730 results
The Invisible Hand offers a radical departure from the conventional wisdom of economists and economic historians, by showing that "factor markets" and the economies dominated by them - the market economies - are not modern, but have existed at various times in the past.
The Invisible Hand?
By conducting a discourse analysis (SKAD) in the field of academic economics textbooks, this paper aims at reconstructing frames and identity options offered to undergraduate students relating to the questions ‘Why study economics?’ and ‘Who do I become by studying economics?’. The analysis showed three major frames and respective identity offerings, all of which are contextualized theoretically, with prominent reference to the Foucauldian reflection of the science of Political Economy. Surprisingly, none of them encourages the student to think critically, as could have been expected in a pedagogical context. Taken together, economics textbooks appear as a “total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible action” (Foucault), therefore, as a genuine example of Foucauldian power structures.
The power of economic textbooks: A discourse analysis
In this Ted Talk, Mariana Mazzucato argues against the juxtaposition of the state and entrepreneurial activities. By presenting examples of her research on the relation between innovation and (inclusive) growth, she shows how many innovations were led by states' initiatives. Mazzucato confronts the liberal narrative of the a state that merely provides the frame for the market.
Government - investor, risk-taker, innovator
In the keynote speech, Sigrid Stagl argues why it is necessary to include socio-ecological aspects in macoreconomic models. The talk focuses on the ecological necessities, mentioning limits to growth, resource extraction and planetary boundaries. At the end, Stagl shortly presents several current macroeconomic initiatives and models that move towards a a socio-ecological macroeconomics.
Towards a socio-ecological macroeconomics
In this radio interview, Philip Mirowski, author of the book "Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste" presents several differences between neoclassical economics and neoliberalism. Apart from a historical outline, Mirowski primarily discusses different perceptions of markets and the role of the state. Mirowski further reflects on the role think tanks ("part of the "neoliberal thought collective") and the entrepreneurial self (the "neoliberal agent") in the spreading and fostering of the neoliberalism.
How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown
Galbraith first explores the social darwinism of Herbert Spencer and others that served as apology for the highly unequal distribution of wealth in the US at the end of the 19th century and naturalized differences in wealth by appealing to the concept of natural selection of the fittest. Then some instances of the unscrupulous business practices (i.e. robberies) of the American railroad tycoons and other business magnates are recounted. Lastly, Galbraith lines out some of the arguments of Thorstein Veblen, who delegitimized and ridiculed the business and leisure activities of the rich by putting them in the same category as predatory and ritualized practices of primitive or ancient societies.
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 2 - The Manners and Morals of High Capitalism
This course introduces students to the relevance of gender relations in economics as a discipline and in economic processes and outcomes. The course covers three main components of gender in economics and the economy: (1) the gendered nature of the construction and reproduction of economic theory and thought; (2) the relevance and role of gender in economic decision-making; and (3) differences in economic outcomes based on gender. We wil touch on the relevance of gender and gender relations in at least each of the following topics: economic theory; the history of economic thought; human capital accumulation; labor market discrimination; macroeconomic policy, including gender budgeting; household economics; basic econometrics; and economic crises.
Gender Relations and Economics
Recovery from the Covid-19 crisis provides a chance to implement economic measures that are also beneficial from environmental and social perspectives. While ‘green’ recovery packages are crucial to support economies tracking a low-carbon transition in the short-term, green measures such as carbon pricing are also key to improving welfare in the long-term. This commentary specifies the need for carbon pricing, outlines its implications for our everyday lives, and explains how it works alongside value-based change in the context of climate action and societal well-being.
Carbon Pricing: The Key to Open the Way Toward a Sustainable Recovery and Long-Term Wellbeing
Ha Joon Chang exposes the main ideas of his book Bad Samaritans, namely that historically states have developed and industrialized by making policy interventions related to industry protection, tariffs and subsidies and not by opening their markets to free trade. Chang elaborates on the examples of Japan, the US, Singapore and Germany amongst others to show that an interventionist path to development has been the regularity and not an anomaly. In the end of the lecture, he argues that they idea of a level playing field should be replaced by a trade order that accounts for differences in power and economic capacities of different countries. The last 20 minutes are questions and answers.
Ha-Joon Chang - Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
Even if men were perceived as the main protagonists of the Greek crisis, the crisis had a deep impact on disadvantaged groups, in particular migrant women working as domestic labourers. The debate presents the particular impact on migrant women of the downturn and furthermore discusses how migrant struggles and other emancipatory movements impacted the politics of crisis. The first minutes of the video are in German, but the moderator switches to English.
Invisible women? Crisis, gender and migration in Greece 2015
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.
Positive Money
The podcast exposes the concept and principles of co-operatives and the three main types of co-operatives: the consumer, credit and farmers buying and selling co-operatives. Furthermore, the history of the co-operative movement is presented. The authors draw the line from co-operatives to "degrowth" by arguing that these organisations discourage profit maximisation due to their ownership structure, their social purpose and their primacy of people over capital. The value of the members' co-operative share does not increase with the growth of a co-operative and it can not be used for speculation. Finally, the authors give examples for current co-operatives which empower (local) communities fostering social justice and environmentalism.
Co-operatives
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of work-related gender issues and to enable students to analyze the issues using the tools of economics.
Women, Men, & Work
This course will fundamentally ask whether we can, or even should use the word ‘decolonising’ in our pursuit of a better economics?
Decolonising Economics?
This syllabus provides an overview of the contents of the course "Understanding Economic Models" at the University of Helsinki.
Understanding Economic Models
First historical instances of colonialism such as the crusades are revisited. Then a lengthy account of the colonial experience of the Spanish Kingdom in South America and of the British Empire in India is given. The Indian case is illustrated with large amounts of archival materials from a colonial administrator. There the workings of the colonial bureaucracy and law and its (positive) achievements as well as the ignorance and arrogance of the external rulers are demonstrated. After narrating the Indian independence to some depth some recent colonial wars (Algeria, Vietnam, Congo, Angola) are briefly examined. In the end, the impact of colonialism on current, i.e. 1970s, (economic) international relations is discussed. The general tenor is that colonialism is a dysfunctional system. Still, agency is mostly placed with the empire rather than with the ruled.
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 4 The Colonial Idea
The documentary recounts the history of the first World War and gives a biography of Lenin. The concept of imperialism is briefly explored and it is concluded that by the end of world war one the old certainties and old ruling alliances between aristocracy and traditional capitalists were broken up.
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 5 Lenin and The Great Ungluing
John K. Galbraith recounts episodes in the history of money such as the creation of the bank of Amsterdam, John Law's fraudulent Bank Royal, the inception of the Bank of England and of the Federal Reserve to illustrate concepts such as money creation by commercial banks, the bank rate, open market operations or the money supply in general. The emotions, myths and struggles surrounding money are addressed and explained in a clear and consistent manner.
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 6 The Rise and Fall of Money
John K. Galbraith tells the economic history of a couple of economies (mostly UK, US and to a lesser extent Germany) from the end of the first world war until the Bretton Woods conference. He also provides a biography of John M. Keynes and outlines some central ideas of Keynes such as the possibility of an underemployment equilibrium. Galbraith complements the historical remarks by the biographical experiences he made in economic management (and in engaging with Keynes) serving as deputy head of the Office for Price administration during the second world war.
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 7 The Mandarin Revolution
Usually, Critical Theory and Economics are, for better or worse, no longer seen to be in a continuum. This article by Lukas Meisner serves as an introduction to Critical Theory for all (heterodox) economists, who want to understand and explain what they can, otherwise, just state and describe.
Critical Theory for Heterodox Economists: Questioning the Premises of Supply and Demand
The interview states the importance of joining hands in the international trade to get trade justice at multilateral forum such as the WTO. It is mainly in English, the introduction is in Spanish.
International trade and barriers
In this talk, Virgil Henry Storr, a Research Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, talks about his research into to post-disaster recovery and the role that social entrepreneurship plays in rebuilding the communities and social networks that get disrupted, or entirely eliminated.
Community revival in the wake of disaster: Lessons in local entrepreneurship
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
The article examines how, in the context of multiple contemporary crises—financial, ecological, and social—interest in alternative economic models such as democratic economic planning has resurged. It outlines historical debates on the feasibility of planning versus markets, discusses contemporary approaches to democratic, digitally supported, and ecologically oriented planning, and identifies research gaps, including social reproduction and Global South perspectives.
Rethinking Economic Planning
An article in the New York Times from early 2025 suggests that the political influence of mainstream economics is declining. While economists have been highly influential in supporting and shaping free-market policies in recent decades, their expertise has become less relevant during intensified economic crises that necessitate state interventions.
The Strange Non-Death of Mainstream Economics
La première partie de cet article retrace la généalogie de l'économie comportementaliste, depuis les premières théories de Simon des années 1950 au "prix Nobel d'économie" 2017 attribué à Richard Thaler. Les auteurs s'intéressent ensuite à la façon dont les théories comportementalistes se traduisent en instruments de politiques publiques et en étudient les conséquences sur la façon de concevoir l'Etat et son action. Enfin, dans une perspective pluridisciplinaire, ils proposent une critique de ces théories en soulignant que l'approche comportementale peut conduire à négliger les déterminants sociaux de l'action.
Comportement correct exigé
L'article est une synthèse du livre "Conceptualizing Capitalism". Geoffrey Hodgson présente les points clés du livre. Il présente d'abord les différentes définitions du capitalisme et les concepts qui y sont associés : marché, propriété, salariat, finance. Ensuite, un focus est fait sur le rôle primordial de l'émergence des institutions financières et des confusions qui existent autour du terme de "capital". Un accent est porté sur l'importance d'une analyse historique et juridique du capitalisme. Hodgson introduit alors la notion d' "institutionnalisme juridique" pour "conceptualiser le capitalisme", afin de mieux le comprendre et éventuellement de prendre des mesures politiques à la hauteur des enjeux contemporains.
Comprendre le capitalisme
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
Le libéralisme allemand qui est au cœur de la construction européenne porte le nom d’ordolibéralisme. C’est une voie à mi-chemin entre le capitalisme à l’anglo-saxonne, qu’on considère en général comme le plus proche de l’orthodoxie classique, de l’ultra-libéralisme, et un capitalisme keynésien plutôt orienté vers des politiques de la demande. Cependant, l'ordolibéralisme allemand demeure une forme de néolibéralisme. L'idée de l'épisode est de décrire un courant de pensée qui tient plus de l’idéologie ou de l’opinion politique que de la science. En effet, l’ordolibéralisme, comme de nombreux autres courants de pensés en économie, propose des hypothèses plausibles, potentiellement justes, mais non vérifiées voire non vérifiables ainsi qu’une version simplifiée de la mécanique économique qui ne colle pas toujours avec la réalité. La description de la pensée ordolibérale permet de comprendre pourquoi la Zone Euro est organisée d'une manière si spécifique : Pourquoi la banque centrale européenne est-elle indépendante ? Pourquoi celle-ci ne peut-elle pas financer des états ? Pourquoi doit-elle se concentrer uniquement sur des problématiques d'inflation ? Pourquoi la commission européenne insiste-t-elle tant sur le rôle de la concurrence ? Pourquoi le budget des états ne doit pas dépasser un déficit de 3% du PIB ?
L'ordolibéralisme allemand
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
Présentation générale des enjeux et objets d'étude d'une approche féministe de l'économie.
Les femmes et l'économie: quels enjeux
En trente ans, la finance est devenue toute-puissante. Pas un jour sans connaître les mouvements du FTSE ou du NASDAQ, pas une semaine sans analyse du change, pas un mois sans fermeture d’usine, pas un an sans inquiétude sur la dette publique, pas une décennie sans une crise financière. Le bilan macroéconomique de nos économies occidentales est peu glorieux : une croissance molle, des investissements atones, un chômage endémique, des inégalités croissantes. Le constat est sans appel : les politiques libérales ont déréglementé la finance, et la banque, qui accompagnait autrefois l’industrie dans ses investissements à long terme, lui fait aujourd’hui obstacle. La créativité des financiers s’est substituée à celle des entrepreneurs. Il est urgent de remettre la finance à sa place : ce n’est pas à l’économie d’obéir à la finance, mais à la finance de servir l’économie. Un ouvrage qui décrypte trente ans de financiarisation de l’économie, propose un examen détaillé de l’articulation entreprise/ finance et avance des propositions – analysées et commentées par Michel Aglietta – pour mieux penser l’économie réelle.
L'entreprise Liquidée
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