RETHINK
ECONOMICS
RETHINK
ECONOMICS
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638 results

2020
Level: beginner
Post-Colonialisms Today researcher Chafik Ben Rouine looks to Tunisia’s post-independence central banking method to provide insight on what progressive monetary policy can look like.
Level: beginner
Capitalism is dissolving boundaries - not only in the sense of ever-expanding global trade flows, but also in the concrete everyday working lives of individuals. What implications does this have for our understanding of freedom, work and borders?
2019
Level: advanced
Shadow banking became one of the main features of modern market based financial capitalism and financial globalisation. Daniel Gabor locates this development in a Super-Cycle framework and sketches out opportunities to launch a new cycle that is green and just through financial regulation and publicly organised sustainable finance.
2020
Level: beginner
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.
2023
Level: expert
The concept of financialisation has undergone a similar career as ‘globalisation’, ‘neoliberalism’ or even ‘capitalism’, in the course of which it changed from the explanandum to the explanans; the process of financialisation is taken for granted, while the concrete historical and empirical causal conditions of its realisation and perpetuation are being moved into the background.
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
The module is designed to first present some of the main schools of thought from a historical and methodological perspective. Each week we explore and critically assess the main tenants of each school of thought. In the second part of the module we link history of economic thought and methodology to a specific and contemporary economic question. The second part allows you to engage with current economic issues with an awareness of methodology and methodological differences and with some knowledge of the history of economics.
2018
Level: advanced
Rethinking Regulation of International Finance encapsulates the most important aspects of the development and operation of the international financial system. This book questions the fundamental basis of the existing international financial architecture (soft law) and explores the need for a compliance-based model based on legitimacy of regulations and accountability of the regulatory bodies in international financial stability.
2023
Level: advanced
A comprehensive account of how government deficits and debt drive inflation
2015
Level: beginner
Economist and politician Costas Lapavitsas: presents differing theoretical definitions of financialization, namely from Marxist and Post-Keynesian thinkers and compares their approaches. By presenting pattern and features of the economic and financial crisis, he interprets the latter as a crisis of financialization. Lapavitsas emphasizes his arguments by presenting data from the U.S. and Germany on the transformation of business, banks and households.
2016
Level: advanced
The current global financial system may not withstand the next global financial crisis. In order to promote the resilience and stability of our global financial system against future shocks and crises, a fundamental reconceptualisation of financial regulation is necessary. This reconceptualisation must begin with a deep understanding of how today's financial markets, regulatory initiatives and laws operate and interact at the global level.
2023
Level: beginner
This text provides an easy to understand introduction to complexity economics for non-specialist audiences such as bachelor's students.
 
Neoclassical economics focuses on the allocation of scarce resources. Economic analysis is mainly concerned with determining the efficient allocation of resources in order to increase welfare.
2021
Level: beginner
Economists occupy leading positions in many different sectors including central and private banks, multinational corporations, the state and the media, as well as serving as policy consultants on everything from health to the environment and security. Power and Influence of Economists explores the interconnected relationship between power, knowledge and influence which has led economics to be both a source and beneficiary of widespread power and influence.
2020
Level: advanced
This paper investigates how the concept of public purpose is used in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). As a common denominator among political scientists, the idea of public purpose is that economic actions should aim at benefiting the majority of the society. However, the concept is to be considered as an ideal of a vague nature, which is highly dependent on societal context and, hence, subject to change over time. MMT stresses that government spending plans should be designed to pursue a certain socio-economic mandate and not to meet any particular financial outcome. The concept of public purpose is heavily used in this theoretical body of thought and often referred to in the context of policy proposals as the ideas of universal job guarantee and banking reform proposals show. MMT scholars use the concept as a pragmatic benchmark against which policies can be assessed. With regards to the definition of public propose, MMT scholars agree that it is dependent on the social-cultural context. Nevertheless, MMT scholars view universal access to material means of survival as universally applicable and in that sense as the lowest possible common denominator.
2018
Level: advanced
The course will teach students to analyze the goals, implementation, and outcomes of economic policy.
2022
Level: beginner
This teaching pack focuses on the practice and real-world activities of central banks. It assumes students have a grasp of basic macroeconomic concepts already, and is therefore most suitable to be used at the end of introductory macro courses, or in more advanced macro or monetary economics courses.
Level: beginner
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash Networks are ubiquitous in our modern society The World Wide Web that links us to and enables information flows with the rest of the world is the most visible example It is however only one of many networks within which we are situated Our …
Level: advanced
A free online course at Masters-level will enable you to understand the past, present and future role of money in society.
2023
Level: beginner
In this overview paper, Laura Porak reviews the history of industrial policy in the European Union before the background of a Cultural Political Economy approach.
2017
Level: beginner
Due to the IMF’s focus on gender budgeting, this essay will mainly examine its gender budgeting recommendations as an example of its general inclination towards gender issues and its conception of gender equality. What does the IMF’s focus on gender equality really mean from a critical feminist perspective? What are its main objectives? What does it seek to change and to maintain? What concept or idea of women does it follow and what are the underlying theoretical foundations?
2022
Level: advanced
From the perspective of mainstream theory the effectiveness of monetary policy in bringing down inflation depends on two very important equations the aggregate demand equation and the infamous Phillips Curve Without these it becomes more difficult or rather impossible for central banks to carry out monetary policy and obtain the …
2013
Level: beginner
How was money actually invented? Where does it come from? In this first episode of a video lecture, Dirk Bezemer from the University of Groningen presents the origins of money and how it's related to debt. It's a basic historical review and you can get an idea of how money is created and how banks work. The following episodes aim at giving an overview of the last debt crisis.
2013
Level: beginner
What is money and how does it work? The short film reveals common misunderstandings of where money comes from, explains how money is created by banks and presents consequences of money as credit. The video is part of the campaign positive money, promoting the democratic control over money creation.
2013
Level: beginner
The author identifies three principal economic phenomena, which are explained: long run productivity growth as the central driver of increasing economic activity, short-term and long-term debt cycles. The latter two are explained to some detailed with reference to money creation, central banking and long term crisis tendencies. With regards to the long run debt cycle, which leads into deleveraging and recession, some policy measures which can smoothen the crisis are discussed.
2014
Level: beginner
This multimedia dossier is part of the series „Understanding Finance“ by Finance Watch. The dossier focuses on universal banks – banks that pursue commercial and investment banking and points out several problems of those megabanks, especially in the context of the financial crisis (too big to fail).
 
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.
2019
Level: beginner
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.
2020
Level: beginner
A historical glimpse of how economists of the 19th century debated the usefulness of mathematics to economics
Level: beginner
The page "Positive Money" gathers text and short videos which explain how money is created by banks by giving loans. It furthermore presents the consequences of this process on housing prices, inequality and the environment and its role in the financial crisis. The dossier is provided by the campaign "Positive Money" which aims at a democratic control over money creation. Besides texts by the campaign, the page makes available links to journal and conference articles on the topic. The page focuses on the banking system of the UK.
2020
Level: beginner
For some days, global financial markets are in turmoil. Central banks and governments are dealing with the unfolding crisis on a daily basis with seemingly u...
2018
Level: beginner
This syllabus provides an overview of the contents of the course "Understanding Economic Models" at the University of Helsinki.

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