RETHINK
ECONOMICS
RETHINK
ECONOMICS
... and receive personalised notifications on
new pluralistic content directly into your inbox!

261 results

What are the implications of the politics of "behavioural change"? Alexander Feldmann took a closer look for you on nudging and framing and if this is a legitimate instrument being used by the state to make us behave better in terms of our carbon footprint.
2019
Level: beginner
Politics as supermarket? Or how current policy design changes the relationship between the state and its citizens
Economic sociology is an entire subfield and one could write an series on it, so I’m going to stick to probably the most prominent economic sociologist and the founder of ‘new economic sociology’, Mark Granovetter.
2020
Level: beginner
Economic Sociology: the Contributions of Mark Granovetter
Exploring Economics, an open-source e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
2020
Level: beginner
A Time for Precaution
Participants should be able to distinguish the strictly non-cooperative (methodological individualist) foundations of traditional neoclassical economics as being couched in self-interested individuals, as well as having basic knowledge of an alternative set of theories based on the primacy cooperation and social norms and extending the breadth of economic analysis beyond exchange.
2021
Level: beginner
Cooperative Economics
‘We cannot afford their peace & We cannot bear their wars’: ​​​​​​​Value, Exploitation, Profitability Crises & ‘Rectification’
2022
Level: beginner
Political Economy based on Marx
In this overview paper, Laura Porak reviews the history of industrial policy in the European Union before the background of a Cultural Political Economy approach.
2023
Level: beginner
History of Industrial Policy in the EU
Exploring Economics, an open-source e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
2016
Level: beginner
Development of heterodox economics at public German universities since the 1970s
The first day of the workshop is intended to initiate students to the foundational concepts of ecological economics. Ecological economics is an ecological critique of economics, applying the energetics of life to the study of the economy. It also investigates the social distribution of environmental costs and benefits. It does so by deconstructing concepts that are taken for granted like “nature” or “the economy”, excavating their ideological origins.
2022
Level: beginner
Political ecology, degrowth, and the Green New Deal
More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and also how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. It traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect upon the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics.
1991
Level: advanced
More Heat Than Light
Technical change, defined as the manufacture and modification of tools, is generally thought to have played an important role in the evolution of intelligent life on earth, comparable to that of language. In this volume, first published in 1983, Jon Elster approaches the study of technical change from an epistemological perspective.
1983
Level: advanced
Explaining Technical Change
Blending past and present, this brief history of economics is the perfect book for introducing students to the field.A Brief History of Economics illustrates how the ideas of the great economists not only influenced societies but were themselves shaped by their cultural milieu. Understanding the economists' visions ? lucidly and vividly unveiled by Canterbery ?
2011
Level: advanced
A Brief History of Economics
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.
Level: beginner
Introduction to Complexity
Firms are the primary places where economic activity takes place in modern capitalist economies: they are where most stuff is produced; where many of us spend 40 hours a week; and where big decisions are made about how to allocate resources. Establishing how they work is hugely important because it helps us to understand patterns of production and consumption, including how firms will react to changes in economic conditions and policy. And a well-established literature – led by post-Keynesians and institutionalists – holds that the best way to determine how firms work is to…wait for it...ask firms how they work. This a clearly sensible proposition that is contested in economics for some reason, but we’ll ignore the controversy here and just explore the theory that springs from this approach.
2020
Level: beginner
The ‘How Firms Work’ Approach to How Firms Work
One method of economic modelling that has become increasingly popular in academia, government and the private sector is Agent Based Models, or ABM. These simulate the actions and interactions of thousands or even millions of people to try to understand the economy – for this reason ABM was once described to me as being “like Sim City without the graphics”. One advantage of ABM is that it is flexible, since you can choose how many agents there are (an agent just means some kind of 'economic decision maker' like a firm, consumer, worker or government); how they behave (do they use complicated or simple rules to make decisions?); as well as the environment they act in, then just run the simulation and see what happens as they interact over time.
2020
Level: beginner
Agents, agents everywhere
The productive work of widely distributed academic research has contributed substantially, over the postwar period, to important advances in our understanding. It has also offered a clearer recognition of many unresolved problems. Never theless, the progress achieved over the last decades, ex hibited by the systematic application of "theory" to actual issues and observable problems, could not overcome a per vasive sense of dissatisfaction.
2012
Level: advanced
Economics Social Institutions
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
How can we establish new institutions and practices in order to use fare-free public transport as a beacon for sustainable mobility and a low-carbon lifestyle? The author of this essay elaborates on how practice theory and institutional economics can help to answer this question.
2018
Level: advanced
Towards a practice of fare-free sustainability
It is perhaps fitting that the seriousness of the coronavirus threat hit most of the Western world around the Ides of March, the traditional day of reckoning of outstanding debts in Ancient Rome. After all, problems and imbalances have accumulated in the Western capitalist system over four decades, ostensibly since it took the neoliberal road out of the 1970s crisis and kept going along it, heedless of the crises and problems it led to.
2020
Level: beginner
The Unexpected Reckoning: Coronavirus and Capitalism
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.
2020
Level: beginner
Qualitative Methods in Economics: "You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching"
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
Health Economics traditionally involves two distinct strands. One focuses on the application of core  neoclassical economic theories of the firm, the consumer and the market to health-seeking behaviour  and other health issues. It suggests a role for government intervention only in the case of specific  market failures (for example externalities, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and public goods)  that distort market outcomes. The second strand is evaluation techniques, used to assess the cost effectiveness of competing health interventions.
2022
Level: beginner
Health 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.
The term "de-risking" can be seen as one element of a strategy aimed at discursively reframing the trade policy confrontation with China. This confrontation has mainly been driven by the US in recent years and received initially cautious, but later growing support from the EU.
2023
Level: beginner
De-risking, de-coupling, de-globalization?
Overview page for the collection of nobel laureateas on Exploring Economics
2020
Level: beginner
Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences - A critical overview
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
Exploring Economics, an open-access e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
2019
Level: advanced
Marx's approach to economics: a claim for subjective praxis
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
"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
This workshop offers an introduction to Degrowth and Ecological Economics. It starts by surveying the socio-ecological crisis and its pseudo-solutions, and then moves to Ecological Macroeconomics as a relatively recent field of scholarship within Ecological Economics.
2021
Level: beginner
Ecological Economics and Degrowth
After completing the module, participants should be able to understand the economic consequences of gender inequality. They should be able to explain the contradictions between capital and care, analyze the labor market with a gender perspective and develop the ability to describe phenomena such as public policies taking into account "gender" as a category of analysis.
2021
Level: beginner
Feminist Economics
This course is intended to present some of the main ideas underlying the micro aspects of gender economics. The courses will tackle issues as fertility, marriage, women labor force participation, wage gap, gender inequality, violence against women and women empowerment within her household and within the society where she lives.
Level: advanced
Gender and Microeconomics
In this class we will explore how globalization shapes and is shaped by gender norms with a particular focus on questions related to ‘work,’ mobility and well-being.
2015
Level: beginner
Gender and Globalization

Donate

This project is brought to you by the Network for Pluralist Economics (Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik e.V.).  It is committed to diversity and independence and is dependent on donations from people like you. Regular or one-off donations would be greatly appreciated.

 

Donate