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If there’s one method economists have neglected the most, it’s qualitative research. Whereas economists favour mathematical models and statistics, qualitative research seeks to understand the world through intensive investigation of particular circumstances, which usually entails interviewing people directly about their experiences. While this may sound simple to quantitative types the style, purpose, context, and interpretation of an interview can vary widely. Because of this variety, I have written a longer post than usual on this topic rather than doing it a disservice. Having said that, examples of qualitative research in economics are sadly scant enough that it doesn’t warrant multiple posts. In this post I will introduce qualitative research in general with nods to several applications including the study of firm behaviour, race, Austrian economics, and health economics. More than usual I will utilise block quotes, which I feel is in the spirit of the topic.
Qualitative Methods in Economics: "You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching"
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
Information and skills required to make more sustainable choices every day.
Sustainability in Everyday Life
A stock-flow-fund ecological macroeconomic model
DEFINE - A stock-flow-fund ecological macroeconomic model
Firms are the primary places where economic activity takes place in modern capitalist economies: they are where most stuff is produced; where many of us spend 40 hours a week; and where big decisions are made about how to allocate resources. Establishing how they work is hugely important because it helps us to understand patterns of production and consumption, including how firms will react to changes in economic conditions and policy. And a well-established literature – led by post-Keynesians and institutionalists – holds that the best way to determine how firms work is to…wait for it...ask firms how they work. This a clearly sensible proposition that is contested in economics for some reason, but we’ll ignore the controversy here and just explore the theory that springs from this approach.
The ‘How Firms Work’ Approach to How Firms Work
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
Health Economics traditionally involves two distinct strands. One focuses on the application of core neoclassical economic theories of the firm, the consumer and the market to health-seeking behaviour and other health issues. It suggests a role for government intervention only in the case of specific market failures (for example externalities, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and public goods) that distort market outcomes. The second strand is evaluation techniques, used to assess the cost effectiveness of competing health interventions.
Health Economics
Marx Reloaded is a cultural documentary that examines the relevance of German socialist and philosopher Karl Marx s ideas for understanding the global economic and financial crisis of 2008 09 The crisis triggered the deepest global recession in 70 years and prompted the US government to spend more than 1 …
Marx Reloaded
This open access book presents an alternative to capitalism and state socialism through the modelling of a post-market and post-state utopia based on an upscaling of the commons, feminist political economy and democratic and council-based planning approaches.
Make Capitalism History
Economics After the Crisis is an introductory economics textbook, covering key topics in micro and macro economics. However, this book differs from other introductory economics textbooks in the perspective it takes, and it incorporates issues that are presently underserved by existing textbooks on the market. This book offers an introduction to economics that takes into account criticisms of the orthodox approach, and which acknowledges the role that this largely Western approach has played in the current global financial and economic crisis.
Economics After the Crisis
Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection.
From Political Economy to Economics
Professor Joseph Aldy from Harvard Kennedy School gives us some insights about how economics can set the balance between policymakers, scientists, employers and citizens.
Can Economics save the Environment?
The term "de-risking" can be seen as one element of a strategy aimed at discursively reframing the trade policy confrontation with China. This confrontation has mainly been driven by the US in recent years and received initially cautious, but later growing support from the EU.
De-risking, de-coupling, de-globalization?
This syllabus provides an overview of the contents of the course "Understanding Economic Models" at the University of Helsinki.
Understanding Economic Models
More-is-better ideals such as these have long shaped our vision of rationality. Yet humans and other animals typically rely on simple heuristics to solve adaptive problems, focusing on one or a few important cues and ignoring the rest, and shortcutting computation rather than striving for as much as possible.
Ecological Rationality
This essay argues that the dominant growth economics paradigm anchored in increasing consumption output and the metric of Gross Domestic Product GDP is failing to deliver what matters for both human flourishing and ecological survival The article further contends that growth measured merely by output masks social and environmental costs …
What Counts – Why Growth Economics is Failing Us
This archive contains open access copies of most of the written work, including the books of Karl William Kapp (1910-1976) was one of the forefathers of Ecological Economics.
K. William Kapp archive
This course will fundamentally ask whether we can, or even should use the word ‘decolonising’ in our pursuit of a better economics?
Decolonising Economics?
Feminist economics is a key component of the movement for pluralism in economics and one that has, to some extent, been acknowledged by the mainstream of the profession. It seeks to highlight issues which affect women because (it claims) they have not traditionally been recognised in a field dominated by men. On top of this, it seeks to carve out a space for women in the discipline, both for intrinsic reasons of fairness and diversity and because it means that women’s issues are more likely to be highlighted going forward.
Why Feminist Economics is Necessary
This thoroughly revised and updated second edition provides a comprehensive guide to Post Keynesian methodology, theory and policy prescriptions. The Companion reflects the challenges posed by the global financial crisis that began in 2008 and by the consolidation of the New Neoclassical Synthesis in macroeconomic theory.
The Elgar Companion to Post Keynesian Economics
"Heterodox economics can provide a more complete and robust explanation of economic realities than orthodox (or mainstream) economics. Contemporary Issues in Heterodox Economics: Implications for Theory and Policy Action argues that this greater explanatory power gives heterodox economics the ability to illuminate appropriate policy for the major crises of our time, as well as proffer the basis for a more rounded, pluralist approach to economic theory.
Contemporary Issues in Heterodox Economics
Les post-keynésiens se focalisent sur l’analyse des économies capitalistes, vues comme des systèmes certes hautement productifs mais aussi instables et conflictuels. L‘activité économique y est pour eux déterminée par la demande effective, qui est typiquement insuffisante pour permettre d’atteindre le plein emploi et la pleine utilisation des capacités de production.
Économie post-keynésienne
Representing everyone An Analysis of the Representation of Migrant Women by official Labour Organizations in Germany Author Tess Herrmann Review Deborah Sielert This is an essay of the writing workshop Gender and the Economy Perspektives of Feminist Economics published on 17 May 2017 updated on 16 August 2017 Why we …
Representing everyone – Migrant Women's Representation by Labour Organizations in Germany
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
This film looks at the role economic growth has had in bringing about this crisis, and explores alternatives to it, offering a vision of hope for the future and a better life for all within planetary boundaries.
Fairytales of Growth
Along with addressing core conceptual issues in defining heterodox economics, we will cover in some detail five heterodox traditions in economics: Marxian Economics, Institutional Economics, Post-Keynesian Economics, Feminist Economics, and Ecologi-cal Economics. In the first class meeting, we discuss the structure and goals of the course, as well as the expectations and requirements from the students. In addition, we will discuss the concept of heterodoxy in economics, along with discussing the concepts and key issues in mainstream and neoclassical economics.
Heterodox Economics
Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary contains over one hundred essays on transformative initiatives and alternatives to the currently dominant processes of globalized development, including its structural roots in modernity, capitalism, state domination, and masculinist values.
Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary
The present working paper is dedicated to fill a void in the degrowth literature related to the aspect of planning to achieve post-growth models of societies. The authors propose a new framework that focuses on non-market forms of planning and propose multi-level planning institutions to mediate the local level with society-wide and global institutions.
Planning beyond growth. The case for economic democracy within limits
All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. People and ideas are important; but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.
Prisoners of Geography
This syllabus opens a literary overview of must-read papers in the field of development economics.
Development Economics
After a brief illustration of sovereign green bonds’ features, this paper describes the market evolution and identifies the main benefits and costs for sovereign issuers. The financial performance of these securities is then analysed.
Green Bonds: the Sovereign Issuers’ Perspective
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.
History of Economic Thought
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