ‘capitalism’, in the course of which it changed from the explanandum to the explanans; the process of financialisation is taken for granted, while the concrete historical and empirical causal conditions of its realisation and perpetuation are being moved into the background.
2023
Level: expert
A holistic theory of financialisation
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 chapter discusses the role of gender in economic relations, processes, and outcomes. Gender differences in economic outcomes such as labor force participation and wages have received growing attention from economists in the last several decades – a positive and much needed development in economic thinking.
2016
Level: beginner
Illuminating the role of gender in the economy
Within the heterodox field one of the most active topics is related to the theory of economic growth and distribution This is a textbook for advance undergraduate and graduate students Throughout its 18 chapters Classical Neoclassical and post Keynesian models are developed Each chapter contains study problems and suggested readings …
2019
Level: expert
Growth and Distribution
The most successful multialternative theories of decision making assume that people consider individual aspects of a choice and proceed via a process of elimination. Amos Tversky was one of the pioneers of this field, but modern decision theorists – most notably Neil Stewart – have moved things forward. At the current stage the theories are able to explain a number of strictly ‘irrational’ but reasonable quirks of human decision making, including various heuristics and biases. Not only this, but eye movements of participants strongly imply that the decision-making process depicted in the theories is an accurate one.
2020
Level: beginner
The Quirks of Human Decisions, Explained
There are three things one can do on this website - 1. Learn 2. Help Teach 3. Sign up for the MOOC.
2013
Level: beginner
Econometrics Academy
This syllabus provides an overview of the contents of the course "The Philosophy and Methodology of Economics" at the Duke University
2022
Level: beginner
The Philosophy and Methodology of Economics
The module is designed to first present some of the main schools of thought from a historical and methodological perspective. Each week we explore and critically assess the main tenants of each school of thought. In the second part of the module we link history of economic thought and methodology to a specific and contemporary economic question. The second part allows you to engage with current economic issues with an awareness of methodology and methodological differences and with some knowledge of the history of economics.
2019
Level: beginner
History of Economic Thought
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
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
Challenging the Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Economics is a contested academic discipline between neoclassical economics and a collection of alternative approaches such as Marxism radical economics Institutional economics Post Keynesian economics and others that can collectively be called heterodox economics Because of the dominance of neoclassical economics the existence …
2011
Level: advanced
A History of Heterodox Economics
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
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
This report by the 'Institute for Global Prosperity' explores the hypothesis that strengthening and extending universal services is an effective way of tackling poverty and improving wellbeing for all.
2019
Level: beginner
Universal Basic Services: Theory and Practice
Dani Rodrik reflects in this book on important questions about how economics works and what might be wrong with it. He points out flaws and weakness of the discipline, but also argues that certain criticisms which have brought forward against are without merit. His central point is that there is not just one economic model, but a variety of them and it is important to apply judgment when selecting the most suitable one for a particular situation.
2016
Level: beginner
Economics Rules
This brief views the environment through diverse lenses – those of standard economics, institutional economics, political science, environmental science and ecology.
2013
Level: advanced
The Environment in Economics and Development

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