Wirtschaftspolitischer Diskurs ohne Alternativen: Zur Notwendigkeit einer pluralen Ökonomik

This lecture is all about the challenge to include heterodox approaches into macroeconomics. After giving an overview of recent approaches to that problem Professor Michael Roos presents the theoretical framework of Complexity Economics as a means to combine behavioral aspects with macroeconomics.

Global Value Chains (GVCs) started to play an increasing and key role in the global economy from the 1990s on. The market mechanism in GVCs supports industrialisation in the Global South and under certain conditions product and process upgrading. But GVCs do not lead to the catching-up of countries in the sense of them approaching real GDP per capita levels comparable with developed countries. These arguments are supported by a critical interpretation of the traditional trade theory, the New Trade Theory and specific approaches to explain GVCs, especially different governance structures and power relationships. Several case studies support these arguments. For catching-up, countries need comprehensive horizontal and vertical industrial policy and policies for social coherence. The small number of countries which managed to catch up did this in different variations.

Prof. Robert Guttmann looks at the current transformation of the international world order through the lenses of global money and finance.

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.

In spite of the manifold critique about the state of economics in the aftermath of the financial crisis, an even increasing presence of economists and economic experts can be observed in the public sphere during the last years. On the one hand this reflects the still dominant position of economics in the social sciences as well as the sometimes ignorant attitude of economists towards findings of other social sciences. On the other hand this paper shows that the public debate on politico-economic issues among economists is dominated by a specific subgroup of economists, tightly connected to an institutional network of “German neoliberalism”. This group of “public economists” (i) is dominant in public debates even after the financial crisis, (ii) reproduces the formative German economic imaginary of the Social Market Economy in a German neoliberal interpretation and (iii) has a good access to German economic policymaking, rooted in a long history of economic policy advice.