Issue 162 April 28, 2014 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory
While George Soros' "Institute for New Economic Thinking" (INET) once ago set out to transform economics into a more critical, and possibly even more diverse field of study, recent developments have cast doubt on its potential contribution to these aims. While much of INET has an appeal of openness, in some parts mainstream closures are visible and possibly stronger than expected by some of those opting for a more fundamental transformation of the discipline. An example for such closure is provided by a recent report of the Association of Heterodox Economics (AHE) on one of INET's main projects labelled CORE (Curriculum Open-Access Resources in Economics). The CORE project should be a very basic introduction to economic problems and an economic way of thinking and has, according to the AHE, a certain bias with regard to established views. Here is a quote from the report:
"Our concern is that the CORE project seems unlikely to achieve any of these [aims]. As such, the positive potential of INET has, by its adoption of CORE, been closed down. What began as recognition of fundamental problems that require fundamental change has become a more modest set of alterations. An initial recognition of failure within economics is being translated into a context of relative success, requiring more limited changes and providing no serious challenge to the present monoculture of mainstream economics: it is a matter of change which leaves the dominant paradigm unchanged."
To be sure, this finding does in no way imply that all of INET's efforts are eventually problematic from a pluralist perspective, but I have the impression the AHE makes an important case in this particular context.
All the Best!
Jakob
© public domain
30 October to 1 November, 2014 | Berlin, Best Western Premier Hotel Steglitz International
Organizer: Macroeconomic Policy Insitute (IMK) at the Hans-Boeckler-Foundation, Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM)
The Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM) organises its 18th annual conference on Inequality and the Future of Capitalism with introductory lectures on heterodox economics for graduate students.
As the outbreak of the financial crisis approaches its seventh anniversary, large parts of the world economy are still in stagnation. The financial system remains highly fragile, and high levels of unemployment and income inequality are posing a serious threat to social peace and political stability in many countries. Some commentators even see the world economy doomed to secular stagnation with high levels of unemployment being the new normal. Others point to the "return of capital", with wealth and inheritances becoming once again the dominant source of economic inequality in a context of low income growth. Is rising inequality an outcome, or rather one of the root causes of economic fragility and stagnation? Can capitalist production be sustained in the presence of increasing inequality, particularly in the top income and wealth percentiles? What can macroeconomic policy, macroprudential regulation and labour market institutions do to counter these trends? How could international cooperation and organisations promote equality and stability? And what are the implications for the teaching of economics? How can the economics curriculum be changed to account for the developments we see?
The submission of papers in the following areas is encouraged:
For the open part of the conference the submission of papers on the general subject of the Research Network - Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies - is encouraged as well. We also ask for the submission of papers for graduate student sessions on both the specific topic of this conference and the general subject of FMM. There will also be a day of introductory lectures for graduate students on 30 October prior to the opening panel. Hotel costs will be covered for participants presenting in the graduate student sessions (for a maximum of four nights from 30 October to 2 November).
The deadline for paper proposals is 30 June 2014. Please send an abstract (max. one page) to fmm@boeckler.de. Decisions will be made in early August. In case of acceptance, full papers are due by 15 October, to be posted on the conference web page. Selected papers will be published after the conference in a special papers & proceedings issue of the European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention (EJEEP). The conference language is English.
Registration forms for the conference and the introductory lectures will be made available online via this conference webpage by mid-August.
More information on the Research Network website or on facebook.
Organising committee of the conference:
The detailed CfP is available here.
15-16 May, 2014 | University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
The Scottish Centre for Economic Methodology (SCEME) in association with the Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol organizes the nineteenth seminar in a series on the methodology of economics. We are very pleased to be able to announce that Clive Spash, Professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business (http://clivespash.org/), will attend as guest speaker to lead the discussion.
Topic
Climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion remain urgent areas of concern for human society. Economists, policy makers and other interest groups wrestle with how these current threats can be addressed using economic tools, or bearing in mind their economic impacts. Currently the field of economics relating to the environment is amongst the most diverse and dynamic within the discipline. It also crosses disciplinary boundaries. Thus it is a fascinating area of economics, albeit one which some find quite frustrating. The purpose of this seminar is to reflect on the methodology of economics and the role of methodological analysis itself, in light of the multi-faceted ecological crisis. Seminar presentations are from a variety perspective shedding light on economic methodology relating to the environment.
Organisation
The one and a half-day seminar will take place in a small informal setting with a workshop character and PhD students are particularly welcome to participate in the discussion. The attendance fee (which includes lunch and teas/coffees) will be 50 pounds (30 for postgraduates). The seminar starts with Clive Spash's presentation, followed by a discussion and two sessions on economic methodology, including topics such as pluralism and realism. Refreshments will be provided during two coffee breaks, and the first day ends with an optional dinner at a local restaurant at 7 p.m. The second day showcases three sessions on macro- and microeconomic topics, including Post Keynesian and other models, behavioural economics, and social norms approaches to Ecological Economics. The programme will be available on the conference website.
Participation:
The link to the registration form and information on accommodations is accessible (scroll to the bottom of the page) here.
The deadline for registrations will be Thursday 1st May 2014.
13-15 September, 2014 | Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
Guest Speaker; Prof.Heinz D.Kurz (University of Graz)
This conference is co-sponsored by
We will collect papers whose topics are suitable for the above journals. In addition to this, as is usual in our September conference, we will accept any papers on:
to submit your abstract with your name, your affiliation: confyagi@kisc.meiji.ac.jp.
We will set the deadline of submission of abstract on July 31, 2014. But we recommend you to submit your abstract much earlier than the deadline of abstract submission, for example, until the end of June. We will send you the notice of acceptance, basically, within 10 days in order that prospective paper presenters can arrange their trip to Japan.
For those who need documents for VISA application, please send an e-mail to yagi8@kisc.meiji.ac.jp until June 20, 2014.
For any other request please contact Prof.Takashi Yagi (Meiji University).
Th conference language is english. Detailed address: 1-1 Kandasurugadai, Chiyodaku, Tokyo, 101-8301, Japan. Campus link here.
Co-organized by
For more information please visit the conference website.
22 -24 October 2014 | Santiago de Chile
The Organizing Committee of the Latin American Conference on Political Ecology invites the international academic community to participate in this event, which will be held in Santiago de Chile between the 22nd and 24th of October, 2014. The event is organized by the Geography Department of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Chile.
The Latin American Conference on Political Ecology is held in the context of the ENTITLE project, the European Network of Political Ecology. ENTITLE is a Marie Curie Actions initiative, part of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union.
Political Ecology is a discipline with more than thirty years of theoretical development and practical applications. In general terms, it builds on the premise that environmental issues are in fact political problems, in which more often than not different social actors face each other in conflicts about alternative visions of development paths, imaginaries or values
In this line of argument, Political Ecology criticises a-political explanations of environmental issues and seeks to re-politicise the debate on appropriate responses to global, regional and local development problems. In this context, the Academic Committee has defined as the central theme for the conference: “Problems and new approaches of Political Ecology in Latin America: post-neoliberalism, neo-extractivism and public policies”. By choosing this theme we aim to enhance discussions and reflections, from a multidisciplinary perspective, on conflicts and social movements, socio-natural disasters, and academic and institutional challenges for achieving environmental justice and the democratisation of environmental governance in our societies.
The Conference aims to emphasise on methodological innovations, action research experiences with communities, tendencies and new lines of work that allow for delving into the progress of Political Ecology in Latin America, while creating and reinforcing links with European peers.
THEMATIC AREAS
IMPORTANT DATES
For more information please contact congreso.ecologiapolitica@gmail.com
More information about the congress is available here and here.
6-8 November, 2014 | University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
This year, the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) and EAEPE will jointly host two sessions at the Annual EAEPE Conference in Nicosia in agreement with the local organizer and Scientific Committee. The general topic of the two sessions (eight papers in total) will be “Evolutionary and Institutional Methodologies in Economics to Generate New Critical Insights”.
In the sessions, we would like to focuson the possibilities of evolutionaryand institutional methodologiesto generate new, critical, and relevant knowledge, to investigatepreviouslyunexplored phenomena,patterns and regularities, andto obtain resultsthat are intractablein mainstream economics. Both theoretical and applied papers are invited, but we seek for papers that focus on the interrelations of heterodox theory, specific appropriate methods used, and results yielded.
The terms of reviewing and accepting submissions and the schedule and deadlines are the same as in the general EAEPE conference call. However, for this joint AFEE/EAEPE paper selection, proposals and abstracts that support the panel theme will receive preference. For additional information on the EAEPE requirements, please visit their website.
Importance dates for the joint AFEE/EAEPE paper selection:
Please, send your submissions for the Joint AFEE/EAEPE sessions to the AFEE International Director: Svetlana Kirdina.
Not all presenters at the Joint AFEE/EAEPE sessions need to be members of AFEE. But if two submissions will be considered equivalent after reviewing, AFEE members will be given priority.
11-13 December, 2014 | University of Pisa, Italy
The AISPE invites historians of economic thought, economic historians, economists, and interested scholars to submit proposals for papers and/or sessions on the topics listed below or on others connected with the theme of the conference:
The abstracts (max. 500 words) and session proposals (max. 1000 words) must be sent by 30 September 2014 to the AISPE Secretary, Gianfranco Tusset, by e-mail: segretarioaispe@gmail.com
The full CfP and information concerning the conference will be published on the AISPE website.
17 June, 2014 | Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK
The symposium focuses on the evolution of relations and constructions of moral values in key social classes influencing the definition of common good, and how it affects the economy and society.
The first part of the day is a historical focus on the pre-modern, medieval and modern relations between merchants and kings and their relevance in current challenges of business ethics in a forward-thinking academic community. It explores competing and complementary perspectives on societal perceptions of virtue and morality. Distinguished speakers are Professor Agustín González Enciso, Professor Daryl Koehn, Dr Alisdair Dobie and Prof. Dr H. H. Hoppe.
The second part of the symposium critically reflects and extends current theory on organisational and individual virtue ethics to evaluate assumptions regarding how the firm is governed and managed, and the resulting habituated assumptions on its morality, work and agency of key internal firm stakeholders and individual agents. Speakers will offer thought on changes on the common good and the firm morality to address the current challenges of capitalism for the common good. In the second part of the symposium distinguished speakers are Professor Alejo José Sison, Professor Geoff Moore, Professor Ron Beadle and Dr Kleio Akrivou.
Finally, Professor Mark Casson will provide a synthesis of the accumulated knowledge, including insights from the day.
This event will be hosted by the Centre of Social and Organisational Studies (CSOS), in Henley Business School in association with the Centre of Economic History, the University of Reading. The event is chaired by Dr Kleio Akrivou, Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Organisational Behaviour.
View the full programme including timings here.
Fees:
Research students within the University of Reading may have the attendance fee waived upon request. Researchers should email with their request, copying in their supervisor. Book your place now online.
For further information, please contact: commongood@henley.ac.uk.
15-16 May, 2014 | Centre de Recherche en Economie de Grenoble (CREG), Université Pierre Mendes, Grenoble, Franc
This workshop will regroup some twenty + researchers from North-American, Latin American, as well as European institutions (universities, research institutes, central banks, international financial institutions, government ministries, etc.). Participants will develop a critical approach to monetary and financial issues within the eurozone, through plenary sessions and roundtables.
The objectives of this academic workshop are to identify new avenues that can be pursued to bring European economies back toward full employment, with or without the euro, and to assess the advantages and the disadvantages, as well as the modalities of a potential breakup / exit from the Eurozone.
This workshop is part of the seminar series Mofiidev (Money, international finance, development) of the CREG organized annually. It is also part of the research activity on The Political Economy of the New Fiscalism, financed by the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Institute for New Economic Thinking (CIGI-INET).
Some of the papers presented at the workshop will be published in international academic journals including International Journal of Political Economy, Review of Keynesian Economics, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, and Revue de la Régulation.
The working languages of the workshop will be both English and French.
For more details, contact the organizers, Jean-François Ponsot (CREG-Université Pierre Mendes France, Grenoble) and Mario Seccareccia (University of Ottawa).
10-12 July, 2014 | Kingston University, London, UK
The Global Financial Crisis has demonstrated the limitations of mainstream economic theory and neoliberal economic policy. This workshop will introduce two of the main alternatives to orthodoxy - Post Keynesian Economics and Marxist Political Economy. Post Keynesian Economics has at its core the concepts of effective demand and distributional conflict: individuals face fundamental uncertainty about the future; there is a central role for ‘animal spirits’ in the determination of investment decisions; inflation is the result of unresolved distributional conflicts; money is an endogenous creation of the private banking system; unemployment is determined by effective demand on the goods markets; financial markets are prone to periodic boom-bust cycles. Marxist Political Economy is focused on the fundamental conflict between capital and labour on the basis of the conception of the capitalist mode of production. It characterises capitalist production as intrinsically unstable, with financial crises sometimes the prelude to, and sometimes the result of, a crisis of over-accumulation of capital. It stresses the use of mass unemployment as a key element of the ‘cure’ for these problems. Marxist analysis looks to value form analysis to trace fundamental developments in capitalism and emphasises the role of the state in organizing the political and economic hegemony of capital. The workshop is aimed at students of economics and social sciences. As the aim of Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy ultimately is to provide the foundation for progressive economic policies, it may of interest for a broader audience.
PROGRAMME:
ORGANISING COMMITTEE:
Engelbert Stockhammer, Kingston University (email: e.stockhammer@kingston.ac.uk), Nina Kaltenbrunner, Leeds University, Jo Michell, University of the West of Englan
BOOKING:
Booking must be done online.
PKSG has set aside a fixed sum to assist with the registration and UK travel costs of student participants at the workshop (please note this does not include the costs of travel to the UK). If you are unable to secure funding elsewhere, you are warmly encouraged to apply to the PKSG Secretary by email in the first instance, indicating your total UK travel expenses and the amount that you need to find from your own pocket. Applications should be made no later than 31 July 2014 and will then be considered as a group. If the requirement exceeds the fund available, the fund will be allocated pro-rata at the discretion of PKSG. If you are made an award, you will then need to present receipts before payment will be made, by bank transfer to a UK bank account, or otherwise by PayPal.
LOCATION:
John Galsworthy Building, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston, Surrey, KT1 2EE. Accommodation will be in the Seething Wells Halls of Residence, Kingston University, Portsmouth Road, Surbiton, Surrey, KT6 5PJ.
More information about PSKG and PERG is available here and here.
29 May, 2014 | Vancouver, Canada
The Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) will host a Summer School in Heterodox Economics in Vancouver on May 29, 2014, prior to Canadian Economics Association annual conference in Vancouver from May 30 to June 1, 2014. The Summer School is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students of economics or related fields, and working economists in academia, the labour movement and NGOs.
The theme for the summer school is Economics that Works for People and the Planet.
In six hour-long lectures, participants will be introduced to some of the diversity of heterodox approaches to economics, covering perspectives and methods that are overlooked in conventional (neoclassical) economics curricula.
Program
Costs and Scholarships
Summer school participation is free for those accepted. Lunch and dinner will be provided on the day of the Summer School. Out-of-town participants are responsible for their own travel costs. Limited travel scholarships for one night accommodation will be available for select participants.
Application
Applicants should be undergraduate and graduates students of economics or related fields, and working economists in academia, the labour movement and NGOs. Note that this is not Econ 101 but assumes a basic knowledge of economics concepts. Introductory macro and micro economics are the minimum prerequisites. Space is limited, so don’t delay.
The Summer School will be held at the SFU Harbour Centre. Apply now online here.
Questions? Email to PEFSummerSchool2014@gmail.com.
Title: Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
The Department of Economics at Roosevelt University invites applications for a one-year visiting assistant professor position, with an annual teaching load of 8 courses, beginning Fall 2014. Primary responsibilities will be teaching courses in Economic Development, International Trade, and the History of Economics. The remainder of the course load will be chosen from principles of economics courses and from the expertise of the candidate. Roosevelt has a long tradition of teaching and scholarship in economics from Heterodox perspectives and welcomes candidates working in that tradition.
The principles that gave rise to us continue to drive us. Roosevelt University was founded in 1945 on the belief that higher education should be accessible to all academically qualified students. Today, Roosevelt is the fourth most ethnically diverse college in the Midwest (U.S. News and World Report, 2013), and a nonsectarian institution that prepares students to assume roles as leaders in their professions and communities.
The College of Arts and Sciences, with a faculty of over 120 committed scholar-teachers, provides students with a strong liberal-arts foundation as well as more than three dozen innovative courses of study emphasizing interdisciplinary and civic engagement.
Applicants should apply online here and upload a letter of interest, CV, and list of three professional references. Letters of recommendation should be sent to Search Committee, Department of Economics, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605.
For optimal consideration apply by April 15, 2014. Discipline specific questions should be directed to the Chair, Gary Langer.
Sarah Lawrence College is seeking applicants for a full-time one year guest position in economics, with the possibility of renewal for a second year. The position would include teaching a year-long introductory economics course, plus either one year-long or two semester-long seminars. Topics of interest include development, economics of inequality, or heterodox microeconomics; but candidates are encouraged to propose courses in their areas of interest. The Sarah Lawrence economics program is heterodox in approach - the successful candidate must be able to teach across the paradigms in economics, and is encouraged to incorporate interdisciplinary material into course design.
Sarah Lawrence is a teaching-intensive liberal arts college that incorporates one-on-one work with students along with seminars and small lectures.
Candidates with completed PhD are preferred; teaching experience is a must.
Application should include a cover letter, vitae, and syllabi for courses taught or proposed. Send material by May 1 to Marilyn Power at mpower@sarahlawrence.edu.
For information on Sarah Lawrence College, our curriculum, teaching methods, and philosophy of education, please see our website. SLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to achieving a racially and culturally diverse community.
Teaching Fellow (fixed-term post)
Social & Policy Sciences
Salary: Starting from £30,728, rising to £36,661
Closing Date: Tuesday 06 May 2014
Interview Date: Tuesday 27 May 2014
Reference: CC2290
The Department of Social and Policy Sciences (weblink) is one of the leading centres for social sciences in the UK. It has an excellent reputation for cutting-edge, theoretically informed and interdisciplinary research, as well as innovative teaching. The Department offers teaching on highly successful undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in International Development. The purpose of this post is to provide high quality teaching and supervision in Development Economics.
We are seeking to recruit an exceptional individual with a clear commitment to the field of international development and a level of professional achievement commensurate with the post. The successful candidate will hold a degree in a relevant subject area, teaching experience at University-level in the area of Development Economics, and be able to satisfy the essential criteria detailed in the job description.
For more information about International Development within the Department, please go here.
This is a fixed-term post for one year to cover maternity leave.
Proposed start date: 1 July, 2014
For informal enquiries please contact:
A detailed job description is available here.
Lectureships in Economics (3)
The Division of Economics is an innovative and dynamic area within the School of Social and International Studies at the University of Bradford with an internationally diverse student body and a commitment to quality teaching and applied research. The Division is proud of its consistently strong NSS results and of its policy-relevant research activity. Building on this success the Division is seeking to appoint up to three enthusiastic and effective lecturers to support our expanding undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes and to make an important contribution to our research output and research degree supervision.
We are seeking applications from candidates with significant teaching experience in the core areas of microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics and a record of research publications. We particularly welcome applications from those who can offer, in addition, the ability to teach in the area of labour economics, international economics or financial economics and banking.
Candidates should hold / be near completing (Grade 8), or hold a PhD in economics (Grade 9) and be research active. Candidates should have established a research profile in line with the interests of the Division and experience of managing research.
The University of Bradford strives to be an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.
Informal enquiries prior to application may be made to Dr Vince Fitzsimons: Head, Division of Economics by email to v.g.fitzsimons@bradford.ac.uk
Further details:
Closing Date: 27th April 2014
In honour of the great critical economist Mark Blaug (1927-2011), from 2014 the Foundation for European Economic Development (FEED) is financing and awarding an annual student essay prize.Eligible essays submitted for the prize must be critical discussions of any aspect of modern economics. The required language is English. Eligible essays are by university undergraduates, or by graduates who obtained their Bachelor’s degree no earlier than 1 January 2013. There are no residential or geographical restrictions.
Up to two prizes will be awarded each year, depending on the quality of the best papers. The respective awards will be £500 and £300. FEED will reserve the right to award no prize, or one prize only, if there are inadequate essays of quality. The prizes will be judged by an international committee of leading scholars.
Essays should be a maximum of 8,000 words and submitted by email to g.m.hodgson@herts.ac.uk by 15 October 2014. The awards will be made in London in early 2015.
The Mark Blaug Student Essay Prize is promoted in collaboration with Rethinking Economics.
Introduction
Introduction to the special issue: papers from the IX INEM Conference in Helsinki by Aki Lehtinen, Uskali Mäki & Caterina Marchionni
Articles
Why macroeconomics does not supervene on microeconomics by Brian Epstein
Understanding with theoretical models by Petri Ylikoski & N. Emrah Aydinonat
A non-monotonic intensional framework for framing effects by Silvia Lerner
Causal models and evidential pluralism in econometrics by Alessio Moneta & Federica Russo
The role of experts in the methodology of economics by Carlo Martini
Book Reviews
Mainstreaming Behavioral Economics by Floris Heukelom
Philosophy of economics [Handbook of the philosophy of science, vol. 13] by David Teira
Philosophy of economics for real by Stefan Mendritzki
"The Cost of Fiscal Disunion in Europe and the New Model of Fiscal Federalism" by Guido Montan
"Exchange Rates, Monetary Aggregates, and Inflation" by Jerry Mushin
"The Ongoing Crisis: Questions for Keynesian theory" by Davide Gualerzi
"Structural Transformation, the Agro-Food Sector, and Economic Growth in Central Eastern Europe. An Input-Output Analysis" by Dimitrios Kyrkilis, Evangelos Nikolaidis & Charalampos Economidis
Link to the journal is available here.
Should the History of Economic Thought be Included in Undergraduate Curricula? by Alessandro Roncaglia
A commentary on Alessandro Roncaglia’s paper: ‘Should the History of Economic Thought be Included in Undergraduate Curricula?’ by Nicholas J. Theocarakis
From Rational Choice to Reflexivity: Learning from Sen, Keynes, Hayek, Soros, and most of all, from Darwin by Alex Rosenberg
Adam Smith’s Natural Prices, the Gravitation Metaphor, and the Purposes of Nature by David Andrews
Economics as a Science, Economics as a Vocation: A Weberian Examination of Robert Heilbroner’s Philosophy of Economics by Daniyal Khan
Land, Gender, and Food Security by Cheryl Doss, Gale Summerfield & Dzodzi Tsikata
Transnational Land Deals and Gender Equality: Utilitarian and Human Rights Approaches by Poul Wisborg
Land Grabs, Power, and Gender in East and Southern Africa: So, What's New? by Ritu Verma
Who Owns the Land? Perspectives from Rural Ugandans and Implications for Large-Scale Land Acquisitions by Cheryl Doss, Ruth Meinzen-Dick & Allan Bomuhangi
Small and Productive: Kenyan Women and Crop Choice by Mwangi wa Gĩthĩnji, Charalampos Konstantinidis & Andrew Barenberg
Land Tenure Insecurity and Formalizing Land Rights in Madagascar: A Gender Perspective on the Certification Program by Marit Widman
Can the Law Secure Women's Rights to Land in Africa? Revisiting Tensions Between Culture and Land Commercialization by Lyn Ossome
Women and Land Deals in Africa and Asia: Weighing the Implications and Changing the Game by Elizabeth Daley & Sabine Pallas
When a Good Business Model is Not Enough: Land Transactions and Gendered Livelihood Prospects in Rural Ghana by Dzodzi Tsikata & Joseph Awetori Yaro
Coercive Harmony in Land Acquisition: The Gendered Impact of Corporate “Responsibility” in the Brazilian Amazon by Noemi Miyasaka Porro & Joaquim Shiraishi Neto
Double Trouble: US Low-Wage and Low-Income Workers, 1979–2011 by Randy Albelda & Michael Carr
The Institutional Basis of Gender Inequality: The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) by Boris Branisa, Stephan Klasen, Maria Ziegler, Denis Drechsler & Johannes Jütting
Counting Care Work in Social Policy: Valuing Unpaid Child- and Eldercare in Korea by Jayoung Yoon
Gender Differences in Italian Children's Capabilities by Tindara Addabbo, Maria Laura Di Tommaso & Anna Maccagnan
The Impact of Changing Family Structures on the Income Distribution among Costa Rican Women 1993–2009 by Maximilian Kasy & Alvaro Ramos-Chaves
Neo-classicism or pluralism? Teaching and research of economics during the era of neo-liberal reforms in India by Sudipta Bhattacharyya
Teaching poverty: a poverty of perspective by Sukanya Bose
Teaching economics: the experience at the University of Calcutta by Mahalaya Chatterjee
Economics education in Northeast India: inviting a second thought by Manik Bhattacharya and Basu Maan Daas
A critique of macroeconomics curriculum in India by Rajesh Bhattacharya and Anirban Mukherjee
Towards pluralism in a public economics course in India by Vikram Dayal
Denise E. Dollimore & Geoffrey M. Hodgson: Four essays on economic evolution: an introduction.
Stan Metcalfe: Capitalism and evolution
Viktor J. Vanberg: Darwinian paradigm, cultural evolution and human purposes: on F.A. Hayek’s evolutionary view of the market
Howard E. Aldrich & Tiantian Yang: How do entrepreneurs know what to do? learning and organizing in new ventures
Geoffrey M. Hodgson: The evolution of morality and the end of economic man
Marco Valente: An NK-like model for complexity
Nathalie Lazaric & Alain Raybaut: Do incentive systems spur work motivation of inventors in high tech firms? A group-based perspective
Raphaël Chiappini: Persistence vs. mobility in industrial and technological specialisations: evidence from 11 Euro area countries
Magda Fontana: Pluralism(s) in economics: lessons from complexity and innovation. A review paper
John Foster: Energy, knowledge and economic growth.
Ping Chen: Metabolic growth theory: market-share competition, learning uncertainty, and technology wavelets.
Peter M. Allen: Evolution: complexity, uncertainty and innovation.
Esben Sloth Andersen & Jacob Rubæk Holm: The signs of change in economic evolution.
Félix-Fernando Muñoz & María-Isabel Encinar: Intentionality and the emergence of complexity: an analytical approach.
David A. Harper: Property rights as a complex adaptive system: how entrepreneurship transforms intellectual property structures.
Peter Hall & Robert Wylie: Isolation and technological innovation.
Hans-Jürgen Engelbrecht: A general model of the innovation - subjective well-being nexus.
Abiodun Egbetokun & Ivan Savin: Absorptive capacity and innovation: when is it better to cooperate?
Alessandro Caiani, Antoine Godin & Stefano Lucarelli: Innovation and finance: a stock flow consistent analysis of great surges of development
Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens: Income inequality and redistribution in post-industrial democracies: demographic, economic and political determinants.
Heike Solga: Education, economic inequality and the promises of the social investment state.
Marius R. Busemeyer and Torben Iversen: The politics of opting out: explaining educational financing and popular support for public spending.
Jane Gingrich and Ben Ansell: Sorting for schools: housing, education and inequality.
Caroline Wozny and Martin R. Schneider: A matter of degree: the continuing training gap for women in Europe.
David Rueda: Dualization, crisis and the welfare state.
Anne Wren and Philipp Rehm: The end of the consensus? Labour market developments and the politics of retrenchment.
Carsten Q. Schneider and Kristin Makszin: Forms of welfare capitalism and education-based participatory inequality.
By Francesco Forte, Ram Mudambi and Pietro Maria Navarra | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
This comprehensive and thought-provoking Handbook reviews public sector economics from pluralist perspectives that either complement or reach beyond mainstream views.
The book takes a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, drawing on economic elements in the fields of philosophy, sociology, psychology, history and law. The expert contributors present new methodological approaches across these disciplines in distinct sections:
Academics, researchers and students with an interest in economics – particularly public sector economics and Austrian economics – and public policy will find this Handbook to be an invaluable reference tool.
Link to the book.
By Richard Seymour | 2014, PlutoPress
Five years into capitalism's deepest crisis, which has led to cuts and economic pain across the world, Against Austerity addresses a puzzling aspect of the current conjuncture: why are the rich still getting away with it? Why is protest so ephemeral? Why does the left appear to be marginal to political life?
In an analysis which challenges our understanding of capitalism, class and ideology, Richard Seymour shows how ‘austerity’ is just one part of a wider elite plan to radically re-engineer society and everyday life in the interests of profit, consumerism and speculative finance.
But Against Austerity is not a gospel of despair. Seymour argues that once we turn to face the headwinds of this new reality, dispensing with reassuring dogmas, we can forge new collective resistance and alternatives to the current system. Following Brecht, Against Austerity argues that the good old things are over, it's time to confront the bad new ones.
Link to the book.
By Ole Bjerg | 2014, VersoBooks
What is money? Where does it come from? Who makes it? And how can we understand the current state of our economy as a crisis of money itself?
In Making Money, Ole Bjerg turns these questions into a matter of philosophical rather than economic analysis. Applying the thinking of Slavoj Žižek and other scholars to mainstream economic literature, Bjerg provides a radical new way of looking at the mysterious stuff we use to buy things. It is a theory unfolded in reflections on the nature of monetary phenomena such as financial markets, banks, debt, credit, derivatives, gold, risk, value, price, interests, and arbitrage. The analysis of money is put into an historical context, suggesting that the current financial turbulence and debt crisis are evidence that we live in the age of post-credit capitalism. By bridging the fields of economics and contemporary philosophy, Bjerg's work engages in a compelling form of intellectual arbitrage.
Link to the book.
By Gianfranco Tusset | 2014, Pickering & Chatto
Can money improve economic organization? Between 1909 and 1917, Gustavo Del Vecchio, an Italian economist, developed a ‘theory of circulation’. In a series of articles he set out his thoughts on the utility and value of money, credit, discount rates, banking and international payments. Tusset re-evaluates Del Vecchio’s theory, concluding that money represents a technology which organizes both economy and society.
Link to the book.
By Roger A. McCain | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
The objectives of this book are twofold. Firstly, it proposes that economics should be defined as a study of imperfect cooperation. Secondly, it elucidates the continuities that extend from classical political economy through the neoclassical, Keynesian, and modern economics of the twenty-first century.
Roger McCain explores economics as the study of cooperative arrangements, or the ways in which people work together. He asserts that there is no ‘new paradigm’, but rather a more encompassing cognitive frame. In the same spirit, the book borrows freely, without doctrinairism, from Austrian and other heterodox traditions – including Marxism where it is helpful – and social philosophers in the social contract tradition. Game theory of both branches plays a key role throughout.
Presenting an innovative new framework for the major topics that together make up economic theory, this highly accessible book will strongly appeal to economics scholars, researchers and students, especially those in the fields of heterodox economics and the history of economic thought.
Link to the book.
By J. E. King | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
In this challenging book, John King makes a sustained and comprehensive attack on the dogma that macroeconomic theory must have ‘rigorous microfoundations’.
He draws on both the philosophy of science and the history of economic thought to demonstrate the dangers of foundational metaphors and the defects of micro-reduction as a methodological principle. Strong criticism of the microfoundations dogma is documented in great detail, from some mainstream and many heterodox economists and also from economic methodologists, social theorists and evolutionary biologists. The author argues for the relative autonomy of macroeconomics as a distinct ‘special science’, cooperating with but most definitely not reducible to microeconomics.
The Microfoundations Delusion will prove a stimulating and thought-provoking read for scholars, students and researchers in the fields of economics, heterodox economics and history of economic thought.
Link to the book.
By Andy Merrifield | 2014, PlutoPress
The New Urban Question is an exuberant and illuminating adventure through our current global urban condition, tracing the connections between radical urban theory and political activism.
From Haussmann’s attempts to use urban planning to rid 19th-century Paris of workers revolution to the contemporary metropolis, including urban disaster-zones such as downtown Detroit, Merrifield reveals how the urban experience has been profoundly shaped by class antagonism and been the battle-ground for conspiracies, revolts and social eruptions.
Going beyond the work of earlier urban theorists such as Manuel Castells, Merrifield identifies the new urban question that has emerged and demands urgent attention, as the city becomes a site of active plunder by capital and the setting for new forms of urban struggle, from Occupy to the Indignados.
Link to the book.
By C. Simon Fan | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
This book presents an accessible and sometimes controversial economic exploration of numerous issues surrounding sex, marriage and family. It analyzes the role of ‘vanity’, defined as social status and self-esteem, in social and economic behaviors. In Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption, vanity is associated with the consumption of luxuries such as expensive handbags and cars. In this book, Simon Fan provocatively argues that vanity is obtained by having a spouse and children with perceived ‘high-quality’ values, for example, a beautiful wife, a tall husband or intelligent offspring. He demonstrates from various perspectives that vanity plays a crucial role in male–female relationships and intergenerational relationships. In so doing, he challenges the conventional frontier of economics and contributes to other social sciences. This unique book will appeal to the educated general reader and interested academic alike.
Link to the book.
iBuild is a consortium of Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham Universities. It is one of two Centres set up as part of the National Infrastructure Plan, published by the Government in 2011, with funding from the EPSRC and the ESRC. The Centres’ role is to catalyse and inform the national debate about the future of the UK’s infrastructure.
The aim is to develop new approaches to infrastructure business models with the ultimate goal of replacing current public-private business models that in many cases provide poor value. Leeds University Business School leads economics, business and social science-related research in iBuild. We are currently seeking PhD studentship applications for research topics that fit within this broad portfolio of research. Relevant general themes include value, well-being, resilience and sustainability. More specific themes include:
These themes arise in a context where the discipline of economics and its boundaries with other disciplines are in flux. For example, behavioural economics, agent-based complexity economics, happiness economics and, in the wake of the economic crisis, heterodox economics and political economy have emerged in interdisciplinary contexts such as economic geography, management and business studies (e.g. ‘value chain’ analysis) and international political economy (e.g. ‘varieties of capitalism’). The time is apposite to harness the best of these approaches to infrastructure studies. Applications from any relevant discipline are invited. Successful applicants will be attached to the new IMBUES Centre of LUBS (which coordinates LUBS’s contributions to iBuild).
The deadline for full applications is 30 April 2014. For further information on how to apply, please contact Matthew Armstrong.
Timothy A. Wise: To end hunger, global policy can't be 'business as usual'
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It was, of all people, Elizabeth Windsor who laid the charge most forcefully. Opening a new building at the LSE, weeks after Lehman Brothers imploded, she asked one of the dons why no one had seen the meltdown coming. In the years since, it has often seemed as if students are more serious than their lecturers about pursuing the monarch's concern.
Undergraduates at Sheffield and Cambridge have set out to rattle the foundation stones of their discipline. In Manchester, they went further, organising the Post-Crash Economics Society and securing more eclectic instruction, through a new Bubbles, Panics and Crashes module. Covering the former Fed boss, Ben Bernanke, as well as the interwar Marxist, Kalecki, the course was not reducible to right or left. It offered something closer to economics as understood in Keynes's Cambridge. Manchester, however, has now declined to accredit the course, and instead opted to pull the plug.
There are, of course, outstanding scholars within the economics mainstream. Its pre-eminent theorist, Kenneth Arrow, wrote for the Guardian within weeks of the crisis that the discourse he helped develop – about finance improving the distribution of risk – had become increasingly vulnerable to rival analysis, which emphasised how markets go awry where buyers and sellers have different information. The roots of that evolution go back to the 1970s, but it has picked up since 2008. The mainstream can also fairly point out that "non-linear" phenomena, such as bubbles and panics, are inherently hard to predict, which half-answers the Queen's question.
The awkward thing, however, is that there were those who spotted at least the possibility of trouble on the horizon; it is just that they were rarely mainstream economists. Several journalists were asking sharper questions than academics. To take one example, the FT's Gillian Tett, who has a background in anthropology rather than economics, asked where the frenzied debt dance would end. A grasp of the human propensity for herding is more useful in getting a handle on bubbles and crashes than any postulations about the individualistic calculations of rational economic man.
The failure to spot the crisis raised wider questions about the discipline's usefulness. It can shelter behind unavoidable ambiguities regarding the price of both labour and capital. Will workers respond to income tax cuts by striving for the extra earnings they can now keep or by skiving, on the basis that they can now afford to take more time off? Do high interest rates induce savers to scrimp or encourage them to go out and blow their extra return? No one can say without interrogating the data – which good economists do try to do. But hopes of clear answers are retarded by departments that treat the subject as a branch of applied mathematics, and by practitioners less concerned with the insight than the arithmetical tractability of their models.
These shortcomings go back to "the marginal revolution", which jettisoned the dynamic, sweeping preoccupations of 19th century classical political economy in favour of a narrower but more precise concern with movements between market equilibrium. But the big questions that concerned Mill, Marx and Smith are now rearing their heads afresh.
Michael Sandel's What Money Can't Buy unearthed the hidden moral assumptions of all the theory. Daniel Kahneman spent his career exploring how the way economic choices are conceived affects what decisions are made, but these days he can pack out Westminster Hall by speaking about his conclusions. Now Thomas Piketty – who spent long years, during which the mainstream neglected inequality, mapping the distribution of income – is making waves with Capital in the 21st Century. Nodding at Marx, that title helps explain the attention, but his decidedly classical emphasis on historical dynamics in determining who gets what resonates in a world where an increasing proportion of citizens are feeling fleeced by the elite. The tide of intellectual history is on the side of Manchester's students.
On March 21, 2014, Marc Lavoie of University of Ottawa presented a seminar on Heterodox and Post-Keynesian Economics at University of Missouri Kansas City.
Prof. Lavoie graciously provided his slides and they are available here.