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409 results
How and by whom are International Labour Standards set? How are they supervised, and how can workers’ organisations use the ILO supervisory mechanisms? What are the key principles of Freedom of Association, the right to strike and Collective Bargaining?
International Labour Standards: How to Use Them
A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics
Mathematical Economics in the 19th Century
In the history of the social sciences, few individuals have exerted as much influence as has Jeremy Bentham. His attempt to become “the Newton of morals” has left a marked impression upon the methodology and form of analysis that social sciences like economics and political science have chosen as modus operandi.
Bentham’s Two Sovereign Masters - Examining Bentham’s Influence on the Social Sciences
As the Covid-19 fueled economic downturn begins to intensify this winter, an extended study of the Italian cooperative sector’s historical resilience in times of crisis can serve as a learning experience for other countries seeking to create policies that foster more stable economies, with job security, care for marginalized communities and adequate counter-cyclical policies. Particularly, the Italian cooperative sector’s contributions to three aspects should be noted in closing. Firstly, the innovative phenomenon of cooperative enterprises has contributed to social inclusion of immigrant communities, the activation of youth, the unemployed and people with disabilities, a true compensation for both a market and state failure. Secondly, they have contributed to a reduction in income and wealth inequalities at a time when the issue of inequality is of global significance. Thirdly, the Italian cooperative movement has helped local communities revitalize in the face of demographic shifts and rendered them more resilient to the ravages of globalization. Each of these in their own right is a remarkable achievement.
How to strengthen the social economy
In a span of around 12 weeks, the course covers a wide range of topics including agent-based modeling, networks, dynamic, chaos, information, fractals, cooperation models and scaling in biology and society. The course acts as a perfect beginner level introduction spanning a wide range of topics in the field of complexity.
Introduction to Complexity
This course seeks to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution. The lectures are foundational on neoclassical economics and economist, as well as their roles in the proliferation of capitalist ideology. However, it is less concerned with the ultimate judgment of capitalism than with the ways it can be shaped to fit more specific objectives.
Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform
This course provides a simple introduction to problems that social scientists are working on (e.g. racial disparities, inequality and climate change) in a manner that does not require any prior background in Economics or Statistics.
Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems
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"
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
This course provides an introduction to the ILO’s Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy (MNE Declaration). The course uses real cases related to labour and employment issues as examples of how the MNE Declaration is used in practice or as guidance.
ILO - An introduction to the MNE Declaration
This is a revolutionary and powerfully argued feminist analysis of modern economics, revealing how woman's housework, caring of the young, sick and the old is automatically excluded from value in economic theory. An example of this pervasive and powerful process is the United Nations System of National Accounts which is used for wars and determining the balance of payments and loan requirements.
If Women Counted
Part I: Basic Economic Problems Is Economics a Science? Is It Useful? (Lawrence Boland, Ian Parker) Is There Such a Thing as a Free Market? (William Watson, Robert Prasch) Part II: Consumers and Firms Is Homo Economicus an Appropriate Representation of Real-World Consumers? (Joseph Persky, Morris Altman) Is the Consumer Sovereign?
Introducing Microeconomic Analysis
Geographical economics starts from the observation that economic activity is clearly not randomly distributed across space. This revised and updated introduction to geographical economics uses the modern tools of economic theory to explain the who, why and where of the location of economic activity. The text provides an integrated, first-principles introduction to geographical economics for advanced undergraduate students and first-year graduate students, and has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect important developments in the field, including new chapters on alternative core models and policy implications.
The New Introduction to Geographical Economics
By conducting a discourse analysis (SKAD) in the field of academic economics textbooks, this paper aims at reconstructing frames and identity options offered to undergraduate students relating to the questions ‘Why study economics?’ and ‘Who do I become by studying economics?’. The analysis showed three major frames and respective identity offerings, all of which are contextualized theoretically, with prominent reference to the Foucauldian reflection of the science of Political Economy. Surprisingly, none of them encourages the student to think critically, as could have been expected in a pedagogical context. Taken together, economics textbooks appear as a “total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible action” (Foucault), therefore, as a genuine example of Foucauldian power structures.
The power of economic textbooks: A discourse analysis
This book presents recent thought on market efficiency, using a complex systems approach to move past equilibrium models and quantify the actual efficiency of markets.
Beyond Equilibrium and Efficiency
Designed to give second-year undergraduates an intuitive understanding of basic mathematical techniques, and when and why they are applicable. Building on the traditional framework of calculus, the notion of a concave function is used to link the new algebraic methods with the more familiar graphical approachoand to introduce the modern use of duality in economic analysis.
Mathematics for Modern Economics
The Revolution in Corporate Finance has established itself as a key text for students of corporate finance with wide use on a range of courses. Using seminal articles from the highly regarded Bank of America Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, it gives students real insight into the practical implications of the most recent theoretical advances in the field.
The Revolution in Corporate Finance
In this revealing book, Katharina Pistor argues that the law selectively “codes” certain assets, endowing them with the capacity to protect and produce private wealth. With the right legal coding, any object, claim, or idea can be turned into capital—and lawyers are the keepers of the code.
The Code of Capital
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.
An essay on the putative knowledge of textbook economics
David Graeber introduces different concepts such as money and debt. He takes a historical and anthropological way of explaining the origin. This breaks with the mainstream explanation, which is used in many Economics textbooks, saying that a barter economy was before money arose.
Debt
Examine what would happen if we were to deploy blockchain technology at the sovereign level and use it to create a decentralized cashless economy. This book explains how finance and economics work today, and how the convergence of various technologies related to the financial sector can help us find solutions to problems, such as excessive debt creation, banks getting too big to fail, and shadow banking.
The Blockchain Alternative
This book presents a methodological framework for the analysis of intercultural issues frequently misinterpreted by existing theories. It uses a challenge-and-response theory of cultural development to examine the relationship between different natural disasters and threats and the developments of ancient civilizations.
Introduction to Intercultural Economics
The course will teach students to analyze the goals, implementation, and outcomes of economic policy.
Advanced Economic Policy
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.
History of Economic Thought
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
In economics the dominant framework for exploring the structure of market economies is provided by the neoclassical school of thought. This text aims to show how neoclassical theory is used to model market mechanisms, both in particular markets and in the market economy as a whole.
Microeconomics - Neoclassical and Institutionalist Perspectives on Economic Behaviour
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bombay was beset by crises such as famine and plague. Yet, rather than halting the flow of capital, these crises served to secure it. In colonial Bombay, capitalists and governors, Indian and British alike, used moments of crisis to justify interventions that delimited the city as a distinct object and progressively excluded laborers and migrants from it.
Making the Modern Slum
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
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 …
Making Many Maps: Why We Need an Interested Pluralism in Economics and How to Get There
The outbreak of COVID-19 has substantially accelerated the digitalization of the economy. Yet, this unprecedented growth of digital technology brought novel challenges to the labour market. Rise in income inequalities and precarious working conditions or polarization of jobs. In this essay, we try to assess what tools to use to counter these trends.
Post-pandemic future of work - How does digitization impact labour?
This book is intended as a textbook for a course in behavioural economics for advanced undergraduate and graduate students who have already learned basic economics. The book will also be useful for introducing behavioural economics to researchers. Unlike some general audience books that discuss behavioural economics, this book does not take the position of negating traditional economics completely.
Behavioral Economics
Homo sapiens is now evolving into post economy The New Economy must manage scarcity and affluence a dual problem that is not integrated into the main classical economic theories There will be an important shock between opulence described by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society and scarcity …
Shifting Economy
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