RETHINK
ECONOMICS
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770 results

This paper posts a heretical question: Is economics a science after all? The answer to this question impinges on the methodology, hypotheses and results of economic research.
Level: advanced
Is economics a science?
New challenges require new approaches. Is economics part of the problem or part of the solution? Probably both.
2021
Level: beginner
Diversifying Economics - an Introduction
The goal of this course is to explore these differences in economic outcomes observed among women and men, measured by such things as earnings, income, hours of work, poverty, and the allocation of resources within the household. It will evaluate women’s perspectives and experiences in the United States and around the world, emphasizing feminist economics.
Level: beginner
Economics of Gender
This course is an introduction to Development Economics and is concerned with how economists have sought to explain how the process of economic growth occurs, and how – or whether – that delivers improved well-being of people.
2015
Level: advanced
Development Economics
The world of economics is changing. Years of turmoil in the global economy mean that nothing will ever be quite the same again. This is the starting point and theme of this radically revised Economist books classic.
2015
Level: advanced
The Economist: Economics 4th edition
Mainstream textbooks present economics as an objective science free from value judgements; that settles disputes by testing hypotheses; that applies a pre-determined body of principles; and contains policy prescriptions supported by a consensus of professional opinion.
2012
Level: beginner
The economics anti-textbook
This brief views the environment through diverse lenses – those of standard economics, institutional economics, political science, environmental science and ecology.
2013
Level: advanced
The Environment in Economics and Development
In this post, Rethinking Economics sets out what it means to decolonise economics education and how we can do that. The article first breaks decolonising down into a "mind-set" and a "process", then applies this process to economics education. It finishes with a reading list and some suggested actions to get you started decolonising economics today.
2019
Level: beginner
Let's Decolonise Economics Education!
The Handbook on the Economics of Conflict conveys how economics can contribute to the understanding of conflict in its various dimensions embracing world wars, regional conflicts, terrorism and the role of peacekeeping in conflict prevention. The economics of conflict is a relatively new branch of the discipline of economics.
2011
Level: advanced
Handbook on the Economics of Conflict
This fresh and unique textbook provides students and general readers with an introduction to economics from a new and much needed perspective, characterised by its uniquely pluralist, sustainable, progressive and global approach. Unlike traditional textbooks, Introducing a New Economics contains the key concepts of pluralism, sustainability and justice. It provides students with the central questions covered by economics including resources, work, employment, poverty, inequality, power, capital, markets, money, debt and value.
2015
Level: beginner
Introducing a New Economics
With the onset of an economic crisis that has been universally acknowledged since the end of March, two main questions arise: To what extent is the corona pandemic the starting point (or even the cause) of this crisis? And secondly: can the aid programmes that have been adopted prevent a deep and prolonged recession?
2020
Level: beginner
Economic crisis only because of the Corona pandemic?
Complexity economics and institutional economics are complementary approaches to studying the economy. They can pool their methods and foundational theories to explain the mechanisms that underlie economies.
2017
Level: beginner
The complimentary relationship between institutional and complexity economics
This study offers a unique evolutionary economics perspective on energy and innovation policies in the wider context of the transition to sustainable development. The authors include: - an analysis of the environmental policy implications of evolutionary economics - a critical examination of current Dutch environmental and innovation policies and policy documents - systematic evaluation of three specific energy technologies, namely fuel cells, nuclear fusion and photovoltaic cells, within the evolutionary-economic framework.
2007
Level: advanced
Evolutionary Economics and Environmental Policy
This brief but comprehensive account of the Post Keynesian approach to economic theory and policy is ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in economics, public policy and other social sciences. Clear, non-technical and with a strong policy focus, it will also appeal to all of those who are dissatisfied with mainstream economics and wish to explore the alternatives.
2015
Level: advanced
Advanced Introduction to Post Keynesian Economics
The Learning Economy and the Economics of Hope' brings together the most important contributions by an expert on policies, management and economics of innovation and knowledge. It offers original insights in processes of innovation and learning and it draws implications for economic theory and public policy. It introduces the reader to important concepts such as innovation systems and the learning economy.
2016
Level: advanced
The Learning Economy and the Economics of Hope
Post-Keynesian and heterodox economics challenge the mainstream economics theories that dominate the teaching at universities and government economic policies. And it was these latter theories that helped to cause the great depression the United States and the rest of the world is in.
2012
Level: advanced
In Defense of Post-Keynesian and Heterodox Economics
The book criticizes neoclassical climate economics in the tradition of William Nordhaus. It explains why this kind of thinking is misleading and why neoclassical climate economics asks the wrong questions.
2020
Level: advanced
Climate Economics
This is an important contribution that defends the importance of heterodox economics. It discusses what constitutes heterodox economics as an intellectual, social, and political project, with a range of contributions from leading heterodox thinkers coming from a diversity of theoretical vantage points.
2022
Level: beginner
Heterodox Economics
Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) and Feminist Economics make a conjoint statement: The way we see the economic system has nothing to do with human beings nor those who have been surviving outside the market.
2015
Level: beginner
Decolonial Feminist Economics: A Necessary View for Strengthening Social and Popular Economy
Economics has long been the domain of the ivory tower, where specialized language and opaque theorems make it inaccessible to most people. That’s a problem.
2019
Level: beginner
Economics for People
This article is the first of a series that offers a new paradigm for economics, the “multilevel paradigm,” using generalized Darwinism as its theoretical framework. Generalized Darwinism refers to all processes that combine the ingredients of variation, selection, and replication – not just genetic evolution – making it relevant to the cultural evolution of economic systems that are embedded in political, social, and environmental systems.
2024
Level: advanced
Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Economics I: The Multilevel Paradigm
Though apparently siblings from the same family, New Keynesianism and Post-Keynesianism are completely different schools of economic thought. As to why and in what regard exactly, that is what this book is all about. While the former is the official label of the current mainstream in economic research and teaching (rather than neoclassic economics, which would be more apt a term), the latter tries to preserve the original thinking of John Maynard Keynes, but also additional ideas and concepts of all those building on his work.
2009
Level: beginner
Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics
'Impressive... provides a very good compendium of what are usually classified as "heterodox" development economics... an excellent volume.' Journal of International Development This important new collection tackles the failure of neoliberal reform to generate longterm growth and reduce poverty in many developing and transition economies.
2003
Level: advanced
Rethinking Development Economics
Reflecting his own concerns about the contribution economics could make to the betterment of society, Eli Ginzberg published this study of Smith's humanitarian views on commerce, industrialism, and labor. Written for his doctoral degree at Columbia University, and originally published as The House of Adam Smith, the book is divided into two parts.
2002
Level: advanced
Adam Smith and the Founding of Market Economics
This volume explores the relationship between law and economics principles and the promotion of social justice. By social justice, we mean a vision of society that embraces more than traditional economic efficiency. Such a vision might include, for example, a reduction of subordination and discrimination based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or class.
2009
Level: advanced
Law and Economics

In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land.

The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism—the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe.

2012
Level: beginner
Zombie Economics
Mainstream economics almost completely ignores the role power plays in determining economic outcomes, which means it can only provide partial explanations of the distribution of wealth and income, and of the problems associated with inequality and poverty.
2016
Level: advanced
Power and Neoclassical Economics
In this book, distinguished economist Edith Kuiper shows us that the history of economic thought is just that, a his-story, by telling the herstory of economic thought from the perspective of women economic writers and economists. Although some of these women were well known in their time, they were excluded from most of academic economics, and, over the past centuries, their work has been neglected, forgotten, and thus become invisible.
2022
Level: beginner
A Herstory of Economics
Covering Institutionalist, Post-Keynesian, Marxist, and Feminist perspectives, Heterodox Economics of Military Spending provides a comprehensive analysis of the effect of military expenditures on the economy.The impact of military spending on economic growth has always been a crucial issue for policymakers and academics. There exists an extensive body of literature on how military spending affects macroeconomic variables, including but not limited to economic growth, profit rates, income inequality, gender inequality, and employment.
2025
Level: advanced
Heterodox Economics of Military Spending
How countries achieve long-term GDP growth is up there with the most important topics in economics. As Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas put it “the consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.” Ricardo Hausmann et al take a refreshing approach to this question in their Atlas of Economic Complexity. They argue a country’s growth depends on the complexity of its economy: it must have a diverse economy which produces a wide variety of products, including ones that cannot be produced much elsewhere. The Atlas goes into detail on exactly what complexity means, how it fits the data, and what this implies for development. Below I will offer a summary of their arguments, including some cool data visualisations.
2020
Level: beginner
GDP Growth: It’s Complicated
In the pluralist showcase series by Rethinking Economics, Cahal Moran explores non-mainstream ideas in economics and how they are useful for explaining, understanding and predicting things in economics.
2020
Level: beginner
Pluralist Showcase
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

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