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The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the deep structural rifts in modern capitalist economies. It has exposed and exacerbated the long-lasting systemic inequalities in income, wealth, healthcare, housing, and other aspects of economic success across a variety of dimensions including class, gender, race, regions, and nations. This workshop explores the causes of economic inequality in contemporary capitalist economies and its consequences for the economy and society in the post-pandemic reality, as well as what steps can be taken to alleviate economic inequality in the future. Drawing from a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary insights, the workshop encourages you to reflect on your personal experiences of inequality and aims to challenge the way in which the issue is typically approached in economics.
Inequality in the Post-pandemic Era
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
The core idea of ecological economics is that human economic activity is bound by absolute limits. Interactions between the economy, society and the environment are analysed, while always keeping in mind the goal of a transition towards sustainability.
Ecological Economics
This article, looks at the complex interaction between an urban economy and the vegetation within that urban area. In summary, numerous studies have found a positive link between increased vegetation and social as well as personal health. It makes a case for increasing urban vegetation as a way to benefit local economies.
Urban Arbonomics | The Complex Nature of Urban Vegetation
Some economic events are so major and unsettling that they “change everything.” Such is the case with the financial crisis that started in the summer of 2007 and is still a drag on the world economy. Yet enough time has now elapsed for economists to consider questions that run deeper than the usual focus on the immediate causes and consequences of the crisis.
Rethinking the Financial Crisis
How did Britain's economy become a bastion of inequality? In this landmark book, the author of The New Enclosure provides a forensic examination and sweeping critique of early-twenty-first-century capitalism. Brett Christophers styles this as 'rentier capitalism', in which ownership of key types of scarce assets--such as land, intellectual property, natural resources, or digital platforms--is all-important and dominated by a few unfathomably wealthy companies and individuals: rentiers.
Rentier Capitalism
This guide contains a collection of recommended YouTube channels and YouTube videos in the fields of economics, business and economic policy.
EconTube: The ultimate guide to pluralist economics channels on YouTube
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.
Explaining Technical Change
The authors show how consumers, business, the Federal Reserve, and government take into account what's going on around them to make critical decisions like buying new products, building new factories, changing interest rates, or setting budget goals. The book provides a clear roadmap to understanding the whole story behind the global economy.
Big Picture Economics
Here we look at the effect of the 2008 Climate Change Act passed in Parliament in the United Kingdom as an effort to curb emissions in all sectors. The Act aside from setting goals to become a low-carbon economy sets up an independent committee on Climate Change to ensure the implementation of policies to comply with the ultimate goal of 80% reduction in total emissions in 2050. I make use of the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to create a comparative case study in which the creation of a synthetic UK serves as a counterfactual where the treatment never occurred (Cunningham, 2018).
Synthetic Control Method for Estimating the Effect of the Climate Change Act of 2008 in Britain
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
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.
The Economist: Economics 4th edition
Taking as its starting point the interdependence of the economy and the natural environment, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to the emerging field of ecological economics.
Ecological Economics
Economics should schematically explain the key elements and main strands of this core part of social life: the actual workings of our economies. This book argues that orthodox, modern neoclassical economics does not fulfil this core task. Standard economics models do not address the real functioning of our market economies, but rather an imagined economy.
Economics and the Real World
This talk is an exploration of a feminist centred world, where women's labour, women's energy, women's contributions to the economy are not a side event but the main event.
Feminist economics is everything. The revolution is now!
Debunking Economics - Revised and Expanded Edition exposes what many non-economists may have suspected and a minority of economists have long known: that economic theory is not only unpalatable, but also plain wrong. When the original Debunking Economics was published back in 2001, the market economy seemed invincible, and conventional "neoclassical" economic theory basked in the limelight.
Debunking Economics - Revised and Expanded Edition
This book provides a new methodological approach to money and macroeconomics. Realizing that the abstract equilibrium models lacked descriptions of fundamental issues of a modern monetary economy, the focus of this book lies on the (stylized) balance sheets of the main actors. Money, after all, is born on the balance sheets of the central bank or commercial bank.
Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics
Most mainstream neoclassical economists completely failed to anticipate the crisis which broke in 2007 and 2008. There is however a long tradition of economic analysis which emphasises how growth in a capitalist economy leads to an accumulation of tensions and results in periodic crises. This paper first reviews the work of Karl Marx who was one of the first writers to incorporate an analysis of periodic crisis in his analysis of capitalist accumulation. The paper then considers the approach of various subsequent Marxian writers, most of whom locate periodic cyclical crises within the framework of longer-term phases of capitalist development, the most recent of which is generally seen as having begun in the 1980s. The paper also looks at the analyses of Thorstein Veblen and Wesley Claire Mitchell, two US institutionalist economists who stressed the role of finance and its contribution to generating periodic crises, and the Italian Circuitist writers who stress the problematic challenge of ensuring that bank advances to productive enterprises can successfully be repaid.
Finance and Crisis: Marxian, Institutionalist and Circuitist approaches
Global Value Chains (GVCs) started to play an increasing and key role in the global economy from the 1990s on. The market mechanism in GVCs supports industrialisation in the Global South and under certain conditions product and process upgrading. But GVCs do not lead to the catching-up of countries in the sense of them approaching real GDP per capita levels comparable with developed countries. These arguments are supported by a critical interpretation of the traditional trade theory, the New Trade Theory and specific approaches to explain GVCs, especially different governance structures and power relationships. Several case studies support these arguments. For catching-up, countries need comprehensive horizontal and vertical industrial policy and policies for social coherence. The small number of countries which managed to catch up did this in different variations.
Global Value Chains in economic development
After completing the module, participants should have gained a basic understanding of the economic school of thought referred to as "Modern Monetary Theory" and should be able to analyze the monetary processes at play in the economy and evaluate fiscal and monetary policy decisions from an MMT-perspective.
Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory
The U.S. economy today is confronted with the prospect of extended stagnation. This book explores why. Thomas I. Palley argues that the Great Recession and destruction of shared prosperity is due to flawed economic policy over the past thirty years.
From Financial Crisis to Stagnation
Big challenges lie ahead for our society: increased automation of work, and the threat of catastrophic climate change. But so, too, are the huge possibilities presented by new technology and better ways of organising our economy in the wake of neoliberalism's failure.
Economics for the Many
This article by Rüdiger Bachmann et.al. discusses the economic effects of a potential cut-off of the German economy from Russian energy imports.
What if? The Economic Effects for Germany of a Stop of Energy Imports from Russia
Mainstream economic theory has been increasingly questioned following the recent global financial crisis. Marc Lavoie shows how post-Keynesian theory can function as a coherent substitute by focusing on realistic assumptions and integrating the financial and real sides of the economy.
Post-Keynesian 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
This course introduces students to the relevance of gender relations in economics as a discipline and in economic processes and outcomes. The course covers three main components of gender in economics and the economy: (1) the gendered nature of the construction and reproduction of economic theory and thought; (2) the relevance and role of gender in economic decision-making; and (3) differences in economic outcomes based on gender. We will touch on the relevance of gender and gender relations in at least each of the following topics: economic theory; the history of economic thought; human capital accumulation; labor market discrimination; macroeconomic policy, including gender budgeting; household economics; basic econometrics; economic history; and economic crises.
Feminist Economics
This course introduces students to the relevance of gender relations in economics as a discipline and in economic processes and outcomes. The course covers three main components of gender in economics and the economy: (1) the gendered nature of the construction and reproduction of economic theory and thought; (2) the relevance and role of gender in economic decision-making; and (3) differences in economic outcomes based on gender. We wil touch on the relevance of gender and gender relations in at least each of the following topics: economic theory; the history of economic thought; human capital accumulation; labor market discrimination; macroeconomic policy, including gender budgeting; household economics; basic econometrics; and economic crises.
Gender Relations and Economics
The core of Georgism is a policy known as the Land Value Tax (LVT), a policy which Georgists claim will solve many of society and the economy’s ills. Georgism is an interesting school of thought because it has the twin properties that (1) despite a cult following, few people in either mainstream or (non-Georgist) heterodox economics pay it much heed; (2) despite not paying it much heed, both mainstream and heterodox economists largely tend to agree with Georgists. I will focus on the potential benefits Georgists argue an LVT will bring and see if they are borne out empirically. But I will begin by giving a nod to the compelling theoretical and ethical dimensions of George’s analysis, which are impossible to ignore.
It’s the Land, Stupid!
Draw me the economy gives a short introduction in the measurement of the Gross Domestic Product and Purchasing Power Parity and comments on what needs to be taken into consideration when comparing countries and mentions some shortcomings of GDP as criterion of wealth.
What is gross domestic product?
In this podcast, Amy Goodman and Juan González explore together with Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, inequality and the state of the U.S. economy. Topics they touch upon are capitalism, taxation, powerlessness of citizens and Joseph Stiglitz's book entitled People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.
Capitalism Hasn’t Been Working for Most People for the Last 40 Years - Podcast with Joseph Stiglitz
Lean Logic is the late David Fleming’s masterpiece, the product of more than thirty years’ work and a testament to the creative brilliance of one of Britain’s most important intellectuals. A dictionary unlike any other, it leads readers through Fleming’s stimulating exploration of fields as diverse as culture, history, science, art, logic, ethics, myth, economics, and anthropology, being made up of four hundred and four engaging essay-entries covering topics such as Boredom, Community, Debt, Growth, Harmless Lunatics, Land, Lean Thinking, Nanotechnology, Play, Religion, Spirit, Trust, and Utopia. The threads running through every entry are Fleming’s deft and original analysis of how our present market-based economy is destroying the very foundations—ecological, economic, and cultural— on which it depends, and his core focus: a compelling, grounded vision for a cohesive society that might weather the consequences
Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It
An honest discussion of free trade and how nations can sensibly chart a path forward in today’s global economy.
Straight Talk on Trade
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