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239 results
In this essay, the author takes a critical perspective on the pursuit of growth as the solution for providing for environmental sustainability and economic stability in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Drawing from the framework of dependency theory and presenting brief insights into European core-periphery relations the author then argues for the implementation of an alternative strategy to development that is built around the concept of self-reliance.
Dependency in Central and Eastern Europe - Self-reliance and the need to move beyond economic growth
Approaching the law of nature that determines all forms of economy. The bulk of economic theory addresses the economic process by setting out on a catalogue of aspects, seeking the laws in the aspects and hoping to get together a reliable view of the whole.
Economic theory, methodology, and secure foundations
In this essay the authors take a look at how welfare could be provided in a degrowth society.
Bidding farewell to growth: How to provide welfare in a degrowth society
Whether a black swan or a scapegoat, Covid-19 is an extraordinary event. Declared by the WHO as a pandemic, Covid-19 has given birth to the concept of the economic “sudden stop.” We need extraordinary measures to contain it.
Triggering a Global Financial Crisis: Covid-19 as the Last Straw
The Great Recession 2.0 is unfolding before our very eyes. It is still in its early phase. But dynamics have been set in motion that are not easily stopped, or even slowed. If the virus effect were resolved by early summer—as some politicians wishfully believe—the economic dynamics set in motion would still continue. The US and global economies have been seriously ‘wounded’ and will not recover easily or soon. Those who believe it will be a ‘V-shape’ recovery are deluding themselves. Economists among them should know better but are among the most confused. They only need to look at historical parallels to convince themselves otherwise.
Origins & Emergence of the 2020 Great Recession in the US Economy
Environmental catastrophe looms large over politics: from the young person’s climate march to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, increasing amounts of political space are devoted to the issue. Central to this debate is the question of whether economic growth inevitably leads to environmental issues such as depleted finite resources and increased waste, disruption of natural cycles and ecosystems, and of course climate change. Growth is the focal point of the de-growth and zero-growth movements who charge that despite efficiency gains, increased GDP always results in increased use of energy and emissions. On the other side of the debate, advocates of continued growth (largely mainstream economists) believe that technological progress and policies can ‘decouple’ growth from emissions.
To Grow or Not to Grow?
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.
GDP Growth: It’s Complicated
The mandate of central banks has seemed clear for decades : keep inflation low. Nevertheless borders between monetary, financial and economic policy have been blurry even before the pandemic.. Faced with the challenges of the climate crisis, slow growth, unemployment and inequality, does the financial and monetary system need a new constitutional purpose.
Beyond Price Stability
The article pursues the two related questions of how economists pretend to know and why they want to know at all. It is argued that both the economic form of knowledge and the motivation of knowing have undergone a fundamental change during the course of the 20th century. The knowledge of important contemporary economic textbooks has little in common with an objective, decidedly scientifically motivated knowledge. Rather, their contents and forms follow a productive end, aiming at the subjectivity of their readers.
An essay on the putative knowledge of textbook economics
Introduction Economics is by necessity a multi paradigmatic science Several theoretical structures exist side by side and each theory can never be more than a partial theory Rothschild 1999 Likening scientific work to the self coordinating invisible hand of the market Michael Polanyi cautioned strongly against centralized attempts to steer …
Making Many Maps: Why We Need an Interested Pluralism in Economics and How to Get There
Der Klimawandel dürfte die globalen Migrationsbewegungen in den kommenden Jahren deutlich verstärken – was die Politik gleich an mehreren Fronten unter Handlungsdruck setzt.
Ob Klima-Migration ein Sicherheitsrisiko oder eine Chance darstellt, liegt in den Händen der Politik
Institutional economics focuses on the role of social institutions in terms of laws or contracts, but also those of social norms and patterns of human behaviour that are connected to the social organisation of production, distribution and consumption in the economy.
Institutionalist Economics
This article outlines the fundamental challenges of democratically planned economies and categorises proposed models into six groups, each of which approaches planning and coordination at different levels of authority and between myriad economic units in a particular way, taking into account efficiency as well as democratic principles and environmental and social sustainability. Through a classification system based on decision-making authority and mediation mechanisms, the article provides a framework for understanding and comparing these models. By examining their different approaches, it offers insights into the complexities and potential paths of democratically planned economies in the 21st century.
Rethinking Democratic Economic Planning: An Overview
This module examines current socio-political issues through the lens of pluralism, that is pluralism of theory, pluralism of method and interdisciplinary pluralism
Pluralist Economic Analysis
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a school of monetary and macroeconomic thought that focuses on the analysis of the monetary and credit system, and in particular on the question of credit creation by the state.
Modern Monetary Theory
The global economic and political order is undergoing rapid and profound transformation. We are witnessing a far-reaching "organic" crisis of the global economic world order, which may have started with the financial crisis of 2007/2008 but now enters a new, much more dynamic phase.
Towards a New Economics of Collapse and Construction
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
Complexity economics focuses on interactions and interdependencies between individuals and structures in economic systems. Those are systems of organised complexity. High importance is given to the analysis of networks.
Complexity Economics
Florian Kern replies to Zoltan Pozsar's analysis about the effects of the war in Ukraine on the global financial order and refutes the latter's prognosis of the demise of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency
Why the war in Ukraine does not jeopardise the dollar's reserve currency status
Drawing on Gramsci s Marxist Political Economy Mike Davis situates the War in Ukraine within the general condition of a crisis of capitalist hegemony The key argument is that the pathological and violent situation that we are finding ourselves in today is an expression of the inability of both global …
Thanatos Triumphant
The ecological crisis challenges the ways to understand the links between the environment, society, and the economy. To train students to be able to think critically about the issues associated with the crisis, it is important to take multiple perspectives into account. This lecture by Economy Studies can help students develop a familiarity with the different schools of thought and conceptions that exist within economics.
Perspectives on the Environment - Economy Studies
From religious leaders to heads of state, everyone is talking about economic inequality. What form can such inequality take in different countries? What impact does it have on society? And why should it matter to you?
Challenging Wealth and Income Inequality
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
Examine what would happen if we were to deploy blockchain technology at the sovereign level and use it to create a decentralized cashless economy. This book explains how finance and economics work today, and how the convergence of various technologies related to the financial sector can help us find solutions to problems, such as excessive debt creation, banks getting too big to fail, and shadow banking.
The Blockchain Alternative
Free, Fair & Alive is a foundational re-thinking of the commons, the self-organized social systems that human beings have used for millennia to meet their needs.
Free, Fair, and Alive
Nature and communities in the global south is being overwhelmed at a shocking rate. In many places this is due to ventures such as large-scale open-pit mining, oil extraction in tropical areas, and the spread of monocultures. These and other such forms of natural resource appropriation are usually known as extractivisms.
Extractivisms
A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction Climate Change and Pandemics A plan to save the earth and bring the good life to all In this thrilling and capacious book Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass challenge the inertia of capitalism and the left alike and propose a radical plan …
Half-Earth Socialism
This article explores if power dynamics in the household can be changed, and if so, how. In this context the focus is laid on government childcare policy and its various channels of possible influence.
How can childcare policy affect intra-household power dynamics?
This essay deals with the concepts of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).
The importance of a Land Degradation Neutrality approach to achieving Sustainable Land Management
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.
Towards a practice of fare-free sustainability
MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur or Common Southern Market) was the first formalized attempt to integrate South American countries economically and politically.
How can MERCOSUR move forward?
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.
Politics as supermarket? Or how current policy design changes the relationship between the state and its citizens
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