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Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to follow through on new year’s resolutions, such as to exercise more or to start saving more money towards retirement? The agent that most traditional economic models are based on would not struggle to keep up these resolutions. These agents are referred to as homo economicus.
Homo Economicus: Why are new year’s resolutions so difficult to maintain and economic models so bad at predicting our behaviour?
As tax day approached, St. Francis College Economics Professors launched their first Economics Week with three days of guest speakers and student research. Randall Wray explains some basic principles of Modern Monetary Theory.
Modern Money Theory for Beginners
À travers les réflexions et les analyses de plusieurs intellectuels de renom, ce documentaire trace un portrait de l’idéologie néolibérale et examine les différents mécanismes mis à l’oeuvre pour en imposer mondialement les diktats.
Déréglementer, réduire la taille de l’État, privatiser, limiter l’inflation plutôt que le chômage, bref, financiariser et dépolitiser l’économie : les différents dogmes de cette pensée prêt-à-porter sont bien connus. Et s’ils s’immiscent lentement dans nos consciences c’est qu’ils sont diffusés à travers un vaste et inextricable réseau de propagande.
De fait, depuis la fondation de la Société du Mont Pèlerin, en 1947, les instituts de recherche néolibéraux, ces think tanks financés par des transnationales et des grandes fortunes, propagent inlassablement la pensée néolibérale au sein des universités, dans les médias, auprès des parlementaires, etc.
Cette idéologie qui s’affiche évidence, forte de la sanction historique et scientifique que semble lui avoir conférée la chute de l’URSS, a su intoxiquer tous les gouvernements, de gauche comme de droite. En effet, depuis la fin de la Guerre Froide, le rythme des réformes néolibérales est allé sans cesse s’accentuant. Souvent imposée par la force, que ce soit à travers les plans d’ajustements structurels du FMI et de la Banque Mondiale, sous la pression des marchés financiers et des transnationales ou même par la guerre, la doctrine néolibérale s’étend dorénavant à la planète entière.
Mais derrière l’écran de fumée idéologique, derrière ces beaux concepts d’ordre spontané et d’harmonie des intérêts dans un libre marché, par-delà la panacée de la «main invisible», que se cache-t-il réellement ?
L'encerclement - le néolibéralisme
Exploring Economics, an open-source e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
Yes, Money is Endogenous. Who Cares?
Marx’s theory of the falling rate of profit is not only empirically borne out, but the theory he proposed seems to describe accurately how that happens. Furthermore, the whole process is useful for understanding the history of contemporary capitalism.
On the Rate of Profit
Ce podcast présente l’incompatibilité entre notre modèle économique et l’exigence écologique. « Comment affronter sérieusement les désordres de la planète si l’on s’évertue à réanimer un modèle économique qui en est la cause » ? s’est exclamé Gaël Giraud (chef économiste de l’Agence Française de Développement). La question de l'équation entre les impératifs économiques de court terme (croissance, emploi) et les exigences planétaires de long terme (l'avenir de notre monde) semble toujours irrésolue.
Economie/écologie : l'impossible conjugaison?
Le franc CFA est une monnaie utilisée dans 14 pays d'Afrique sub-saharienne. Créé par la France en 1945, c'est la seule monnaie coloniale encore en circulation dans le monde. Une exception qui a des répercussions bien réelles sur les économies de ces pays africains. Entre limitation des capacités d'investissement et immobilisme des élites, certains économistes et historiens défendent l'idée qu'il est temps de sortir de cette "servitude monétaire".
Franc CFA : une monnaie de plomb
Ce podcast s'intéresse à la convergence de courants qui mettent à mal le concept de rationalité classique qui domine la théorie Néoclassique actuelle. L'économie et la psychologie sont deux disciplines qui regardent le monde à travers le prisme de l’individu, son comportement, ses interactions mais aussi la société avec laquelle il fait corps.
Cette analyse psychologique de l'humain en tant qu'acteur économique avec des défauts est révélatrice. On y apprend que les suppositions´sur lesquelles se base notre théorie économique dominante actuelle sont en partie imparfaites.
L'économie sur le divan (4/4) : L'économie de la rationalité
La nouvelle Politique québécoise de financement des universités permet aux universités de fixer elles-mêmes le coût des études des étudiant(e)s étrangers. Les auteurs du billet montrent comment cette politique aura pour effet d'augmenter la concurrence entre les universités québécoises pour attirer des étudiant(e)s étrangers.
La déréglementation des frais de scolarité : à la conquête du marché des étudiant·e·s internationaux
Markets are the focus in modern economics: when they work, when they don’t and what we can or can’t do about it. There are many ways to study markets and how we do so will inevitably affect our conclusions about them, including policy recommendations which can influence governments and other major organisations. Pluralism can be a vital corrective to enacting real policies based on only one perspective and a plethora of approaches provide alternatives to the canonical view. Although they have differing implications, these approaches share the idea that we should take a historical approach, analysing markets on a case-by-case basis; and they share a faith in the power of both individuals and collectives to overcome the problems encountered when organising economic activity.
Markets, How Do They Work?
What influence do changes in tax policy or state decisions on expenditure have on economic growth? For decades, this question has been controversially debated.
What is the fiscal multiplier and why is it so controversial?
In both economics textbooks and public perceptions central banks are a fact of life. On the wall of my A-level economics classroom there was the Will Rogers quote “there have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking”, summarising how many economists view the institution. There is a widespread belief that there is something different about money which calls for a central authority to manage its operation, a view shared even by staunch free marketeers such as Milton Friedman. This belief is not without justification, since money underpins every transaction in a way that apples do not, but we should always be careful not to take existing institutions for granted and central banking is no exception. In this post I will look at the idea of private or free banking, where banks compete (and cooperate) to issue their own currency.
Whither Central Banks?
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
Cet interview donne la parole à Jean-François Ponsot, l'un des coordinateurs de l'ouvrage "L'économie post-keynésienne. Histoire, théories et politiques" (Seuil, 2018), première synthèse française du post-keynésianisme. J.-F. Ponsot revient sur le contenu du chapitre 21 dont il est l'auteur et qui traite du projet de système monétaire international soumis par Keynes après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale pour sortir du chaos provoqué par la crise et la guerre. Après un descriptif des principales caractéristiques de ce projet, qui n'a pas été retenu par la communauté internationale, J.-F. Ponsot présente les avantages qu'il aurait à être appliqué aujourd'hui, mais aussi les difficultés pratiques qui empêchent sa mise en oeuvre dans le contexte monétaire et financier actuel.
Retour sur le projet d'ordre monétaire international de Keynes
Faut-il donner un prix à la nature pour la protéger des impacts de l’activité humaine ? L'économiste écologique Aurore Lalucq revient sur cette question fondamentale et distingue monétarisation, marchandisation et financiarisation. Selon elle, ces trois concepts prennent place dans des situations totalement différentes et ne suivent pas les mêmes logiques.
Faut-il donner un prix à la Nature ?
Peter Bofinger argues that the Modern Monetary Theory gives theoretical justification for bold answers to the corona crisis.
Coronavirus crisis: now is the hour of Modern Monetary Theory
The plumbing of the financial system is coming under strain like never before. On this week’s podcast, we speak with two legendary experts on how the money system works: Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse and Perry Mehrling of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. They explain the extreme level of stress we’re seeing, what the Fed has done to alleviate, what more needs to be done, and what the post-crisis future may look like.
The Historic Crisis Of Financial Market Plumbing
An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Role of Women in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
In the history of the social sciences, few individuals have exerted as much influence as has Jeremy Bentham. His attempt to become “the Newton of morals” has left a marked impression upon the methodology and form of analysis that social sciences like economics and political science have chosen as modus operandi.
Bentham’s Two Sovereign Masters - Examining Bentham’s Influence on the Social Sciences
This video provides a brief introduction to post-keynesian economics and how the school of thought would tackle climate change.
Clips on Climate: Postkeynesian Economics
Dans cette contribution, nous examinons la relation sociale à l’énergie au sein du régime d’accumulation fordiste et du capitalisme financiarisé et mondialisé qui s’est mis en place depuis les années 1970. L’objectif est d’identifier des ruptures dans les modalités d’usage de l’énergie qui accompagnent les transformations observées dans d’autres domaines. Pour cela, nous procédons à une analyse empirique et comparatiste de l’utilisation de l’énergie dans les principales économies à haut revenu (Allemagne, États-Unis, France, Japon et Royaume-Uni) entre 1950 et 2010. Le fordisme se caractérise par une utilisation extensive de l’énergie et une utilisation intensive du travail. Les forts gains de productivité de ce dernier sont alimentés notamment par une augmentation rapide de la quantité d’énergie incorporée au processus de production. À partir de 1970, le ralentissement de la croissance de la quantité d’énergie coïncide avec le ralentissement de la productivité du travail et contribue à l’érosion du compromis social fordiste. L’émergence du néolibéralisme se traduit par une restauration de la part du capital dans le partage de la valeur ajoutée et s’accompagne, d’une part, d’une utilisation de plus en plus intensive de l’énergie, la productivité de celle-ci se mettant à augmenter fortement dans les principaux pays à haut revenu ; d’autre part, par la délocalisation de l’utilisation de l’énergie.
La transformation de la relation sociale à l’énergie du fordisme au capitalisme néolibéral
"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.
Bank Underground
This lecture of the anthropologist David Graeber gives a brief introduction to the thoughts of his 2011 published book Debt: The First 5000 Years.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
As the Covid-19 fueled economic downturn begins to intensify this winter, an extended study of the Italian cooperative sector’s historical resilience in times of crisis can serve as a learning experience for other countries seeking to create policies that foster more stable economies, with job security, care for marginalized communities and adequate counter-cyclical policies. Particularly, the Italian cooperative sector’s contributions to three aspects should be noted in closing. Firstly, the innovative phenomenon of cooperative enterprises has contributed to social inclusion of immigrant communities, the activation of youth, the unemployed and people with disabilities, a true compensation for both a market and state failure. Secondly, they have contributed to a reduction in income and wealth inequalities at a time when the issue of inequality is of global significance. Thirdly, the Italian cooperative movement has helped local communities revitalize in the face of demographic shifts and rendered them more resilient to the ravages of globalization. Each of these in their own right is a remarkable achievement.
How to strengthen the social economy
From the two premises that (1) economies are complex systems and (2) the accumulation of knowledge about reality is desirable, I derive the conclusion that pluralism with regard to economic research programs is a more viable position to hold than monism. To substantiate this claim an epistemological framework of how scholars study their objects of inquiry and relate their models to reality is discussed. Furthermore, it is argued that given the current institutions of our scientific system, economics self-organizes towards a state of scientific unity. Since such a state is epistemologically inferior to a state of plurality, critical intervention is desirable.
The Complexity of Economies and Pluralism in Economics
Since the 1980s, the financial sector and its role have increased significantly. This development is often referred to as financialization. Authors working in the heterodox tradition have raised the question whether the changing role of finance manifests a new era in the history of capitalism. The present article first provides some general discussion on the term financialization and presents some stylized facts which highlight the rise of finance. Then, it proceeds by briefly reviewing the main arguments in the Marxian framework that proposedly lead to crisis. Next, two schools of thought in the Marxian tradition are reviewed which consider financialization as the latest stage of capitalism. They highlight the contradictions imposed by financialization that disrupt the growth process and also stress the fragilities imposed by the new growth regime. The two approaches introduced here are the Social Structure of Accumulation Theory and Monthly Review School. The subsequent part proceeds with the Post-Keynesian theory, first introducing potential destabilizing factors before discussing financialization and the finance-led growth regime. The last section provides a comparative summary. While the basic narrative in all approaches considered here is quite similar, major differences stem from the relationship between neoliberalism and financialization and, moreover, from the question of whether financialization can be considered cause or effect.
Financialization and the crises of capitalism
Exploring Economics, an open-source e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
Karl Marx: An early post-Keynesian?
This paper starts with an evaluation of three common arguments against pluralism in economics: (1) the claim that economics is already pluralist, (2) the argument that if there was the need for greater plurality, it would emerge on its own, and (3) the assertion that pluralism means ‘anything goes’ and is thus unscientific. Pluralist responses to all three arguments are summarized. The third argument is identified to relate to a greater challenge for pluralism: an epistemological trade-off between diversity and consensus that suggests moving from a discussion about ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ towards a discussion about the adequate degree of plurality. We instantiate the trade-off by showing how it originates from two main challenges: the need to derive adequate quality criteria for a pluralist economics, and the necessity to propose strategies that ensure the communication across different research programs. The paper concludes with some strategies to meet these challenges.
Pluralism in economics: its critiques and their lessons
Central banking is anything but clear-cut. As this webinar with Benjamin Braun demonstrates, the standard view of central banks as independent public entities that govern financial markets and "print" money is at least partially misleading.
Central banking, Finance and Power
How did the coronavirus almost bring down the Global Financial System? What effects does monetary policy have on inequality? What role do Central Banks have in the social-ecological transformation? How could Central Banks tackle climate change? What is Central Bank Digital Currency?
Next Generation Central Banking
This is a new online course at bachelor level. It presents an introduction into macroeconomics with a specific focus on the euro area. The theoretical part provides a critical presentation of the two key macroeconomic models: the (neo)classical approach and the Keynesian approach. This allows a comparative analysis of important macroeconomic topics:
unemployment
inflation
government debt and Modern Monetary Theory
banks and financial crises.
The policy-oriented part discusses the monetary policy of the ECB and the specific challenges for fiscal policy in the euro area. The course also presents other euro area specific topics: Optimum currency area, euro crises, Next Generation EU and Green New Deal.
European Macroeconomics
Exploring Economics, an open-access e-learning platform, giving you the opportunity to discover & study a variety of economic theories, topics, and methods.
Horizontalists, verticalists, and structuralists: The theory of endogenous money reassessed
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