Issue 166 July 07, 2014 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory
This issue of the Newsletter comes with two special features:
First, I am honored to present you the new homepage of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter, which can be accessed here. A transmission to a new site was necessary primary for technical reasons. However, in updating the site we also tried to improve its accessibility as well as its graphical display. We are happy to receive any feedback on the new site - if you have any kind of comment or criticism, we would be happy if you could send us a short email.
Second, I wanted to share with you my slightly longish review on Thomas Piketty's outstanding and controversial book "Capital in the 21st century". In previous editorials I had indicated that I think that this book has the potential to facilitate paradigmatic change in economics, while at the same time I critically commented on its mainly neoclassical orientation in terms of economic theory. In my review I further extend my analysis along these lines and try to summarize Piketty's most important arguments from a heterodox economic perspective. In doing so I find that while Piketty's book indeed is suitable for challenging much of mainstream economic thought, its potential for doing so must first be fully exacerbated. While I also discuss some important heterodox criticisms of Piketty's work, my main message for the heterodox economics community is to closely study Piketty's contribution instead of light-heartedly dismissing it. After all, what Piketty produced is a great pillar of knowledge with many possible connections to heterodox economic thought and concepts; I think the scholarly task is yet to translate and transmit these findings most constructively into the current state of heterodox economic knowledge. I tried to write my review in a way that should facilitate such an engagement with Piketty's contribution and I sincerely hope it to be taken up in the very same spirit!
Finally, please mind that the Newsletter has now entered "summer mode" and our next issue will be published in four weeks on the 4th of August 2014.
All the best and have a nice summer!
Jakob
© public domain
30 October - 1 November, 2014 | Berlin, Germany
The organisers of the conference have extended the deadline for paper proposals, originally 30 June, by one month to 31 July.
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 detailed Call for Papers is available here (pdf).
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 on the Research Network and the conference: www.network-macroeconomics.org or on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fmm.imk
15-16 December, 2014 | Roskilde University, Denmark
The corporation and its powers continue to attract significant attention in academic research, amongst policy-makers and activists, whether conceived as a symbol of globalization, a harbinger of economic growth and development, a ‘new sovereign’ or an agent of accumulation by dispossession. In this workshop, we seek to probe the question of global corporate power a step further by turning our attention to the entanglements between corporations, gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as the gendered power constructs underlying corporations in particular, and the global political economy more broadly.
Concepts such as the ‘Double X Economy’ or ‘Transnational Business Feminism’ provide us with important theoretical entry points to apprehend the possibilities and limits of corporate discourses and practices which are growing increasingly attentive to women as investors, board members, employees, entrepreneurs and consumers. Moreover, there is no shortage of empirical evidence suggesting that corporations have found in women a new source of competitive advantage and ethical concern. We see this reflected in research and policy debates on gender quotas; the adoption of gender sensitive principles of conduct; strategic decisions to source from businesses owned by women; as well as in the proliferation of various ‘pink’ philanthropic programmes and public-private partnerships across and between countries in the global North and South alike.
Inspired by these developments, we aim to initiate a critical interdisciplinary dialogue advancing our theoretical and empirical knowledge on the elective affinity between corporations and women, and critical of the underlying gender constructs that privilege a variety of corporate masculinities. We welcome papers from a broad range of disciplines including international political economy, sociology, geography, social anthropology, law, gender studies and heterodox economics addressing, amongst others, one or more of the following questions:
The one-day workshop will feature a keynote address by V. Spike Peterson (University of Arizona) and a roundtable with invited guests from academia and the NGO community.
Workshop organisers: Susan Jackson (Malmø University), Laura Horn (Roskilde University) and Catia Gregoratti (Lund University),
Interested scholars are kindly asked to send an abstract of 200-300 words to: ipeoresund@gmail.com by August 30, 2014. Notifications of acceptance will be sent in mid-September.
Please note that we have only very limited funding for travel and accommodation of workshop participants. Please indicate in your submission if you would require funding in order to attend the workshop. The local organisers will assist participants with their bookings where needed.
7 November, 2014 | University of Bath (UK), Department of Social and Policy Science, UK
Theme: The Transformation of Latin American Social Policy: Dynamics, Institutions and Outcomes
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
This is an exciting time for the study of social policy in Latin America. During the twenty-first century, social policy in the region has been transforming at an unprecedented scale. Rapid and diverse policy changes have taken social protection to groups of the population never reached before. New institutional landscapes and modes of welfare governance have emerged, redefining the roles of the state, market and the family in social protection. These have resulted in new patterns of redistribution affecting the wellbeing of millions of Latin Americans. Our conference will address the following questions:
We invite papers willing to explore one or more of these topics. These may take the form of a national case study, sub-national or cross-national comparisons or studies of wider regional dynamics affecting social policy.
Contributions from doctoral students are very welcome.
A select number of papers will be included in a proposal for a special issue in a peer-reviewed Journal.
Hosting and fees:
There is no conference participation fee. The conference is hosted by the Institute for Policy Research and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy at the University of Bath.
Abstract Submission and deadline: Please send abstracts (maximum 300 words) to rvl20@bath.ac.uk
Conference organizers Dr. Theo Papadopoulos and Mr. Ricardo Velazquez Leyer (Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath)
For further queries, please contact Ricardo Velazquez Leyer at r.velazquez.leyer@bath.ac.uk or visit this website.
21-22 November, 2014 | New Europe College-Institute for Advanced Study, Bucharest, Romania
More information about the conference is available here and here. Contact: veronica.lazar@yahoo.com
Marxist thought used to regard 17th and 18th century French and English materialism (from Bacon to Holbach) as constitutionally unable to think history, apprehending “matter” only as physical nature, organized according to eternal laws of motion and composition, and never as praxis – the capacity that human beings may have to produce their own history under certain material conditions. The new (social and historical) materialism that Marxism intended to develop would then be dialectically opposed to this mechanicist materialism. The aim of the present conference is to question this Marxist thesis of a radical split between the two materialisms, not by actually turning it on its head, but by drawing attention to other textual sources from the Enlightenment – theories of history, works of political philosophy or political economy, etc. – in order to identify some of the elements that indirectly fed what we now call ‘historical materialism’.
***
Private vices, public virtues: Mandeville’s maxim, which replaces the individual quest for redemption with a collective interest little concerned with virtue, announces an 18th century innovation which would have no less impact on ethical models than on the categories of political thought. What can be traced from here is the emergence of a new image of collective being, namely society. And it’s mainly because of one form or another of thinking about economy that, in the second half of the century, particularly in France and Scotland, a notion of society would develop, construing it as an autonomous, immanent entity, governed by its own principles and regularities, irreducible to the interventions of providence and transcending the actions of individuals. What we broadly call today economy would then function as a privileged medium in which society would develop and reveal itself as a new synthesis.
Consequently, as manifested in both the rather static models typical for French economic theories and the dynamic Scottish historical outlines, the 18th century develops an early version of what, starting from the 19th century, will be called ‘economism’ – an explanation of social forms which roots them in labour, exchange, production techniques and the specific mechanisms of the reproduction of biological and social being. Nevertheless, this 'economism' seems closer to Montesquieu’s theory of mores and manners (as vague as the latter appeared to Althusser to be) than to the technological determinism so cherished by Engels’s descendants; its core is usually psychological and moral, and it is built on a theory of passions.
The inquiry will then focus on the possible unintended consequences of this theoretical mutation. The purpose of the discussion is to establish in what sense we can talk about 18th century French and Scottish political, philosophical and economical thought as having anticipated that intellectual current – born in the 19th century in the midst of the Marxist theoretical movement – known as historical materialism. Or, even better, to establish whether we can relate economism to this 18th century political philosophy of unprecedented scope, to these new philosophies of history, supposed to account for long-term processes of transformation, or to this political economy founded on virtues and vices and impulses such as interest. How should this ‘materialism’ work as an explanation of social structures and developments, in order to deserve being called materialism, and on which level of the explanation must this ‘materiality’ be located? What is the relation between these anthropological (moral and psychological) traits and the historical dynamics of societies?
The conference will encourage an interdisciplinary approach, enlisting contributions from philosophers, historians, political scientists and political economists, so that historical materialism and 18th century theories of history and society illuminate each other. Avoiding any suggestion of teleology, we are endeavoring to explore how certain doctrines – sometimes very remote from socialism in their political principles – could have created some of the theoretical conditions for the emergence of this way of accounting for historical movements, known as historical materialism.
Languages of the conference: English or French.
Terms of submission: Proposals for papers should not exceed one page.
They should be prepared for peer review and sent before June 30 to the following address: veronica.lazar@yahoo.com
Answers will be sent by 15 July at the latest. Contributions should not exceed 35-40 minutes.
11-12 December, 2014 | International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, Netherlands
At least in Western-Europe and the US, radical approaches to history writing have long held a position in the margins of the field. This has been true since the decline in popularity of ‘critical theory’ and ‘history from below’ associated with the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. But there are signs of a revival. The global financial crisis that started in 2008 prompted new interest in the long history of capitalism, often intended to examine the ‘historic roots’ of the system’s most obvious flaws. The combined challenges of postcolonial theory and the re-emergence of vigorously nationalist and exclusionist discourse in the former colonial states have forced historians to re-engage with classical ideas on emancipation, race, and global inequality. Growing ecological concerns have spilled over into the writing of a new history of the changing relationship between humans and their natural environment. A new wave of ‘history from below’ has started to stress the transnational connections of the subaltern classes, as well as transcontinental flows of popular movements even before the era of the Industrial Revolution.
This workshop aims to bring together historians identifying with ‘critical’ or ‘radical history’ as a project in order to charge new terrain. Its central question is how radical history can contribute to formulating new agendas for research. The workshop will be organized around four themes:
i) The historiographical legacy of critical and radical history: in this theme we aim to explore the continuing relevance of twentieth century contributions to radical history writing, e.g. E.P. Thompson’s The making of the English working class, history from below, Foucault’s rethinking of power, world-system theory, subaltern studies, etc.
ii) Renewals in critical and radical history: in this theme we aim to discuss how new theoretical / historiographical approaches can contribute to the development of the field of history in the 21 century, e.g. on rethinking class, gender, ecology, global inequality, etc.
iii) The contribution of critical and radical history to specific research fields: in this theme we invite presentations of current research that contributes to the development of radical history in specific fields.
iv) The Netherlands and its empire as a case-study for the potential of critical and radical history: in this theme we invite presentations of current research that employs radical / critical approaches in writing the history of the Netherlands and its empire.
For this international workshop, we invite papers that reflect both ‘work in progress’ or finished research in any of these four topics. In doing so, we hope to bring together historians identifying with the project of developing new radical / critical approaches to history writing, stimulate the exchange of ideas, and formulate new agendas for research.
Pepijn Brandon (VU / University of Pittsburgh), Maral Jefroudi (IISH), Marcel van der Linden (IISH), David Mayer (editor International Review of Social History / IISH).
The workshop will take place at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, 12 December 2014. Keynote speech 11 December, Prof. Robin Blackburn, Essex University.
Please send your abstract to criticalhistorians@gmail.com before 10 July 2014. Published in historicalmaterialism.org.
17-18 October, 2014 | University of Bucharest, Romania
"Media and Communication in and after the Global Capitalist Crisis: Renewal, Reform or Revolution?
Research Network 18 covers the conference fee and accomodation in Bucharest for 6 participants (3 nights each, single room). If you want to apply for such financial assistance (e.g. because you are a PhD student without travel funds or because your university does not provide assistance for conference attendance), then please indicate this circumstance in your submission. Please note that this support excludes travel costs.
The world has experienced a global crisis of capitalism that started in 2008 and is continuing until now. It has been accompanied by a crisis of the state and a general crisis of legitimation of dominant ideologies such as neoliberalism. Responses to the crisis have been variegated and have included austerity measures of the state that have hit the weakest, an increased presence of progressive protests, revolutions and strikes that have made use of digital, social and traditional media in various ways, the rise of far-right movements and parties in many parts of Europe and other parts of the world, the Greek state’s closing down of public service broadcaster ERT and increased commercial pressure on public service broadcasting in general, new debates about how to strengthen public service media, increased socio-economic and class inequality in many parts of the world and at a global level, precarious forms of work in general and in the media and cultural industries in particular, the emergence of new media
reform movements, an extension and intensification of the crisis of newspapers and the print media, an increasing shift of advertising budgets to targeted ads on the Internet and along with this development the rise of commercial “social media” platforms, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the existence of a global surveillance-industrial complex that operates a communications surveillance system called “Prism” that involves the NSA and media companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk; discussions about the power and freedom of the press in light of the Levenson inquiry, shifting geographies of the political and media landscape that have to do with the economic rise of countries such as China and India.
Given this context, the main questions that ESA RN18’s 2014 conference asks and to which it invites contributions are:
Plenary sessions:
ESA RN18 welcomes submissions of abstracts for contributions. Questions that can for example be addressed include, but are not limited to the following ones:
* Media and capitalism:
How have capitalism and the media changed in recent years? Are there perspectives beyond capitalism and capitalist media? How can we best use critical/Marxist political economy and other critical approaches for understanding the media and capitalism today? What is the role of media and communication technologies in the financialization, acceleration, and globalization of the capitalist economy? What are the conditions of working in the media, cultural and communication industries in the contemporary times? What is the role of Marx today for understanding crisis, change, capitalism, communication, and critique?
* Media reform and media policy in times of crisis:
How do the media need to be reformed and changed in order to contribute to the emergence
of a good society? Which media reform movements are there and what are their goals? What have been policy ideas of how to overcome the crisis and deal with contemporary changes in relation to European media and communication industries? What can we learn from recent discussions about the media’s power and freedom, such as the Leveson inquiry? What are implications for media reforms?
* Media and the public sphere:
How should the concept of the public sphere best be conceived today and how does it relate to the media? How has the public sphere changed during the crisis in Europe and globally? What has been the relation between public and commercial broadcasting during and after the crisis? How have public service media changed, which threats and opportunities does it face? How can/should public service be renewed in the light of crisis, the Internet, and commercialisation? Can public service be extended from broadcasting to the online realm, digital and social media? What has been the role of public service media in Europe? How has this role transformed?
* Media and activism:
How can media scholars best cooperate with activists in order to contribute to a better media system and a better society? What are major trends in media activism today and how do activists use and confront the media and how do commercial, public and alternative
media relate to contemporary social movements? What have been important experiences of media activists and media reform organisations in the past couple of years? What are the opportunities, risks, limits and possibilities of media activism today?
For answering these questions, we also invite contributions and submissions by media activists, who want to talk about and share their experiences.
* Media ownership:
Who owns the media and ICTs? What are peculiar characteristics of knowledge and the media as property? What conflicts and contradictions are associated with it and how have they developed in times of crisis? How concentrated are the media and ICTs and how has this concentration changed since the start of the 2008 crisis? How has media and ICT ownership, convergence, de-convergence and concentration developed since the start of the 2008 crisis? What reforms of media and ICT ownership are needed in light of the crisis of capitalism and the crisis of intellectual property rights?
* Media and crisis:
What have been the main consequences of the crisis for media and communication in various parts of the world and Europe from a comparative perspective? What role have the media played in the construction of the crisis? How have the media conveyed the social and economic crises of recent years to citizens and what are the consequences of this flow of ideas and explanations? What role can they play in overcoming the crisis? What is the relationship of the media and class during and after the crisis? What role have ideologies (such as racism, right-wing extremism, fascism, neoliberalism, anti-Semitism, etc) played in the media during the crisis and what can we learn from it for reforming the media? How have audiences interpreted media contents that focus on austerity, crisis, neoliberalism, protests, revolutions, or media reforms?
* The globalisation of the media and society:
What are major trends in the globalisation of capitalism, society and the media? Given the globalisation of media and society, what are challenges for media and society today? What can we learn from non-Western media scholars and media cultures outside of Europe? Are concepts such as cultural/media imperialism, transnational cultural domination or the new imperialism feasible today and if so, in which ways?
* Digital and social media:
What is digital labour and how has class changed in the context of social and digital media? What is the connection of value creation, knowledge labour and digital labour? How do the global dimension and the global division of digital labour look like, especially in respect to China, India, Asia and Africa? How do new forms of exploitation and unremunerated labour (“free labour”, “crowdsourcing”) look like in the media sector (e.g. in the context of Internet platforms such as Facebook or Google)? What is the relationship of the commons and commodification on digital and social media? How do capital accumulation and targeted advertising work on social media and what are their implications for users and citizens? What are alternatives to capitalist digital and social media? How can alternative social and digital media best look like and be organized? What can in this context be the roles of the digital commons, civil society media and public service media? Which ideologies of the Internet and social media are there? How can we best understand the surveillance-industrial Internet complex operated by the NSA together with Internet corporations such as Google and Facebook and what are the implications of Edward Snowden’s revelations? How do power and political economy work in the context of platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WikiLeaks, Wikipedia, Weibo, LinkedIn, Blogspot/Blogger, Wordpress, VK, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, etc?
* Media and Critical Social Theory:
What can we learn and use from critical sociology and the sociology of critique when studying the media? What do critique and critical theory mean in contemporary times?
What are critical sociology and the sociology of critique and what are its roles for studying media and communication’s role in society? Which social theories do we need today for adequately understanding media & society in a critical way? What is the role of political economy and Marx’s theory for understanding media & society today?
* Communication and (Post-)Crisis:
How has the crisis affected the communication landscape in Europe and globally and what perspectives for the future are there? How do the working conditions in communication industries look like after the crisis? What are the challenges for communication industries in the near future in the context of the crisis and post-crisis? What is the role of post-crisis-communication industries in a globalised economy?
Conference Fee
For members of ESA RN18: 40 Euros
For non-members of ESA RN18: 60 Euros
Submission deadline: July 1, 2014
Submission per e-mail to christian.fuchs@uti.at (Abstracts as txt or doc file including a title, contact email, affiliation, 250-500 word abstract)
Reacting to economic and social problems (macroeconomic imbalances, restructuring, precariousness, long term unemployment, rising inequality, etc.) linked to the current system of financial globalization, monetary contestation is on the rise on several different levels. Involved in the discussion are governments and the private sector, with a view to proposing an alternative monetary system.
The monetary system is basically the outcome of a process of social and political compromise. It represents at a given period of history a certain idea of the common interest and, so to speak, of “joining forces”. Nevertheless monetary history has shown that no social order is inalterable. If the people involved in the common venture no longer feel at home with it, it can be called into question at any time. Could this be what the challenges mean that we are witnessing today: a permanent struggle to modify the existing social organisation and its monetary assumptions?
The special issue planned by theRégulation Reviewhas precisely this objective. It will study cases in which money is being debated in the context of the current monetary order and the underlying dynamics of accumulation in globalised financial capitalism. It will examine types of disagreement, groups of social players, economic and political initiatives, the ways in which the latter are driven, the different logics at work and their respective impacts (economic, monetary, social, political, environmental, etc.).
The focus will be on the political economy of money, going beyond the usual treatment, only too often narrowly economic and technical. Contributions will be particularly welcome from the social sciences and the humanities (not only economics, but also socioeconomics, sociology, political science, anthropology, history, philosophy, etc.) that embrace a politico-economic perspective. Preference will also be given to contributions based on fieldwork and to theoretical thinking that brings out the social, political and plural dimensions of money. The contemporary era will be central, but contributions that cover other periods will be included.
We plan four series of articles, to cover four different levels at which the monetary status quo is being challenged.
Articles should be submitted in French or English, and should not exceed 10 000 words in length (including notes and bibliography). Publication guidelines may be consulted here.
Articles should be sent to the following four addresses:
Submission deadline:November 15, 2014
Co-ordination: Bernard Castelli, Pepita Ould Ahmed and Jean-François Ponsot
6 November, 2014 | St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, UK
St Edmund’s College is pleased to announce the fifth in a series of biennial lectures in memory of the late Professor G.L.S. Shackle.
The invited speaker is:
To be held at 5.00pm on Thursday 6th November 2014 at the Faculty of Law in Lecture Room LG18, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DZ. Map is available here.
All are welcome. Entry is free. A reception will be held following the lecture and refreshments will be provided.
For further details please download the poster and publicity information:
Shackle Poster download (pdf).
Publicity information download (docx)
Enquiries: please contact the Master's Secretary (masters.office@st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk) Tel: 01223 336122.
28 July - 1 August, 2014 | Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina
Primera Escuela de Invierno para estudiantes de Economía: “Tópicos Avanzados de Economía Heterodoxa"
La Maestría en Desarrollo Económico de la Escuela de Economía y Negocios de la Universidad Nacional de San Martín invita a estudiantes avanzados de las carreras de Economía de todo el país y América Latina a la primera edición de su Escuela de Invierno a realizarse entre el lunes 28 de julio y el viernes 1 de agosto de 2014, en la sede de la UNSAM sita en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.
La Escuela de Invierno ofrece un panorama conceptual de las distintas vertientes “heterodoxas” que usualmente no son cubiertas en los programas de estudio de las carreras de grado, contemplando las dimensiones más relevantes del desarrollo económico, desde las teorías del crecimiento y la distribución hasta los asuntos de género, la micro-dinámica del cambio tecnológico o la teoría del comercio internacional, incluyendo cuestiones metodológicas y epistemológicas, con énfasis en la problemática de América Latina.
Las clases serán dictadas por el cuerpo docente de la Maestría en Desarrollo Económico y la Licenciatura en Economía de la Escuela de Economía y Negocios de la UNSAM.
11 September, 2014 | University of Sheffield, UK
A number of us at the law school have research interests in the role of money in the modern economy, particularly the role it plays in relation to the stability of the financial system. At Sheffield Law School (and as lawyers), we believe that the dominant narrative concerning banks as mere financial intermediaries misconceives both the role of banks and the nature of money itself. To this end, we are hosting Professor L. Randall Wray of the University of Missouri-Kansas-City, and the Institute of New Economic Thinking in September 2014.
As I'm sure you're aware, Professor Wray is at the forefront of MMT and was a PhD student of Hyman Minsky. Professor Wray is due to give a public lecture at the University of Sheffield on 'Law, Banking & Monetary Theory', on 11th September 2014, to which we would like to invite the interested readers of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter.
Yours Faithfully
Dr Jay Cullen
At the New Economy Coalition’s June conference in Boston, Neva Goodwin, co-Director of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts, moderated a panel on “How to change the Teaching of Economics”.
The panelists (and the audience) were asked: “Suppose we agree on what should be taught in economics curricula, how can such change be brought about?”
The session focused on the forces acting as barriers against incorporating different content in economics courses, and strategic approaches for overcoming these barriers. The report is available here.
If you are interested in commenting on it, we have posted a few questions at surveymonkey — or just respond directly to neva.goodwin@tufts.edu.
The Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy Seeks a Committed and Organized Conference Organizer
Date: September 2014 - November 2015
The Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (ECWD; east.usworker.coop) is an educational organization dedicated to promoting worker cooperatives and the cooperative economy. We aim to make the skills, information and networks necessary to run a successful cooperative business available as widely as possible through educational events such as our bi-annual conference. Founded in 1999, the 2014 conference will be our eighth conference.
We are seeking an individual or team of two to organize and implement the 2015 regional conference on worker cooperatives and workplace democracy. The conference will be held in June or July 2015 in Worcester, MA. The Conference Organizer will work closely with the Eastern Coordinating Council (ECC - the conference planning committee), and focused sub-committees of the ECC.
Responsibilities:
Qualifications:
Preferred but not required:
Time commitment:
This job will run from September 1, 2014 through approximately November 30, 2015. Work commitments each week will vary, from 5 hours per week for the first few months of the contract to 20+ hours in the months prior to the conference. During the weeks before and during the conference the candidate(s) will need to be available almost exclusively for work on the project.
The Lead Organizer(s) will be required to be on site at the conference before, during, and immediately after the conference.
Compensation:
To apply: Submit cover letter, résumé, and three references to the hiring committee at hiring@east.usworker.coop.
Those interested in working as a pair shall submit application in a single email; only one cover letter is necessary per group.
Deadline to apply: July 15, 2014 at midnight.
ECWD aims to build a multiracial and class-diverse leadership that reflects the future of the solidarity economy in the Eastern half of the United Space. Women, people of color and others who may be underrepresented within ECWD are strongly encouraged to apply.
The Department for Women’s and Gender Studies of the JKU invites applications for a Post-Doc position. The appointment will be for a fixed term of six years.
The successful candidate has to hold a doctorate or PhD in the social or economic sciences and has to have experience in the area of „Work an Gender“.
Applicants who hold an economics degree and have excellent skills in applied labor economics will be preferred.
For further details please check the official announcement here or contact Prof. Doris Weichselbaumer (doris.weichselbaumer@jku.at).
Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, copies of course grades and degrees as well as two selected research papers.
The applications should be addressed to:
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Personalmanagement
Altenberger Str. 69
4040 Linz
Austria
Electronic submissions to persabt@jku.at are also possible. It is necessary to include „Anzeigennummer 2801“ on the application.
Closing date is July 27, 2014.
Academics Stand Against Poverty, Global Financial Integrity, and the Yale Global Justice Program invite submissions of original essays on illicit financial flows to the first annual Amartya Sen Prize Contest. All prizes are named in honor of Amartya Sen, whose work has shown how the rigor of economic thinking can be brought to bear on normative and practical questions of great human significance.
Illicit financial flows are international movements of funds that have been illegally earned or are being illegally transferred or utilized. Such flows may involve proceeds of corruption or other crimes–or may be associated with efforts to evade corporate or individual taxation. According to Global Financial Integrity, developing countries are especially damaged by illicit financial outflows, losing some $6 trillion in the decade ending in 2011 and about $1 trillion per annum more recently. Illicit financial flows are thought to perpetuate poverty and forestall equitable development by depriving societies of tax revenue and investment capital that could be used to promote economic growth and alleviate deprivation.
The 2014 Amartya Sen Prize Contest is soliciting original essays of ca. 7,000 to 9,000 words on how illicit financial flows relate to global poverty and inequality. Such essays could be empirical, analyzing for instance the distributional impact of illicit financial flows on the evolution of poverty or inequality. They could be normative, reflecting perhaps on who bears what responsibilities for the adverse effects of illicit financial flows. Or they might be practical, defending for example a feasible and politically realistic reform idea that could help curtail such outflows.
The best entries will be presented at an international conference, November 7-9, 2014, at Yale University and subsequently published in a special issue of a prominent journal. In addition, at least two of the winning essays will receive a monetary award: a first prize of $5,000 and a second prize of $3,000. Professor Sen hopes to join us for the conference presentations.
Entries can be e-mailed to Rachel Payne at rachel@academicsstand.org and must reach her by October 5, 2014. We ask that entries be anonymized to facilitate blind refereeing. Winners will be selected by an expert jury, whose decisions are final.
HES Prizes awarded at the 2014 Montreal Conference:
1. Joseph Dorfman Prize for Best Dissertation in the History of Economics
Catherine Sophia Herfeld, University of Witten-Herdecke
The Many Faces of Rational Choice Theory
Supervisors: Chrysostomos Mantzavinos, Philip Kitcher
The HES 2014 Dorfman Prize has been awarded to Catherine Sophia Herfeld for her thesis "The Many Faces of Rational Choice Theory". Herfeld's thesis changes our understanding of "rational choice theory" by revealing its different manifestations (and different accounts of rationality) in distinct intellectual contexts. It makes a compelling case that rational choice analysis should be considered a loose research program rather than a specific psychological theory, and leverages that observation to discuss many of the tensions and ambiguities in a history that is often presented in unilinear terms. This is a real contribution constructed out of competent readings of an exceptionally broad array of theorists.
2. Best Article in the History of Economics
Dotam Leshem, Columbia University: "Oikonomia Redefined." Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 35(1).
The HES 2014 Best Article Prize has been awarded to Dotan Leshem for his article “Oikonomia Redefined” (JHET 35:1) which provides a fascinating interpretation of the notion of ‘oikonomia’ in ancient Greek texts. He unpacks the notion of ‘oikonomia’ to distinguish between the excess or abundance that comes from nature and the surplus that may accrue to the household with prudent management, and argues that the ‘good life’ comes from particular uses of that surplus, namely those uses considered wise by that society, rather than pursuit of surplus per se. The paper offers an enlightening analysis about the ancient economy; but, in raising foundational questions about the nature of economic activity and the role such plays in the larger society, the commentary also incorporates a moral dimension. It is this moral dimension which provides both broad possibilities for insightful reflections on the economics of other periods and new conceptual resources for understanding the present
3. HES Distinguished Fellow
Malcolm Rutherford, University of Victoria
4. Joseph J. Spengler Price for Best Book in the History of Economic
Jeremy Adelman, Princeton University
Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman
Princeton University Press, 2013
Albert O. Hirschman was a remarkably ambitious, erudite, multilingual, and peripatetic intellectual, whose life and work took him across countries and continents, into encounters with fascists, collaborators, dictators, military juntas, artists, revolutionaries, politicians, development professionals, economists and other social scientists. As a scholar he worked on the borders of economics, sociology, political science, and psychology, and became one of the most successful and influential social scientists of his time.
Jeremy Adelman’s book is as fascinating as its subject. It is a product of more than ten years of reading private papers and correspondence, interviewing principal and peripheral characters, and delving into several distinct historical and intellectual contexts that underpinned Hirschman’s life. Adelman offers a compelling account not just of the genealogy of Hirschman’s ideas, but also of the larger sociology of 20th century economics profession and the development apparatus. In his accounts of Hirschman, his family members, and the multitudes of economists, politicians, social scientists, artists, activists, and literati who came into contact with him, Adelman weaves together enormous amounts of detail into a cogent and coherent story. Worldly Philosopher is an exemplar of the biographer’s art, and a very deserving recipient of the Spengler Prize.
John Latsis & Constantinos Repapis: A model intervenes: the many faces of moral hazard.
Luis Buendia & Enrique Palazuelos: Economic growth and welfare state: a case study of Sweden.
Leda Maria Paulani: Money in contemporary capitalism and the autonomisation of capitalist forms in Marx’s theory.
Mark Setterfield & Shyam Gouri Suresh: Aggregate structural macroeconomic analysis: a reconsideration and defence.
Matteo Lanzafame: The balance of payments-constrained growth rate and the natural rate of growth: new empirical evidence.
Matthew Greenwood-Nimmo: Inflation targeting monetary and fiscal policies in a two-country stock–flow-consistent model.
M. Niaz Asadullah & Uma Kambhampati & Florencia Lopez Boo: Social divisions in school participation and attainment in India: 1983–2004.
Alessio Moneta & Andreas Chai: The evolution of Engel curves and its implications for structural change theory.
Shin Kubo: D. Stewart and J. R. McCulloch: Economic methodology and the making of orthodoxy.
David Collard: Pigou’s Wealth and Welfare: a centenary assessment.
Mauro Boianovsky: Robertson and the Cambridge approach to utility and welfare.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Peter Bofinger, Gøsta Esping-Andersen, James K. Galbraith, Ilene Grabel: A Call for Policy Change in Europe
Harry J. Holzer, Robert I. Lerman: Work-Based Learning to Expand Opportunities for Youth
Donald Cohen: State and Local Finances: Privatization and the Weakening of Democracy
Alicia H. Munnell, Jean-Pierre Aubry, Josh Hurwitz, Mark Cafarelli: Are City Fiscal Woes Widespread? Are Pensions the Cause?
Richard A. Rosen, Edeltraud Guenther: The Economics of Mitigating Climate Change?: What Can We Know?
Steven Pressman: A Tax Reform That Falls Flat
Martin Burcharth: Thomas Piketty Responds to His Critics
Mike Sharpe: Good Luck with a Tax on Capital
Scott M. Aquanno: Contesting New Monetary Policy
Pasquale Foresti and Ugo Marani: Expansionary Fiscal Consolidations: Theoretical Underpinnings and their Implications for the Eurozone
Fotoula Iliadi, Theodore Mariolis, George Soklis, and Lefteris Tsoulfidis: Bienenfeld's Approximation of Production Prices and Eigenvalue Distribution: Further Evidence from Five European Economies
Giancarlo De Vivo: Samuel Bailey and the Subversion of the Classical Theory of Value: A Note
Miguel D. Ramírez: Credit, The Turnover of Capital, and the Law of the Falling Rate of Profit: A Critical Note
Christos N. Pitelis: Rejuvenating ‘Old Europe’: Towards a Strategy for Reindustrialisation and Sustainable Competitiveness
Naila Kabeer & Ayesha Khan: Cultural Values or Universal Rights? Women's Narratives of Compliance and Contestation in Urban Afghanistan
Siobhan Austen, Therese Jefferson & Rachel Ong: The Gender Gap in Financial Security: What We Know and Don't Know about Australian Households
Andy Thorpe, Nicky Pouw, Andrew Baio, Ranita Sandi, Ernest Tom Ndomahina & Thomas Lebbie: “Fishing Na Everybody Business”: Women's Work and Gender Relations in Sierra Leone's Fisheries
Nitya Rao: Caste, Kinship, and Life Course: Rethinking Women's Work and Agency in Rural South India
Thomas de Hoop, Luuk van Kempen, Rik Linssen & Anouka van Eerdewijk: Women's Autonomy and Subjective Well-Being: How Gender Norms Shape the Impact of Self-Help Groups in Odisha, India
Juan Francisco Martín-Ugedo & Antonio Minguez-Vera: Firm Performance and Women on the Board: Evidence from Spanish Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Patricia Peinado: A Dynamic Gender Analysis of Spain's Pension Reforms of 2011
Alice Tescari & Andrea Vaona: Gender Employment Disparities, Financialization, and Profitability Dynamics on the Eve of Italy's Post-2008 Crisis
Mònica Clua-Losada and Laura Horn: Analysing Labour and the Crisis: Challenges, Responses and New Avenues
Andreas Bieler: Transnational Labour Solidarity in (the) Crisis
Jeffrey Harrod: Patterns of Power Relations: Sabotage, Organisation, Conformity and Adjustment
Hans-Juergen Bieling and Julia Lux: Crisis-Induced Social Conflicts in the European Union – Trade Union Perspectives: The Emergence of ‘Crisis Corporatism’ or the Failure of Corporatist Arrangements?
Davide Bradanini: Common Sense and ‘National Emergency’: Italian Labour and the Crisis
Carol Jess: ‘The Hobbit Dispute’: Organizing Through Transnational Alliances
Bart-Jaap Verbeek: Globalisation and Exploitation in Peru: Strategic Selectivities and the Defeat of Labour in the US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement
Marco Novarese, Riccardo Viale: Preface: Special issue on “Bounded Rationality updated”
Katherine Simon Frank: In memory of Herbert A. Simon
Massimo Egidi: The economics of wishful thinking and the adventures of rationality
Alan Kirman: Is it rational to have rational expectations?
Guido Baldi: Endogenous preference formation on macroeconomic issues: the role of individuality and social conformity
Joe Johnson, Naveen Sundar G., Selmer Bringsjord: A three-pronged simonesque approach to modeling and simulation in deviant “bi-pay” auctions, and beyond
Pat Langley, Chris Pearce, Mike Barley, Miranda Emery: Bounded rationality in problem solving: Guiding search with domain-independent heuristics
Laura Macchi & Maria Bagassi: The interpretative heuristic in insight problem solving
Ron Sun & Nick Wilson: Roles of implicit processes: instinct, intuition, and personality
Antonio Mastrogiorgio & Enrico Petracca: Numerals as triggers of System 1 and System 2 in the ‘bat and ball’ problem
Nathalie Bulle: Slow and fast thinking, historical-cultural psychology and major trends of modern epistemology: unveiling a fundamental convergence
Alicia Girón: Capitalism, Democracy and Financialization: The Power of Ideas and the Struggle to Impose them
Pablo Lavarello: The Convergence of Biotechnology Paradigms and the Strategies of Leading World Groups
Luis Beccaria, Roxana Maurizio: Prospects for Universal Social Protection in Latin America: A Contribution to the Current Debate
Fernando Groisman: Jobs, Salaries and Inequality in Argentina: An Analysis of Distributional Determinants
Paula Belloni, Andrés Wainer: The Role of Foreign Capital and its Insertion in South America
Juan Pablo Mateo, Santiago García: The Oil Sector in Ecuador. 2000-2010
Óscar Pérez Laurrabaquio: The Non-Linear Relationship Between Inflation and Economic Growth in Mexico
Esther Iglesias: Journey to Development in Yucatan
Articles
Philippe Batifoulier & Nicolas Da Silva: Medical Altruism in Mainstream Health Economics: Theoretical and Political Paradoxes
Michael Hübler: Internalizing the Social Costs of a Small Number of Powerful, Overindebted Firms
Fu-Min Tseng & Dennis James Petrie: The Implications for Health, Depression, and Life Satisfaction from a Permanent Increase in Income for the Disadvantaged Elderly: Evidence from Taiwan
Luca Andriani: Is Acting Prosocially Beneficial for the Credit Market?
Derek Messacar: Persistent Unemployment and the Generosity of Welfare States
2013 Warren Samuels Prize winner
Mary V. Wrenn: The Social Ontology of Fear and Neoliberalism
By Ali Kadri | 2014, Anthem Press
Ali Kadri examines how over the last three decades the Arab world has undergone a process of developmental descent, or de-development. He defines de-development as the purposeful deconstruction of developing entities. The Arab world has lost its wars and its society restructured to absorb the terms of defeat masquerading as development policies under neoliberalism. Foremost in this process of de-development are the policies of de-industrialisation that have laid to waste the production of knowledge, created a fully compradorial ruling class that relies on commerce and international finance for its reproduction, as opposed to nationally based production, and halted the primary engine of job creation. The Arab mode of accumulation has come to be based on commerce in a manner similar to that of the pre-capitalist age along with its cultural decay. Kadri attributes the Arab world’s developmental failure not only to imperialist hegemony over oil, but also to the rising role of financialisation, which goes hand in hand with the wars of encroachment that were already stripping the Arab world of its resources. War for war’s sake has become a tributary to the world economy, argues Kadri, and like oil, there is neither a shortage of war nor a shortage of the conditions to make new war in the Arab world.
Link to the book.
By Gabriel Siles-Brügge | Palgrave Macmillan
With the stagnation of the Doha Round of multilateral talks, trade liberalisation is increasingly undertaken through free trade agreements. Gabriel Siles-Brügge examines the EU's decision – following the 2006 'Global Europe' strategy – to negotiate such agreements with emerging economies. Eschewing the purely materialist explanations prominent in the field, he develops a novel constructivist argument to highlight the role of language and ideas in shaping EU trade policy. Drawing on extensive interviews and documentary analysis, Siles-Brügge shows how EU trade policymakers have privileged the interests of exporters to the detriment of import-competing groups, creating an ideational imperative for market-opening. Even during the on-going economic crisis the overriding mantra has been that the EU's future well-being depends on its ability to compete in global markets. The increasingly neoliberal orientation of EU trade policy has also had important consequences for its economic diplomacy with the developing economies of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states.
Link to the book for the UK and Europe is available here and for North America here.
By Sunanda Sen & Anjan Chakrabarti | 2014, Orient BlackSwan
Developing countries today are subject to a process of transformation, from what could be identified as a developmental State to one where the market emerges as the major driving force in the economy. Development on Trial analyses the changing links between State policies and corporate structures as the goal of development in these economies weaken, crumble and then fall apart to give way to a steady withdrawal of the State. This goes with the growing and imperious control exercised by big businesses in the process. The authors unravel the contradictions between the State and the market as has been spelt out in liberal theory. They draw attention to the new pattern usually described as corporate feudalism where corporations replace or co-opt the ruling State in these countries.
This volume has been organised in four sections. The first deals with the State and corporatisation of business. The second section deals with colonial trade patterns, trade, employment and structural changes relating to India and other developing countries during the recent years. The third section discusses aspects of mobile capital, volatility, and financial exclusion in de-regulated capital markets—issues which have of late been drawing a lot of attention in public debates. The last section studies the dimensions of labour market flexibility in India and in the developing areas in general. Bringing together essays by well-known economists from India and abroad, this volume is an indispensable read for students and scholars of economics and development studies.
Link to the book.
By Sunanda Sen | 2014, Oxford Press
Financialization in the world economy has led to massive accumulation as well as concentration of financial assets providing sources of rentier income which has been much higher than those obtainable from physical assets. The present volume attempts to analyse the pattern of financial dominance in the world economy with its links to the systemic crisis. The analysis rests on the theoretical perspectives underlying the Keynesian and the Minskian theoretical framework . This makes the present study of global finance offer a critique of the mainstream neo-liberal doctrine and policies.
The volume consists of a collection of essays, some of which were previously published in journals and edited volumes, and a number of recent papers which are as yet unpublished. These cover a gamut of themes ranging from the paradoxes of loan tying as well as an imminent realisation in lender countries , uncertainty and speculation in commodity markets, the recent global crisis, entry and rise of China in global finance, macro-economic constraints faced by emerging economies like India and China in following a path of autonomous economic policy and inclinations on part of corporates to invest in the high-risk high-return financial assets rather than in assets which generate real activity, output and employment.
The book also dwells on the hegemonic order of the international financial institutions with their iniquitous as well as destabilizing role in the world economy. Spanning the themes as above, the book very successfully demolishes the mainstream 'efficient market' doctrine and its failure in terms of policies, in the advanced as well as in the developing economies.
Link to the book.
By John Boik | 2014, Self-published
The world faces serious economic, environmental, and social challenges. Unfettered capitalism itself is increasingly seen as part of the problem, as Thomas Piketty, Joseph Stiglitz, and other economists demonstrate. In Economic Direct Democracy: A Framework to End Poverty and Maximize Well-Being, John Boik proposes an innovative social framework that enables communities to strengthen local economies, and take meaningful action on infrastructure, debt, income inequality, health care, climate change, and environmental degradation. He challenges us to examine the basic purpose of an economic system, and to consider that human nature drives individuals toward deeper cooperation.
Boik’s proposal integrates multiple local movement, participatory democracy, and open society initiatives into a single framework that helps organize and enhance existing city, county, and regional economies. By infusing a local economy with 21st century direct democracy, the system empowers local areas to take the lead in making real change. The hopeful message is that we can increase incomes, end poverty, reach full employment, and address major social and environmental problems, in our lifetime.
Link to the book is available here. Free pdf-download here.
By Jan Winiecki | 2014, Edward Elgar
This thought-provoking book considers the global challenges and challengers to the economic supremacy of the West. Jan Winiecki explores the various problems that the West must deal with in order to remain an efficient competitor in the world economy. These, he argues, are primarily consequences of the ever-expanding welfare state; consequences that are not only economic but also socio-psychological and, therefore, political. The author concludes that the main challengers to the West – Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRIC group of countries) – are unlikely to gain economic supremacy over the West any time soon given they have their own difficulties to contend with.
Link to the book.
By Samuel Moyn | 2014, Verso Books
What are the origins of human rights? - This question, rarely asked before the end of the Cold War, has in recent years become a major focus of historical and ideological strife. In this sequence of reflective and critical studies, Samuel Moyn engages with some of the leading interpreters of human rights, thinkers who have been creating a field from scratch without due reflection on the local and temporal contexts of the stories they are telling.
Having staked out his owns claims about the postwar origins of human rights discourse in his acclaimed Last Utopia, Moyn, in this volume, takes issue with rival conceptions—including, especially, those that underlie justifications of humanitarian intervention.
Link to the book.
Edited by Fred Moseley, Mount Holyoke College and Tony Smith | 2014, Brill
This book provides a wide-ranging and in-depth reappraisal of the relation between Marx’s economic theory in Capital and Hegel’s Logic by leading Marxian economists and philosophers from around the world. The subjects dealt with include: systematic dialectics, the New Dialectics, materialism vs. idealism, Marx’s ‘inversion’ of Hegel, Hegel’s Concept logic (universality-particularity-singularity), Hegel’s Essence logic (essence-appearance), Marx’s levels of abstraction of capital in general and competition, and capital as Hegelian Subject.
The papers in this volume were originally presented at the 22nd annual meeting of the International Symposium on Marxian Theory at Mount Holyoke College in August 2011. The twelve authors are divided between seven economists and five philosophers, as is fitting for the interdisciplinary subject of the relation between Marx’s economic theory and Hegel’s logic.
Link to the book.
By Gerald Friedman | 2014, Dollars & Sense
The neoclassical vision of economies characterized by rational, self-interested individuals interacting in perfectly competitive markets can have, especially for students with little or no prior study of economics, an appealing simplicity and certainty: the result is perfectly efficient, each gets what he or she deserves, and any outside interference can only be for the worse. It’s liable to make even critical-minded students start to believe that this really is the “best of all possible worlds,” and that attempts to improve it are misguided at best.
Microeconomics: Individual Choice in Communities, by Gerald Friedman (professor of economics, UMass-Amherst) is a different kind of micro textbook, laying out “micro-foundations for an alternative economics, closer to the vision of the classical economists ... and others who saw economics as a social science.” It opens up a whole new world of issues that are central to real-world economies: trust and reciprocity, the social origins of individual preferences, the ubiquity of market power in a world with economies of scale, incomplete contracts, asymmetric information and uncertainty, public goods and collective action.
This unique textbook covers all the standard topics of an introductory microeconomics course, including the profit-maximizing firm, the utility-maximizing consumer, supply and demand, price and income elasticities, factors of production and their marginal products, and so on. But this book does much more: it offers both an alternative vision of microeconomics—placing individual decision-making in the context of social norms and institutions—and cogent criticism of neoclassical theory. Students using this book will get more than just an introduction to mainstream microeconomics—they will gain a deeper and more critical understanding of it.
Link to the book.
This book can be used complementary to the Dollars&Sense classic "Real World Micro" (21 edition).
By Franklin Obeng-Odoom | 2014, Routledge
This book presents a critical analysis of the ‘resource curse’ doctrine and a review of the international evidence on oil and urban development to examine the role of oil on property development and rights in West Africa’s new oil metropolis - Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana. It seeks answers to the following questions: In what ways did the city come into existence? What changes to property rights are oil prospecting, explorations, and production introducing in the 21st century? How do the effects vary across different social classes and spectrums? To what extent are local and national institutions able to shape, restrain, and constrain trans-national oil-related accumulation and its effects on property in land, property in housing (residential, leisure, and commercial), and property in labour? How do these processes connect with the entire urban system in Ghana?
This bookshows how institutions of varying degrees of power interact to govern land, housing, and labour in the city, and analyses how efficient, sustainable, and equitable the outcomes of these interactions are. It is a comprehensive account of the tensions and contradictions in the main sectors of the urban economy, society, and environment in the booming Oil City and will be of interest to urban economists, development economists, real estate economists, Africanists and urbanists.
Link to the book.
By Marc Lavoie | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
Mainstream economic theory has been increasingly questioned following the recent global financial crisis. Marc Lavoie shows how post-Keynesian theory can function as a coherent substitute by focusing on realistic assumptions and integrating the financial and real sides of the economy. This book outlines alternative microeconomic foundations based on a world of fundamental uncertainty, with an emphasis on various paradoxes that arise in a truly macroeconomic analysis.
The book is a considerably extended and fully revamped edition of the highly successful and frequently cited Foundations of Post-Keynesian Economic Analysis. It provides an exhaustive account of post-Keynesian economics and of the developments that have occurred in post-Keynesian theory and in the world economy over the last twenty years. Topics covered include open-economy issues, the methodological foundations of heterodox economics, consumer theory, firms and pricing, money and credit, effective demand and employment, inflation theory, and growth theories.
Students and scholars of economics, particularly post-Keynesian and heterodox economics, will find this comprehensive look at the field a necessary addition to their libraries.
Link to the book.
By Justin McGuirk | 2014, Verso Books
In Radical Cities, Justin McGuirk travels across Latin America in search of the activist architects, maverick politicians and alternative communities already answering these questions. From Brazil to Venezuela, and from Mexico to Argentina, McGuirk discovers the people and ideas shaping the way cities are evolving.
Ever since the mid twentieth century, when the dream of modernist utopia went to Latin America to die, the continent has been a testing ground for exciting new conceptions of the city. An architect in Chile has designed a form of social housing where only half of the house is built, allowing the owners to adapt the rest; Medellín, formerly the world's murder capital, has been transformed with innovative public architecture; squatters in Caracas have taken over the forty-five-storey Torre David skyscraper; and Rio is on a mission to incorporate its favelas into the rest of the city.
Here, in the most urbanised continent on the planet, extreme cities have bred extreme conditions, from vast housing estates to sprawling slums. But after decades of social and political failure, a new generation has revitalised architecture and urban design in order to address persistent poverty and inequality. Together, these activists, pragmatists and social idealists are performing bold experiments that the rest of the world may learn from.
The link to the book.
Edited by Asimina Christoforou and Michael Lainé | 2014, Routledge
Once again, unfettered capitalism has failed. Promises for global prosperity and peace have given way to a world of deep recession, social upheaval and political instability. Once again, mainstream economics has proved its inadequacy. Despite its technical rigour and mathematical virtuosity, it failed dramatically to respond to the current crisis. Why is this so? Mainstream economics turns a blind eye to society. By assumption, it maims its analyses by wiping away what makes us what we are. There is pressing need for a critical discussion and new ideas.
We therefore turn to the insightful and stimulating work of Pierre Bourdieu. Arguably one of the major sociologists ever, he was also a major ‘economist’. Yet his works on the economy have received only scant attention, especially from economists, be they ‘mainstream’ or ‘heterodox’. Bourdieu helps to take a broader view and enrich our scientific imagination. By including dimensions of power, intuitive behaviour and social structures within the scope of his analysis, he provides for an alternative foundation of economics, based on an integrated, interdisciplinary theory. For the first time, this volume fills this gap in economics by featuring state-of-the-art research and experts from different social science disciplines. This book constitutes a first step, and hopes to become a milestone.
The book offers an innovative outlook and a unique source for social scientists of all fields, particularly economists and sociologists, who wish to engage in the study of Bourdieu and his economics with a view to developing a more pertinent theory. It will also constitute a useful reference for university students and administrators who would like to explore the economy from a Bourdieusian perspective.
Link to the book.
By Bryan Palmers | 2014, Haymarket Books
Bryan Palmer tells the compelling story of how a handful of revolutionary Trotskyists, working in the largely nonunion trucking sector, led the drive to organize the unorganized and built an industrial union. What emerges is a compelling narrative of class struggle, a reminder of what can be accomplished, even in the worst of circumstances, with a principled and visionary leadership.
Link to the book.
Edited by Asimina Christoforou and John B. Davis | 2014, Routledge
This volume provides a collection of critical new perspectives on social capital theory by examining how social values, power relationships, and social identity interact with social capital. This book seeks to extend this theory into what have been largely under-investigated domains, and, at the same time, address long-standing, classic questions in the literature concerning the forms, determinants, and consequences of social capital.
Social capital can be understood in terms of social norms and networks. It manifests itself in patterns of trust, reciprocity, and cooperation. The authors argue that the degree to which and the different ways in which people exhibit these distinctively social behaviours depend on how norms and networks elicit their values, reflect power relationships, and draw on their social identities. This volume accordingly adopts a variety of different concepts and measures that incorporate the variety of contextually-specific factors that operate on social capital formation. In addition, it adopts an interdisciplinary outlook that combines a wide range of social science disciplines and methods of social research. Our objective is to challenge standard rationality theory explanations of norms and networks which overlook the role of values, power, and identity.
This volume appeals to researchers and students in multiple social sciences, including economics, sociology, political science, social psychology, history, public policy, and international relations, that employ social capital concepts and methods in their research. It can be seen as a set of new extensions of social capital theory in connection with its themes of social values, power, and identity that would advance the scholarly literature on social norms and networks and their impact on social change and public welfare.
Link to the book.
By Kavous Ardalan | 2014, Transaction Publishers
This book discusses eight dimensions of globalization—world order, culture, the state, information technology, economics, production, development, and Bretton Woods Institutions—from the perspective of four diverse sociological paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. This multi-perspective approach forces readers to abandon their preconcieved assumptions and allows them the opportunity to view globalization through new eyes.
Kavous Ardalan argues that social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of these four key paradigms because each one is founded upon different assumptions about the nature of social science and each one generates useful theories, concepts, and analytical tools. This method facilitates distancing from one’s favored paradigm and appreciating other available approaches to better understand social phenomena. The knowledge of paradigms increases awareness of the boundaries and limitations of each individual paradigm. While most books on the topic focus on particular aspects of globalization from specific viewpoints, this fair and unbiased volume provides readers with a balanced understanding of globalization.
Link to the book.
Capital in the 21st century, by Thomas Piketty. Harvard University Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-0674430006; 685 pages.
Reviewed by Jakob Kapeller, Johannes Kepler University of Linz.
The full review of the book is available here.
Places are still available on the MSc in Social Research Methods and Statistics at the University of Manchester starting in September 2014. See here.
The MSc provides a thorough grounding in advanced quantitative methods, taught within an applied social science framework. Qualitative methods are also taught as a portion of the course.
Advanced skills in data analysis and research are at the heart of social research, policy making across government and consultancy. Graduates of our programmes in Social Research Methods and Statistics are in a good position to obtain jobs in government, the academic sector, local government and within the commercial research sector. See here.
The ESRC recognised SRMS course is also an ideal preparation for students wishing to pursue doctoral study. Social Statistics Discipline Area usually has a number of funded PhD studentships each year and many studentships are taken up by graduates of the SRMS programme.
The course is available full-time over one year or part-time over two-years. More information is at the above website including an online application form or here.
If you would like to ask any questions about the course or come for a look around please contact us.
Prof. Natalie Shlomo
SRMS Coordinator
Natalie.shlomo@manchester.ac.uk
Radboud University Nijmegen (NL) and Roskilde University (DK): Call for Expressions of Interest
We invite expressions of interest for a PhD project jointly funded by the Radboud University Nijmegen and Roskilde University. The project is located within critical political economy and will focus on European Austerity Programmes under Transnational Contestation. It will be jointly supervised by Angela Wigger and Bertjan Verbeek (Radboud University Nijmegen), and Laura Horn (Roskilde University).
The project will investigate the content, form and scope of (transnational) contestation of austerity programmes in Europe. It is set up as double degree with a duration of three years, 18 months at Roskilde and 18 months at Nijmegen; the PhD is expected to be based at the respective departments for the duration of these periods. The project is based on full-time employment, with a salary according to the respective collective agreements in Denmark and the Netherlands.
Candidates for the project should
Expressions of interest in this project are welcome until Tuesday 15 July. Please email us with your CV, a grade transcript, a writing sample and a short letter of motivation why you would like to pursue a PhD at austeritycontestationproject@gmail.com. We will then send you more details on the project and the logistics. Skype interviews will be conducted with selected candidates in the first two weeks of August.
Please note that this is an informal call for expressions of interest; no rights can be derived from this announcement.
Link to current newsletter is available here.
Timothy A. Wise: Picking up the pieces from a failed land grab project in Tanzania
Jeronim Capaldo: Trade Hallucination: Risks of Trade Facilitation and Suggestions for Implementation
Kees van der Waal: Winelands, Wealth and Work
João Antônio Felício: There are alternatives to the neoliberal blind alley! Towards a new progressive consensus
Stephanie Barral: Labour Issues in Indonesian Plantations: from Indenture to Entrepreneurship
The current newsletter is available here.
Link to the current newsletter is available here.