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763 results
How do people make decisions? There is a class of models in psychology which seek to answer this question but have received scant attention in economics despite some clear empirical successes. In a previous post I discussed one of these, Decision by Sampling, and this post will look at another: the so-called Fast and Frugal heuristics pioneered by the German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. Here the individual seeks out sufficient information to make a reasonable decision. They are ‘fast’ because they do not require massive computational effort to make a decision so can be done in seconds, and they are ‘frugal’ because they use as little information as possible to make the decision effectively.
Bounded Rationality: the Case of ‘Fast and Frugal’ Heuristics
Michael Kalecki famously remarked “I have found out what economics is; it is the science of confusing stocks with flows”. Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) models were developed precisely to address this kind of confusion. The basic intuition of SFC models is that the economy is built up as a set of intersecting balance sheets, where transactions between entities are called flows and the value of the assets/liabilities they hold are called stocks. Wages are a flow; bank deposits are a stock, and confusing the two directly is a category error. In this edition of the pluralist showcase I will first describe the logic of SFC models – which is worth exploring in depth – before discussing empirical calibration and applications of the models. Warning that there is a little more maths in this post than usual (i.e. some), but you should be able to skip those parts and still easily get the picture.
Stock Flow Consistent Macroeconomics
An examination of women's changing economic roles. Includes an analysis of labour force participation, wage inequality, gender differences in education, intra-household distribution of resources, economics of reproduction, and how technological change affects women.
Women and the Economy
The 2007-2008 financial crisis exposed the shortcomings of mainstream economic theory with economists unprepared to deal with it. In the face of this, a major rethinking of economics seems necessary and in presenting alternative approaches to economic theory, this book contributes to the rebuilding of the discipline.
Alternative Approaches to Economic Theory
The Centre for Economy Studies works on improving and modernising economics education to ensure that students will be better prepared for their future careers and the societal challenges we face today and in the coming decades. The Essential Lectures are teaching packs designed for 90-minute sessions that can be added to existing courses.
Economy Studies Essential Lectures
A systematic comparison of the three major economic theories, showing how they differ and why these differences matter in shaping economic theory and practice.
Contending Economic Theories offers a unique comparative treatment of the three main theories in economics as it is taught today: neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian. Each is developed and discussed in its own chapter, yet also differentiated from and compared to the other two theories.
Contending Economic Theories
One of the pluralist theories which has gained prominence following the 2008 financial crisis is Hyman Minsky and his Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH). Minsky was unique in viewing balance sheets and financial flows as the primary components of capitalist economies, and his focus on the financial system meant he was well-equipped for foresee a crisis much like 2008. Although he died long before 2008 his framework anticipated many of the processes which led to the crash, particularly increased risk-taking and financial innovation which would outstrip the abilities of regulators and central banks to manage the system.
Minsky’s Moments
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.
Agents, agents everywhere
From the editor and magazine that started and named the Occupy Wall Street movement Meme Wars The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics is an articulation of what could be the next steps in rethinking and remaking our world that challenges and debunks many of the assumptions of neoclassical economics and …
Meme Wars
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.
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.
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.
Introducing a New Economics
Economics: A New Introduction provides a fresh introduction to real economics. Highlighting the complex and changing nature of economic activity, this wide-ranging text employs a pragmatic mix of old and new methods to examine the role of values and theoretical beliefs in economic life and in economists understanding of it.
Economics
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.
The complimentary relationship between institutional and complexity 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.
The Learning Economy and the Economics of Hope
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.
Heterodox Economics
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.
In Defense of Post-Keynesian and Heterodox Economics
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.
Advanced Introduction to Post Keynesian 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.
Climate 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.
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.
Economics for People
Exploring Economics Dossier on the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the structural crisis of globalization. COVID-19 encounters a structural crisis of globalization and the economic system that drives it, with an uncertain outcome. We asked economists worldwide to share with us their analysis of current events, long-term perspectives and political responses. The dossier will be continuously expanded.
The Next Great Recession? Exploring Economics Dossier
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.
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.
Rethinking Development 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.
Law and 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.
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.
Heterodox Economics of Military Spending
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.
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.
Power and Neoclassical 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.
Adam Smith and the Founding of Market Economics
Is capitalism the context where gender inequalities are reproduced, or is capitalism something more than a context? What are the differences among women and how can we place them theoretically and politically. Reproductive work, is it a women’s work? These questions are disscused in a three-session workshop.
Feminist Economics
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
Get ready to change the way you think about economics.
Get ready to change the way you think about economics.
Nobel laureate Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans--predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth--and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.
Misbehaving
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