RETHINK
ECONOMICS
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ECONOMICS
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953 results

2021
Level: beginner
Colonialism persists in many African countries due to the continuation of imperial monetary policy. This is the little-known account of the CFA Franc and economic imperialism.
2023
Level: beginner
Is inflation just a number game or does it hold deeper societal implications? Join Isabella Weber (@UMass.Amherst) as she challenges traditional economic stances on inflation and delves into the social dimensions of pricing. Discover how context shapes our reactions to price hikes and why understanding this can be a game-changer.
2020
Level: advanced
The world is coping with a global disaster, as the new Coronavirus takes a toll on many lost lives and a severe impact on economic activity. To provide a long-run perspective, this column documents the international response to a variety of disasters since 1790. Based on a new comprehensive database on loans extended by governments and central banks, official (sovereign-to-sovereign) international lending is much larger than generally known. Official lending spikes in times of global turmoil, such as wars, financial crises or natural disasters. Indeed, in these periods, official capital flows have repeatedly surpassed total private capital flows in the past two centuries. Wars, in particular, were accompanied by large surges in the volume of official cross-border lending.
2019
Level: beginner
What data is used in the economic models of the IPCC? How problematic is it, that tipping points are often ignored? A very interesting presentation by Steve Keen during the OECD Conference "Averting Systemic Collapse".
Level: advanced
"Bank Underground" is the staff blog of the Bank of England, founded to publish the views and insights of the people working for one of the world's oldest central banks. The blog covers a wide range of macroeconomic topics, mostly linked to the effects of monetary policy, of course, but not all the time. It provides timely, relevant analysis of contemporary challenges in economic policy and is thus often a perfect primer.
2009
Level: beginner
This course attempts to explain the role and the importance of the financial system in the global economy. Rather than separating off the financial world from the rest of the economy, financial equilibrium is studied as an extension of economic equilibrium. The course also gives a picture of the kind of thinking and analysis done by hedge funds.
2007
Level: advanced
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.
2012
Level: beginner

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.

2008
Level: advanced
Foreign exploitation of economic crises in the developing world has been a central claim of neoliberal critics. This important and recurring international theme is the subject of closer scrutiny in this new collection, where contributors offer competing interpretations of the interaction between international and domestic forces after crises.
2014
Level: beginner
Dirk Bezemer exemplary presents pattern of the U.S. economy before the 2007 economic crisis and explains how due to those pattern the crisis could have been, unless not precisely predicted, yet anticipated.
2014
Level: beginner
What causes a recession? Told by economic historian John S. Gordon and visualized by a dancing performance, this short film focuses on emotions that are linked to recessions and recovery: fear and confidence.
2015
Level: beginner
What does GDP measure? How was it constructed and how did it become so important? What are alternatives? A historical introduction into the critique of GDP as measure of economic welfare.
Level: beginner
The guides provide links to texts by Marx and Engels and present possible questions to discuss in study groups. The texts include Capial Volumes I – III, Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts or “Value, Price and Profit”.
2022
Level: advanced
Max Krahé explains the role of economic planning for a green transition.
2021
Level: beginner
A pithy, stimulating debate between three great economists on the heterogeneous character of economic thought
2020
Level: advanced
Post-Colonialisms Today researchers Kareem Megahed and Omar Ghannam explain how early post-independence Egypt sought economic independence via industrialization.
2022
Level: beginner
In this interview Ilya Matveev discusses the social, political, economic, and ideological foundations of the Russian regime, to provide additional context about Russia’s geopolitical goals.
Level: beginner
Why are income inequalities so large and why do they continue to increase in so many countries? What role can minimum wages play in reducing social and economic inequalities? What is a good system of wage bargaining? What constitutes a fair wage?
1990
Level: advanced
This is a revolutionary and powerfully argued feminist analysis of modern economics, revealing how woman's housework, caring of the young, sick and the old is automatically excluded from value in economic theory. An example of this pervasive and powerful process is the United Nations System of National Accounts which is used for wars and determining the balance of payments and loan requirements.
2003
Level: advanced
Mainstream economics was founded on many strong assumptions. Institutions and politics were treated as irrelevant, government as exogenous, social norms as epiphenomena. As an initial gambit this was fine. But as the horizons of economic inquiry have broadened, these assumptions have becomehindrances rather than aids.
2007
Level: advanced
This book is a welcome consolidation and extension of the recent expanding debates on happiness and economics. Happiness and economics, as a new field for research, is now of pivotal interest particularly to welfare economists and psychologists. This Handbook provides an unprecedented forum for discussion of the economic issues relating to happiness.
1984
Level: advanced
Designed to give second-year undergraduates an intuitive understanding of basic mathematical techniques, and when and why they are applicable. Building on the traditional framework of calculus, the notion of a concave function is used to link the new algebraic methods with the more familiar graphical approachoand to introduce the modern use of duality in economic analysis.
2022
Level: beginner
In this searing and insightful critique, Adrienne Buller examines the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to climate and environmental breakdown, and asks: are the 'solutions' being proposed really solutions? Tracing the intricate connections between financial power, economic injustice and ecological crisis, she exposes the myopic economism and market-centric thinking presently undermining a future where all life can flourish.
2022
Level: beginner
"This eleven-week course offers a pluralist introduction to political economy and economics. We will examine nine (9) competing schools of thought, each of which offer an original and distinctive illumination of economic and social reality. The course offers a level of learning that would at least match that which is offered by a University. However, you do not need to be connected to a university or to have studied political economy or economics previously to enrol in this particular subject."
1991
Level: advanced
Traditionally, economists have attributed consistency and rational calculation to the action of ‘economic man’. In a powerful challenge to orthodox thinking, Geoffrey Hodgson maintains that social institutions play a central and essential role in molding preferences and guiding action: institutions are regarded as enabling action rather than merely providing constraints.
2011
Level: beginner
Capitalism cannot fulfil the promises of the French revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Why? Richard Wollf elaborates on Marx's analysis of the distribution and organisation of surplus in society and his conclusion that there is something inherently wrong in capitalist class structure that still causes economic crisis in our modern times. Change requires changing the organisation of the production. This goes far beyond a discussion of 'more-state' vs. 'less-state'.
2009
Level: beginner
In this interview, Daron Acemoğlu provides a definition of institutions as rules that govern how individuals interact and speaks about social, political and economic institutions. He furthermore presents his view on bad or good institutions and the importance of the latter. The video is part of a larger interview, where he elaborates his perspective on differing prosperities of states and the relation between growth and democracy.
2012
Level: beginner
This short video by the Khan Academy presents a classic introduction to economic teaching. Starting with the quote by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" on the invisible hand, it shows how economics deals with the question of the allocation of scarce resources and shortly presents different questions addressed by microeconomics and macroeconomics. It further makes reference to questions of simplification in mathematical models.
2010
Level: beginner
David Harvey illustrates the five most common narratives on why the financial and economic crisis took place – from human frailty to policy failure.
2015
Level: beginner
How do we get our dinner? And who cooked Adam Smith's dinner? Starting with Smith's answer on the origin of a dinner, Katrine Marçal problematizes and illustrates how unpaid labour was and is still being ignored by economic theory and how the homo economics represents characteristics perceived as male.
2011
Level: beginner
Based on a critique on econometric and DSGE models (in particular in the context of the financial crisis), Doyne Farmer presents his current research programme that aims at building an agent-based model of the financial and economic crisis. It models heterogeneous agents and from there simulates the economy, firstly for the housing market. The interview gives a short insight in the research programme.
2014
Level: beginner
In this short talk „On Economics“ Ha-Joon Chang, author of the book „Economics: The User's Guide“, gives a critical wrap-up on the economic discipline – on what is perceived as economics, what are dominant paradigms, the role of numbers and economics in public life. He further elaborates on the importance of heterodox schools of thought.

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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.

 

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