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995 results
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
Why has heterodox economics not been more successful in making inroads into the mainstream? And why has “pluralist economics,” the most prominent alternative paradigm to mainstream economics, not been more successful in changing the curriculum?
The Project of Pluralism
The global economic and political order is undergoing rapid and profound transformation. We are witnessing a far-reaching "organic" crisis of the global economic world order, which may have started with the financial crisis of 2007/2008 but now enters a new, much more dynamic phase.
Towards a New Economics of Collapse and Construction
Behavioural economics deals with observing behaviour and economic decision making behaviour.
Behavioral Economics
If there’s one method economists have neglected the most, it’s qualitative research. Whereas economists favour mathematical models and statistics, qualitative research seeks to understand the world through intensive investigation of particular circumstances, which usually entails interviewing people directly about their experiences. While this may sound simple to quantitative types the style, purpose, context, and interpretation of an interview can vary widely. Because of this variety, I have written a longer post than usual on this topic rather than doing it a disservice. Having said that, examples of qualitative research in economics are sadly scant enough that it doesn’t warrant multiple posts. In this post I will introduce qualitative research in general with nods to several applications including the study of firm behaviour, race, Austrian economics, and health economics. More than usual I will utilise block quotes, which I feel is in the spirit of the topic.
Qualitative Methods in Economics: "You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching"
As seen with the United Nations significant promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the past few years, the issue of global development is of growing concern to many international organizations. As humanity continues to become more interconnected through globalization, the inequalities and injustices experienced by inhabitants of impacted countries becomes increasingly clear. While this issue can be observed in the papers of different types (e.g., different schools of thought) of economists throughout the world, the work of behavioral and complexity economists offer a unique, collaborative perspective on how to frame decisions for individuals in a way that can positively reverberate throughout society and throughout time.
Behavioural vs Complexity Economics: Approaches to Development
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.
Inequality in the Post-pandemic Era
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
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.
Who cares? A convergence of feminist economics and degrowth
Until the end of the early 1970s, from a history of economic thought perspective, the mainstream in economics was pluralist, but once neoclassical economics became totally dominant it claimed the mainstream as its own. Since then, alternative views and schools of economics increasingly became minorities in the discipline and were considered 'heterodox'.
Reclaiming Pluralism in Economics
The Wealth of Ideas traces the history of economic thought, from its prehistory (the Bible, Classical antiquity) to the present day.
The Wealth of Ideas
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
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.
Modern Monetary Theory
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.
The Strange Non-Death of Mainstream Economics
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
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
Sustainable Prosperity
After completing the workshop in Post Keynesian Economics participants should be able to describe the main differences and similarities between PKE and other schools of thought.
Post Keynesian Economics
"Thought provoking and fresh - this book challenges how we think about economics.”
Gillian Tett, Financial Times
For further information about recent publicity events and media coverage for Rethinking Capitalism please visit http://marianamazzucato.com/rethinking-capitalism/
Western capitalism is in crisis.
Rethinking Capitalism
Beyond Neoclassical Economics is a remarkable new introduction to the main heterodox schools of economic thought which examines their main concepts and their critiques of mainstream theory.
Beyond Neoclassical Economics
The third edition of Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas is a fully updated overview of the political economy and its connection with social concerns. This book investigates the main traditions of economic ideas and provides a 'big picture' overview of the analytical tools and value judgements associated with competing schools of economic thought.
Political Economy
After completing the module, participants should have gained a basic understanding of the economic school of thought referred to as "Modern Monetary Theory" and should be able to analyze the monetary processes at play in the economy and evaluate fiscal and monetary policy decisions from an MMT-perspective.
Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory
The foundational economy is a concept which describes the infrastructure of everyday life, encompassing all essential services like utilities or healthcare that people require for wellbeing. This contribution provides an overview of foundational thinking.
The foundational economy: Focusing on what matters
John Harvey's accessible book provides a non-technical yet rigorous introduction to various schools of thought in economics. Premised on the idea that economic thinking has been stunted by the almost complete rejection of anything outside the mainstream, the author hopes that this volume will open readers' minds and lead them in new and productive directions.
Contending Perspectives in Economics
The bestselling classic that examines the history of economic thought from Adam Smith to Karl Marx—“all the economic lore most general readers conceivably could want to know, served up with a flourish” (The New York Times). The Worldly Philosophers not only enables us to see more deeply into our history but helps us better understand our own times. In this seventh edition, Robert L. Heilbroner provides a new theme that connects thinkers as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
The Worldly Philosophers
The core of Georgism is a policy known as the Land Value Tax (LVT), a policy which Georgists claim will solve many of society and the economy’s ills. Georgism is an interesting school of thought because it has the twin properties that (1) despite a cult following, few people in either mainstream or (non-Georgist) heterodox economics pay it much heed; (2) despite not paying it much heed, both mainstream and heterodox economists largely tend to agree with Georgists. I will focus on the potential benefits Georgists argue an LVT will bring and see if they are borne out empirically. But I will begin by giving a nod to the compelling theoretical and ethical dimensions of George’s analysis, which are impossible to ignore.
It’s the Land, Stupid!
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.
Economics and Political Power during the Crisis
This historic timeline presents economic events, economic thinkers and schools of thought from the 18th century until the 2007/2008 financial and economic crisis with short texts on the respective event or perspective.
Economics: An Illustrated Timeline
The notion that the demand and supply side are independent is a key feature of textbook undergraduate economics and of modern macroeconomic models. Economic output is thought to be constrained by the productive capabilities of the economy - the ‘supply-side' - through technology, demographics and capital investment. In the short run a boost in demand may increase GDP and employment due to frictions such as sticky wages, but over the long-term successive rises in demand without corresponding improvements on the supply side can only create inflation as the economy reaches capacity. In this post I will explore the alternative idea of demand-led growth, where an increase in demand can translate into long-run supply side gains. This theory is most commonly associated with post-Keynesian economics, though it has been increasingly recognised in the mainstream literature.
It’s Demand All the Way Down
This volume focuses on the importance of the history of economic thought as an intellectual discipline. It counters the arguments of some contemporary economists who describe it as studying the mistakes of the past. However, all the great economists - Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Marshall, Keynes and even Milton Friedman - have drawn on the history of economics to find an appropriate pedigree for their own theoretical innovations.
The Historiography of Economics
The Austrian tradition in economic thought had a profound influence on the development of post-war economics including neoclassical orthodoxy, game theory, public choice, behavioral economics, experimental economics and complexity economics.
Explorations in Austrian Economics
Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei, member of the Post-Colonialisms Today Working Group, discusses the role of the state in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Central Role of the State in Responding to COVID-19
In this article, Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei and Camden Goetz discuss the ongoing impacts of colonialism on Africa’s natural resources.
A History of Resource Plunder
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