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South Africa’s taxi industry was established by black people in the 1930s and has faced numerous challenges, including those posed by decades of apartheid laws. Covid-19 has highlighted contemporary challenges facing the industry and has also raised questions about how it can keep ‘driving forward’. This podcast explores questions such as what changes need to be made, and who can be the ‘drivers’ of such change.
2021
Level: advanced
Driving Forward Social and Solidarity Economy: The Case of South Africa's Taxi Industry
Croatia adopted the euro as its currency on 1 January 2023, becoming the 20th member state of the eurozone. In this teaching pack, students learn what it entails to join the eurozone and discuss what its effects might be. In this way, the case helps students connect theoretical insights about monetary unions with real world knowledge and economic developments in the news.
2023
Level: beginner
Croatia adopts the euro – Economy Studies
Although sometimes used as synonyms, economic growth and economic development refer to different processes. While economic growth refers to an increase in real national income and output (i.e., GDP growth rate), economic development refers to an improvement in the quality of life and living standards (i.e., life expectancy).
2018
Level: beginner
Could gender equality help the economy?
In this podcast, Professor Darrick Hamilton critically discusses how current neoliberal economic models uphold a systemically racially unjust structure of economies.
2020
Level: beginner
EQUALS: Racism, Rebellions and the Economy
Richard Werner touches on a number of topics in this Odd Lots Podcast episode. As one of the pioneers when it comes to money and credit creation, he gives interesting insights into his early research on this topic. He then explains what he calls the “Quantity Theory of Credit” and is an alternative to the "Quantity Theory of Money".
2020
Level: advanced
Japanification, Quantitative Easing, money creation and Re-Igniting the U.S. Economy
Ride hailing home sharing meal delivery and other forms of digitally powered task sharing are creating jobs and growth in Europe and significant policy challenges What should be the responsibilities of these new platforms how should workers be classified and how can insurers and others provide services to this new …
2020
Level: advanced
Europe’s Collaborative Economy
This video provides key insights into the functioning of Western sanctions imposed on Russia due to the current Ukrainian conflict.
2022
Level: beginner
How The West Broke Russia's Economy
An examination of women's changing economic roles. Includes an analysis of labour force participation, wage inequality, gender differences in education, intra-household distribution of resources, economics of reproduction, and how technological change affects women.
2015
Level: beginner
Women and the Economy
By the end of this course, students should understand the basic economic theories of the gender division of labor in the home and at the workplace, and theories of gender differences in compensation and workforce segregation.
2014
Level: beginner
Economics of Gender (Woman in the U.S: Economy)
Based on a clear conceptual framework and ten flexible building blocks this handbook offers refreshing ideas and practical suggestions to stimulate student engagement and critical thinking across a wide range of courses Drawing on decades of ideas on how to improve economics education and a growing number of available alternative …
2021
Level: beginner
Economy Studies
James Robinson gives in this talk a short introduction into the theory and ideas of his popular book "Why Nations Fail" which was published together with D. Acemoglu in 2012. With many real-life examples he gives a lively description on the fundamentals for economic success from an institutionalist view. According to Robinson, the nature of institutions is a crucial factor for economic success. Whether institutions are inclusive (such as in prosperous economies) or extractive (poor economies) stems from the nation's political process and the distribution of political power.
2014
Level: beginner
Why Nations Fail
"Energy issues have always been important in international relations, but in recent years may have become even more important than in the past due to the widespread awareness of existing limits to energy sources and negative climate impacts. The course discusses global trends in energy consumption and production, various available scenarios for potential developments in the coming decades, the availability of oil reserves and the evolution of the oil industry. It then discusses natural gas and highlights the differences between oil and gas. It will also discuss renewable energy sources, nuclear energy and EU energy policy. The course aims at providing students whose main interest is in international relations a background on energy resources, technology and economic realities to allow them to correctly interpret the political impact of current developments. It also aims at providing students, who already have a technical background in energy science or engineering, with the broad global view of energy issues that will allow them to better understand the social, economic and political impact of their technical knowledge."
Level: beginner
Politics and Economics of International Energy
At the 2013 Climate, Mind, & Behavior Symposium, Rebecca Adamson of First Peoples Worldwide illustrates alternative economic systems modeled after indigenous worldviews and the power they have in pushing us towards a more sustainable existence.
2013
Level: beginner
Rebecca Adamson: Enoughness - Restoring Balance to the Economy
As the global economic landscape evolves, demographics shift, inequality expands, climate change gets worse and technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is struggling to stay relevant.
2021
Level: beginner
Beyond GDP - Wellbeing Economy, Happiness Index and the postgrowth debate
Course goals Learn about women men and work in the labor market and the household Learn to apply the tools of economic analysis to these topics and deepen understanding of these tools Develop the skills to think critically about gender issues including policy interventions Enhance understanding of how to analyze …
2016
Level: beginner
Women in the Economy
This MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) discusses Global Workers’ Rights and shows instruments and strategies which can be used to implement them.
Level: beginner
Workers' Rights in a Global Economy
Why are income inequalities so large and why do they continue to increase in so many countries? What role can minimum wages play in reducing social and economic inequalities? What is a good system of wage bargaining? What constitutes a fair wage?
Level: beginner
Fair Wage Strategies in a Global Economy
The study gives an overview of approaches, concepts and examples regarding the socio-ecological transformation.
2025
Level: beginner
Towards a socio-ecological transformation of the economy
An article in the New York Times from early 2025 suggests that the political influence of mainstream economics is declining. While economists have been highly influential in supporting and shaping free-market policies in recent decades, their expertise has become less relevant during intensified economic crises that necessitate state interventions.
2025
Level: beginner
The Strange Non-Death of Mainstream Economics
Post-Keynesians focus on the analysis of capitalist economies, perceived as highly productive, but unstable and conflictive systems. Economic activity is determined by effective demand, which is typically insufficient to generate full employment and full utilisation of capacity.
Post-Keynesian Economics
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.
2024
Level: beginner
Rethinking Democratic Economic Planning: An Overview
This course provides future change makers in public and private sectors with a comprehensive overview on the structures and actors that shape markets.
2019
Level: beginner
The Governance of Markets in Challenging Times: From Classic Authors to New Approaches
This journal article by Radhika Desai, Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, was originally published in 2010 and republished in an revised format in 2020. The article is a comprehensive treatment of Marx's theory of crisis, focusing on the role of consumption demand in capitalism and in the emergence of crises.
2020
Level: expert
Consumption demand in Marx, his crisis theories and in the current crisis
This paper attempts to clarify how the European economic crisis from 2007 onwards can be understood from the perspective of a Marxian monetary theory of value that emphasizes intrinsic, structural flaws regarding capitalist reproduction. Chapter two provides an empirical description of the European economic crisis, which to some extent already reflects the structural theoretical framework presented in chapter three. Regarding the theoretical framework Michael Heinrich's interpretation of 'the' Marxian monetary theory of value will be presented. Heinrich identifies connections between production and realization, between profit and interest rate as well as between industrial and fictitious capital, which represent contradictory tendencies for which capitalism does not have simple balancing processes. In the context of a discussion of 'structural logical aspects' of Marx's Critique of the Political Economy, explanatory deficits of Heinrich's approach are analyzed. In the following, it is argued that Fred Moseley's view of these 'structural logical aspects' allows empirical 'applications' of Marxian monetary theories of value. It is concluded that a Marxian monetary theory of value, with the characteristics of expansive capital accumulation and its limitations, facilitates a structural analysis of the European economic crisis from 2007 onwards. In this line of argument, expansive production patterns are expressed, among other things, in global restructuring processes, while consumption limitations are mitigated by expansive financial markets and shifts in ex-port destinations.
2019
Level: expert
The European economic crisis from 2007 onwards in the context of a global crisis of over-production of capital - a Marxian monetary theory of value interpretation
This collection of essays, a supplement to History of Political Economy, brings together prominent scholars from economics, sociology, literature, and history to examine the role of biography and autobiography in the history of economics. The first of its kind, this volume looks at the relevance of first-person accounts to narrative histories of economics.
2007
Level: advanced
Economists' Lives
This open access book presents an alternative to capitalism and state socialism through the modelling of a post-market and post-state utopia based on an upscaling of the commons, feminist political economy and democratic and council-based planning approaches.
2022
Level: beginner
Make Capitalism History
"Yuliya Yurchenko is a senior lecturer and researcher in political economy at University of Greenwich. She is currently in Ukraine on an extraordinary leave. And while she writes that she is, for the moment, in relative safety, that could change any moment. Being a Ukrainian, an activist and an academic, Yuliya traveled to Ukraine on Feb 19, 2022 as part of a fact-finding and solidarity mission with a number of MPs, trade unionists and journalists. The goal, she says, of this mission is to connect with civil society organizations, trade unions, activists and politicians, and “to express direct, cross-border solidarity from the UK working class to the Ukrainian working class.”
2022
Level: advanced
Yuliya Yurchenko expands the frame for understanding the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The book explores the imperialist tendency inherent in global capitalism by using a rigorous political economy framework.
2019
Level: advanced
The Wealth of (some) Nations
On July 2020 ZOE-Institute published a unique platform for transformative policymaking: Sustainable Prosperity. Building on insights from new economic thinking the platform provides knowledge about ideas, arguments and procedures that support effective promotion of political change. It aims to strengthen change makers in public policy institutions, who are working on an ambitious green and just transition. As such, it provides convincing arguments and policy ideas to overcome the reliance of economic policy on GDP growth
Level: beginner
Sustainable Prosperity
Feminist economics focuses on the interdependencies of gender relations and the economy. Care work and the partly non-market mediated reproduction sphere are particularly emphasised by feminist economics.
Feminist Economics
The article pursues the two related questions of how economists pretend to know and why they want to know at all. It is argued that both the economic form of knowledge and the motivation of knowing have undergone a fundamental change during the course of the 20th century. The knowledge of important contemporary economic textbooks has little in common with an objective, decidedly scientifically motivated knowledge. Rather, their contents and forms follow a productive end, aiming at the subjectivity of their readers.
2019
Level: beginner
An essay on the putative knowledge of textbook economics
Multimedia dossier on unpaid labor (featuring the UK statistics office unpaid work calculator), migrant care labor and feminist political economy more generally.
2017
Level: beginner
Housework – I-PEEL.org

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