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In spite of the manifold critique about the state of economics in the aftermath of the financial crisis, an even increasing presence of economists and economic experts can be observed in the public sphere during the last years. On the one hand this reflects the still dominant position of economics in the social sciences as well as the sometimes ignorant attitude of economists towards findings of other social sciences. On the other hand this paper shows that the public debate on politico-economic issues among economists is dominated by a specific subgroup of economists, tightly connected to an institutional network of “German neoliberalism”. This group of “public economists” (i) is dominant in public debates even after the financial crisis, (ii) reproduces the formative German economic imaginary of the Social Market Economy in a German neoliberal interpretation and (iii) has a good access to German economic policymaking, rooted in a long history of economic policy advice.
2016
Level: advanced
Still the queens of social sciences? (Post-)Crisis power balances of “public economists” in Germany
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.
2020
Level: advanced
The "Double Gap" and the Bottom Line: African American Women’s Wage Gap and Corporate Profits
Steven G. Medema is a Research Professor at Duke University. His research focuses on the History of Economic Thought, having published extensively on the issue of social costs of production (conceptualized as externalities in neoclassical economics). In this recorded seminar, he exposes his working paper on the history of the concept of externalities in economic literature, starting from Pigou’s “The Economics of Welfare” (1920), where Pigou makes the case for governmental intervention in the market where there is a divergence between private and social costs or benefits of a productive activity. T
2017
Level: advanced
'Exceptional and Unimportant'? The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Externalities in Economic Analysis
In this course we will critically analyze both economic theory and economic life through the lens of gender. Topics covered include: a critical examination of gender patterns and trends in the household, labor market, and the firm; issues concerning gender inequalities in the economy.
2014
Level: beginner
Gender and the Economy
In the concluding part of his essay, Aaron Benanav transitions from theoretical principles to the institutional design of a post-capitalist society. He introduces the concept of a "Socialist Investment Council" as a decentralized, democratic alternative to the market’s blind allocation of resources.
2025
Level: advanced
Beyond Capitalism II
"Could a cooperative market economy, in which firms are owned and controlled by their workers, be a viable and efficient alternative to capitalism?"
Level: beginner
Economic Democracy: The Cooperative Alternative
Since 2007, central banks of industrialized countries have counteracted financial instability, recession, and deflationary risks with unprecedented monetary policy operations. While generally regarded as successful, these measures also led to an exceptional increase in the size of central bank balance sheets. The book first introduces the subject by explaining monetary policy operations in normal times, including the key instruments (open market operations, standing facilities, reserve requirements, and the collateral framework).
2014
Level: advanced
Monetary Policy Operations and the Financial System
The Anthropology of Development and Globalization is a collection of readings that provides an unprecedented overview of this field that ranges from the field?s classical origins to today?s debates about the ?magic? of the free market.
2005
Level: advanced
The Anthropology of Development and Globalization
Economics After the Crisis is an introductory economics textbook, covering key topics in micro and macro economics. However, this book differs from other introductory economics textbooks in the perspective it takes, and it incorporates issues that are presently underserved by existing textbooks on the market. This book offers an introduction to economics that takes into account criticisms of the orthodox approach, and which acknowledges the role that this largely Western approach has played in the current global financial and economic crisis.
2014
Level: advanced
Economics After the Crisis
The book’s central theme is to develop a new theory of speculative capital related to other forms of capital, the world market, and the state. Unlike most marxist and heterodox theories, the book distinguishes credit and fictitious capital from speculative capital to show its hegemony today in the capital markets.
2022
Level: advanced
Financial Capital in the 21st Century
Transition from central planning to a market economy, involving large-scale institutional change and reforms at all levels, is often described as the greatest social science experiment in modern times.
2013
Level: advanced
Handbook of the Economics and Political Economy of Transition
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
An analysis of the modern neoliberal world, its characteristics, flaws and planetary boundaries aiming to end new economic politics and support a global redistribution of power, wealth and roles. In this online lecture, economist and Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK. Costas Lapavitsas, explains the limitations of the neoliberal market in creating financial stability and growth in both, developing and developed countries.
2020
Level: advanced
The Limits to Neoliberalism: how states respond to the crisis
Jason Smith takes a stab at blind faith in the efficiency of the price mechanism to provide market information. To do so, he calls upon Information Theory and Generative Adversarial Networks to argue the price mechanism is faulty and skewed towards supply.
2017
Level: beginner
Hayek Meets Information Theory. And Fails
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
"The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life" by Paul Seabright is an engaging and informative book that explores the complex relationship between economic behavior and human instincts. Seabright uses real-world examples to present complex ideas in a clear and accessible way. The author argues that the market is not only a place for exchanging goods and services but also relies on trust, cooperation, and social norms.
2010
Level: beginner
The Company of Strangers
The Great Recession 2.0 is unfolding before our very eyes. It is still in its early phase. But dynamics have been set in motion that are not easily stopped, or even slowed. If the virus effect were resolved by early summer—as some politicians wishfully believe—the economic dynamics set in motion would still continue. The US and global economies have been seriously ‘wounded’ and will not recover easily or soon. Those who believe it will be a ‘V-shape’ recovery are deluding themselves. Economists among them should know better but are among the most confused. They only need to look at historical parallels to convince themselves otherwise.
2020
Level: beginner
Origins & Emergence of the 2020 Great Recession in the US Economy
In this essay the author elaborates on the EU's perspective on the fast growing sector of the platform economy.
2019
Level: beginner
Sharing is Caring? On the EU- Narrative on Platform Economy
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
The last 15 years have seen extensive research into ecosystem service valuation (ESV), spurred by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005 (Baveye, Baveye & Gowdy, 2016). Ecosystem services are defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, p.V). For example, ecosystems provide the service of sequestering carbon which helps regulate the climate. Valuation means giving ecosystems or their services a monetary price, for example researchers have estimated that the carbon sequestration services of the Mediterranean Sea is between 100 and 1500 million euros per year. The idea of ESV was a response to the overuse of natural resources and degradation of ecosystems, allegedly due to their undervaluation and exclusion from the monetary economy. ESV can be used (1) for policy decision-making, for example allocating funding to a reforestation project (2) for setting payments to people who increase ecosystem services, for example a farmer increasing the organic carbon content of their soil, and (3) for determining fees for people who degrade ecosystem services, for example a company that causes deforestation.
2021
Level: beginner
A Pluralist Perspective on Ecosystem Service Valuation Introduction
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
What constitutes the dominance of the US dollar, what it provides for the US and the rest of the world, why it is constantly questioned, and what the future might hold for the dollar
2025
Level: beginner
How the International Reserve Currency System Works – and Whether the End of Dollar Hegemony is Imminent
The novel coronavirus (Covid-19) is rapidly spreading around the world. The real economy is simultaneously hit by a supply shock and a demand shock by the spread of coronavirus. Such a twin shock is a rare phenomenon in recent economic history.
2020
Level: beginner
How to Manage the Economic Fallout of the Coronavirus
What’s inflation? Why is it relevant? And is there an agreed theory about its roots and causes, or is it a contentious concept? That’s what this text is all about: We define what inflation actually means before we delve into the theoretical debate with an interdisciplinary and pluralist approach: What gives rise to it, what factors might influence it, and, consequently, what might be done about it?
2021
Level: beginner
Inflation in economic theory
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 is an overview of (possibly transformative) proposals to address the economic consequences of the corona crisis
2020
Level: beginner
Overview of proposals to combat the economic consequences of the Corona crisis
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
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.
2017
Level: advanced
The Complexity of Economies and Pluralism in Economics
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.
2025
Level: advanced
Towards a New Economics of Collapse and Construction
The objective of the course is to explore the main strengths and weaknesses of orthodox and heterodox paradigms within development economics.
2019
Level: beginner
Issues in Development Economics
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
The article examines how, in the context of multiple contemporary crises—financial, ecological, and social—interest in alternative economic models such as democratic economic planning has resurged. It outlines historical debates on the feasibility of planning versus markets, discusses contemporary approaches to democratic, digitally supported, and ecologically oriented planning, and identifies research gaps, including social reproduction and Global South perspectives.
Level: beginner
Rethinking Economic Planning

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