Issue-26, April 11, 2006

From the Editor

The  Newsletter contains new calls for papers, a very interesting array of conferences, workshops, and seminars, and the contents of journals and newsletters that span across the spectrum of heterodox economics. In addition, the new book by Andrew Glyn on “Capitalism Unleashed” (and his piece from The Guardian which is under the FYI section) looks quite interesting; and those industrious economists at the GDE Institute at Tufts have just produced a “Macroeconomics in Context” for all of you who teach those introductory macroeconomic courses. Finally, under FYI note the book sale, the various links to the issue of research assessment and ranking departments, and the obituary of Hans Singer.

Fred Lee

 

In this issue:

  - Call for Papers

          - 4th PhD Conference "Research in Economics"
          - The International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics
          - Tufts University Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE)
          - 3rd International Conference "Developments in Economic Theory and Policy"
         
        
  
Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

          - The Ninth Biennial Conference of ISEE, 'Ecological Sustainability & Human Well-Being'
          - First Annual Economics Conference at the New School for Social Research
          - SCEME Workshop
          - Emerging Theories and Methods in Sustainability Research: Marie Curie summer schools 2006 - 2009
          - Eighth International Workshop on Institutional Economics
          - DARE Graduate School in Economic Governance

   - Job Postings for Heterodox Economists

         - Franklin College (Lugano) (Switzerland)
   

  - Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

         - Ecological Economics
         - Talking Economics Bulletin - April 2006, Corporate Governance
         - Feminist Economics
         - Digital Newsletter of The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
         - International Review of Applied Economics
         - Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) Newsletter- Spring 2006

                   
  - Heterodox Books and Book Series      

          - Capitalism Unleashed by Andrew Glyn
          - Macroeconomics in Context

  - For Your Information

         - Book Sale
         - Research exercise to be scrapped
         - Hans W. Singer
         - Marx's reserve army of labour is about to go global

 

 Call for Papers

4th PhD Conference "Research in Economics"

4th PhD Conference "Research in Economics" to be held in Volterra (Pisa), 7-9 September 2006
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 15 May 2006
For more information visit our Web Site:
http://cafim.sssup.it/~confeco/  or send a mail to: confeco@sssup.it  confeco2006.pdf

The International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics

Knowledge Networking Program on Engendering Macroeconomics and International Economics

4th International Intensive Course: June 18-30, 2006
4th International Conference: July 2-3, 2006

- The application is due on: April 21, 2006
- Your application will not be processed until all the materials have been submitted and your file is complete.

For detailed information: Announcement 2006 NC 3- 25 - 2006.doc

Tufts University Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE)

Sustainable Ventures announces a "Call for Papers" for the Prize,

"Our Daily Bread: What Does It REALLY Cost?"

Cosponsored by the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition

Sustainable Ventures is offering individual authors or teams a $10,000 prize plus benefits for the study that best measures the true costs of a loaf of bread. The winning study will provide an analytical framework that measures integrated social, environmental and financial performance. By revealing and quantifying hidden costs of a loaf of bread, the framework will help people make more informed choices to protect and restore our world.

See CALL FOR PAPERS at http://www.sustainableventures.us/odb/candidates/Call_for_papers_013006_newfinal.pdf 

For more details visit: http://www.sustainableventures.us/ 

or contact: Theo.Ferguson@SustainableVentures.us 

3rd International Conference "Developments in Economic Theory and Policy"

The Department of Applied Economics V of the University of the Basque Country (Spain) and the Cambridge Centre for Economic and Public Policy of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) are organizing the 3rd International Conference “Developments in Economic Theory and Policy”. The Conference will be held in Bilbao (Spain), from 6th to 7th of July 2006, at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of the Basque Country.

Papers are invited on all areas of economics. Papers must be written in English. Accepted papers will be grouped in sessions. Every session will comprise three-four papers.

Suggestions for ‘Organized Sessions’ are also welcome. An organized session is one devoted to a specific subjetc that has been constructed in its entirety by a session organizer and submitted to the Conference Organizers as a complete package (title of the session, papers and session chair).

The final deadline to submit papers and ‘organized sessions’ is 2nd June 2006. Acceptance letters will be sent out by e-mail by 9th June 2006.

For more information, you can get in touch with Jesus Ferreiro (jesus.ferreiro@ehu.es) or visit the website of the Conference: www.conferencedevelopments.com
 

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Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

The Ninth Biennial Conference of ISEE, 'Ecological Sustainability & Human Well-Being'

ISEE holds a biennial conference on even numbered years. The biennial conference provides an excellent opportunity for members to meet other ecological economists, test their ideas by presenting papers, and participate in the governance of the Society.
The Ninth Biennial Conference of ISEE, 'Ecological Sustainability & Human Well-Being', will be held in Delhi, India from the 15th to the 19th December 2006.
Further details can be found at the conference website www.isee2006.com

First Annual Economics Conference at the New School for Social Research

"Has Economics Failed the Challenge of Development?"
NEW YORK, NY – The New School economics students will host the first annual conference entitled "Has Economics Failed the Challenge of Development?" which will be held at the New School for Social Research in New York, NY on April 20, 2006. The conference's primary objective is to offer a forum for a theoretical and political discussion of development theory vis-à-vis reality.
The conference will draw on the rich literature that has evolved in defining development as a broader concept. Alongside GDP growth, economic development includes issues of distribution, structures, state building, social and political institutions, as well as international relations. Yet, these debates have often failed to make any real impact on mainstream economic models and current economic policy.
In three workshops, this conference will explore the role of the state in the context of the development experience of India, the relationship between development, growth and inequality, and if economics has failed the challenge of development. In the concluding session, organized as a panel discussion, the participants will exchange their views on the future focus of development economics and policy directions, in an attempt to answer the question, "what needs to be done?"
Prominent scholars and policy makers from different backgrounds will speak at the conference including:
Dr. Jose Antonio Ocampo , DESA Under-secretary General of the United Nations
Dr. K.S. Jomo, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development
Dr. Berk Ozler, World Bank, Development Research Group
Dr. Branko Milanovic, World Bank, Research Department
Dr. Nata Duvvury, Director at the International Center for Research on Women
Dr. Edward Nell, Malcolm B. Smith Professor, New School for Social Research
Dr. Anwar Shaikh, Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research
Dr. Mohan Rao, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dr. Vivek Chibber, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, New York University
Dr. Sanjay Reddy, Assistant Professor, Barnard College, Columbia University
Dr. Arjun Appadurai, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, New School
Opening and closing remarks will be given by Dr. Willi Semmler, Chair of the Economics Department at the New School and Dr. Barry Herman, Visiting Senior Fellow at the New School. Selected papers and discussion minutes presented at the conference will be published in the Fall 2006 issue of the New School Economic Review.
This conference is free and open to the public. To register please visit: www.NewSchoolConference.com 
For more information about the New School for Social Research visit: www.newschool.edu 

Contact:  info@newschoolconference.com

SCEME Workshop

The provisional programme for the SCEME workshop on methods for realist economics on Friday 5 May is now available, along with registration details, at www.sceme.stir.ac.uk . A package of background reading is currently being put together and will be sent to participants ahead of the Workshop. For detailed information: Seminar 5 Programme.doc

Emerging Theories and Methods in Sustainability Research: Marie Curie summer schools 2006 - 2009

A series of four Marie Curie funded summer schools in sustainability research will take place at four leading European universities between 2006 and 2009. This is an initiative of the European Society for Ecological Economics. The series will put emphasis on integrating analyses of complexity, appraisal methods and the role of institutions as well as interdisciplinarity, involvement of civil society, participatory learning and integrated approaches. PhD students and other early stage researchers could apply for one or several of these summer schools. The series will consist of the following four summer schools:

The 1st summer school: Analysing Complexity, 7-17 June 2006, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain.

This training course is based on the observation that the effects of technological changes and the pressures of the economy on the environment cannot be assessed on a single scale. Complexity theory has emerged from the works of scholars in both economics and ecology and has changed the focus of how to study human-environment interactions. The participants will acquire insights into the following issues through theoretical seminars: a) The concepts of risk, uncertainty and ignorance in the management of the environment; b) Policy models under conditions of uncertainty and complexity; c) Biophysical analyses of the economic process; d) Multiple scales and non-equivalent descriptions of reality; e) Multi-criteria and scenario approaches to problems of complexity. The workshops will take the form of case studies focusing on methods and theoretical framework for the study of complexity. They will cover: i) Urban systems; ii) Ethnoecology and Agroecology; iii) Climate Change; iv) Energy systems; Social Metabolism; v) Water use; vi) Biological invasions.

Keynote speakers (to be confirmed): Silvio Funtowicz (JRC-European Commission), Marina Fischer-Kowalski (IFF, Vienna).

Lecturers include: Roger Strand (Univ. of Bergen), Joan Martínez-Alier and Giuseppe Munda (ICTA, UAB), Mario Giampietro (INRAN, Rome), Kozo Mayumi (Tokushima Univ., Japan), David Gee (EEA), Sharad Lele (Bangalore), Arild Vatn (Norwegian Univ. of Life Sciences), Rainer Zahn, Antoni Rosell and Victoria Reyes (ICREA-ICTA, UAB).

Write to patrick.nussbaumer@swissinfo.org , or to joan.martinez.alier@uab.es

Applications for this summer School are now open. For further information, see www.umb.no/research/themes .

The 2nd summer school: Institutional Analysis of Sustainability Problems: 18-29 June 2007, Institute for Forecasting, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia. Keynote speakers are D.W. Bromley, J. Jílková, M. Kozova and E. Ostrom.

The 3rd summer school: Methods and tools for environmental appraisal and policy formulation, May 26 – June 6 2008, Foundation of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Keynote speakers are Clive Spash and Felix Rauschmayer.

The 4th summer school: Integrated analysis of complex adaptive systems, 15-26 June 2009 at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Keynote speakers are R. Nelson, J. Gowdy and P. Allen.

More detailed information is available at www.umb.no/research/themes

Eighth International Workshop on Institutional Economics

"Human Needs and Markets: New Foundations For Health and Social Policy"
Organised by the Centre for Research in Institutional Economics,
University of Hertfordshire, UK

With the kind support of the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust.

Speakers:

Stephen Dunn (Department of Health), Barbara Harriss-White (University of Oxford), Colin Haslam (University of Hertfordshire), Geoffrey Hodgson (University of Hertfordshire), Robert McMaster (University of Aberdeen).

19-20 June 2006

This residential workshop will be held on the De Havilland campus of the University of Hertfordshire, in Hatfield, England.

This workshop is designed to provide in-depth discussion of cutting-edge issues in institutional economics, in a forum that permits the attention to detail and definition that is often lacking in larger, conference-style events. The expected maximum number of participants is 50. Please book early to avoid disappointment.

The De Havilland Campus of the University of Hertfordshire is about one mile from Hatfield railway station. There are regular trains from Hatfield to London Kings Cross, taking about 20 minutes. There is easy access to all London airports.

There are still a few (subsidised and unsubsidised) places available at this workshop.

For detailed information: Human Needs and Markets.doc

DARE Graduate School in Economic Governance

The annual DARE Graduate School in Economic Governance, Development and Public Policy will be held in 2006 at the School of Management, University of Bath, UK. It will take place from 10th - 16th September 2006. The School, which has evolved from the L’institute-Ferrara Graduate School in Industrial Development Policy, is co-ordinated and organised by DARE (Democratic Communities in Academic Research on Economic Development), a community of international faculty focused on enhancing theoretical and policy understanding around democratic economic development. For further information on DARE, please see www.postgradschools.net 

A particular aim of the School is to contribute to the evolution of a multinational network of people thinking about, analysing and researching into economic governance, development and public policy. To this end, the School will bring together 16 participants from a variety of countries and research backgrounds to engage in a co-operative learning process with internationally-renowned researchers and practitioners.

For further information and for an application form, those interested can write to Marcela Valania at m.m.valania@bham.ac.uk  . The deadline for applications is Friday 9th June 2006.

For detailed information: 2006 Bath School Partuculars.doc

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Job Postings for Heterodox Economists

Franklin College (Lugano) (Switzerland)

Assistant Professor of Economics
An economics position at Franklin College, Switzerland: must be dedicated to teaching and a scholar in the Post Keynesian tradition.
Applications are invited for a full-time position in the Area of Economics and Finance at Franklin College Switzerland to teach undergraduate courses in introductory and intermediate microeconomics, international trade, and another advanced course (such as the economics of the European Union). Start date is the fall semester, 2006. Required credentials: earned doctorate in economics; evidence of effective teaching; demonstrated ability and commitment to research; active support of the liberal arts; able to lead travel/study programs in Europe, the U.S or elsewhere in the world. Preferred credentials: Foreign language ability (esp. Italian, French or German). To assure full consideration, please submit application letter, C.V., evidence of effective teaching, a sample of scholarship, and names and contact information for three references to econsearch@fc.edu . Applications will be reviewed upon receipt and will be accepted until April 30, 2006. Franklin College is a US and Swiss accredited, undergraduate liberal arts college with an internationally focused educational mission. It has a diverse student body from over fifty different nations and is located in Lugano, an important banking and financial center in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, one hour from Milan. Language of instruction is English. Further information on Franklin College: http://www.fc.edu  and http://www.fc.edu/econfin/default.htm 
JEL Classification(s): A, D, F
Application has to be received by 30. April 2006.
If you are interested, e-mail Andrea Terzi at aterzi@fc.edu  for more information.

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

Ecological Economics

The journal is concerned with extending and integrating the study and management of "nature's household" (ecology) and "humankind's household" (economics). Specific research areas covered include: valuation of natural resources, sustainable agriculture and development, ecologically integrated technology, integrated ecologic-economic modelling at scales from local to regional to global, and integrating natural resources and environmental services into national income and wealth accounts. New issues in ecological economics will find a ready forum in the journal.

For additional information, contact the Editorial Office, Ecological Economics, P.O. Box 1589, Solomons, MD 20688, USA.
The journal can be ordered in conjunction with a membership in the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE).
For a detailed table of contents for all volumes of the journal, please see Elsevier's Table of Contents
Special Note:
Download Costanza et al's data used in the analysis of 'Influential publications in ecological economics', Ecological Economics, Volume 50, Issues 3-4, 2004, Pages 261-292, here

Talking Economics Bulletin - April 2006, Corporate Governance

The Talking Economics Bulletin consists of news and views on associative economics, including short extracts from Associative Economics Monthly (which is available electronically for £1 an issue at www.cfae.biz/aem  or in a hard copy format - tel (UK) 01227 738207). To unsubscribe from this list, reply or send an email to info@talkingeconomics.com  with 'bulletin unsubscribe' in the subject line.

1) Associative Economics Monthly April 06, Editorial
2) Event Details - in London, Stroud, Holland, Switzerland and Norway
3) The Trial of Taxation
4) Associative Economics and Rudolf Steiner’s Thinking - A presentation at LSE in association with The Network Project

For detailed information: teb_april06.doc

Feminist Economics

Volume 12 Number 1-2/January/April 2006 of Feminist Economics is now available on the journalsonline.tandf.co.uk web site at http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk.

To unsubscribe from this alert please visit: http://www.tandf.co.uk/sara .

This issue contains:

Special Issue: A Special Issue on Women and Wealth

The gender asset gap: What do we know and why does it matter?

 p. 1

Carmen Diana Deere, Cheryl R. Doss

 

Cui Bono? The 1870 British Married Women's Property Act, Bargaining Power, and the Distribution of Resources within Marriage

 p. 51

Mary Beth Combs

 

Crippled capitalists: The inscription of economic dependence and the challenge of female entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century America

 p. 85

Susan M. Yohn

 

“The widow, the clergyman and the reckless”: 1 women investors in England, 1830–1914

 p. 111

Janette Rutterford, Josephine Maltby

 

Gender, marriage, and asset accumulation in the United States

 p. 139

Lucie Schmidt, Purvi Sevak

 

The wealth of single women: Marital status and parenthood in the asset accumulationof young baby boomersin the United States

 p. 167

Alexis Yamokoski, Lisa A. Keister

 

Moving beyond the gender wealth gap: On gender, class, ethnicity, and wealth inequalities in the United Kingdom

 p. 195

Tracey Warren

 

Household bargaining over wealth and the adequacy of women's retirement incomes in New Zealand

 p. 221

John Gibson, Trinh Le, Grant Scobie

 

Assets in intrahousehold bargaining among women workers in Colombia's cut-flower industry

 p. 247

Greta Friedemann-Sánchez

 

Joint titling – a win-win policy? gender and property rightsin urban informal settlementsin Chandigarh, India

 p. 271

Namita Datta

 

Book Reviews

 p. 299

 

 

Notes on Contributors

 p. 319

Digital Newsletter of The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Levy News- April 2006

1.POLICY NOTE
"The Fiscal Facts: Public and Private Debts and the Future of the American Economy?" No. 2006/2
by JAMES K. GALBRAITH http://www.levy.org/pubs/pn_2_06.pdf 

2.APRIL 2006 REPORT Vol. 16, Number 2 http://www.levy.org/pubs/rpt_16_2.pdf 

3.SPRING SUMMARY Vol. 15, Number 2 http://www.levy.org/pubs/sum_15_2.pdf

4.WORKING PAPERS
"Enhancing Livelihood Security through the National Employment Guarantee Act: Toward Effective Implementation of the Act"
No. 437 by INDIRA HIRWAY http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_437.pdf

"Keynes’s Approach to Money: An Assessment after 70 Years" No. 438 by L. RANDALL WRAY
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_438.pdf

"Where Do They Find the Time? An Analysis of How Parents Shift and Squeeze
Their Time Around Work and Child Care" No. 439 by LYN CRAIG
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_439.pdf

"Parental Child Care in Single Parent, Cohabiting, and Married Couple Families: Time Diary Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom" No. 440
by CHARLENE M. KALENKOSKI, DAVID C. RIBAR, and LESLIE S. STRATTON
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_440.pdf

"Prolegomena to Realistic Monetary Macroeconomics: A Theory of Intelligible Sequences" No. 441
by WYNNE GODLEY and MARC LAVOIE
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_441.pdf

"Government Effects on the Distribution of Income: An Overview" No. 442
by DIMITRI B. PAPADIMITRIOU
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_442.pdf

"Personality and Earnings" No. 443 by KAYE K.W. LEE
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_443.pdf

"Tinbergen Rules the Taylor Rule" No. 444
by THOMAS R. MICHL
http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_444.pdf

5.APRIL CONFERENCE
"Government Spending on the Elderly"
Friday-Saturday, April 28-29, 2006
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
http://www.levy.org

International Review of Applied Economics

Volume 20 Number 02/April 2006 of International Review of Applied Economics is now available on the journalsonline.tandf.co.uk   web site at http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk.


This issue contains:

Public Investment and Economic Performance in Highly Indebted Poor Countries: An Empirical Assessment

 p. 151

Marianna Belloc, Pietro Vertova

 

Flexible Labour, Firm Performance and the Dutch Job Creation Miracle

 p. 171

Alfred Kleinknecht, Remco M. Oostendorp, Menno P. Pradhan, C.W.M. Naastepad

 

Corporate Governance and the Public Interest

 p. 189

J. Robert Branston, Keith Cowling, Roger Sugden

 

The Revealed Preference of Regulatory Menus: Evidence from the Pre‐Nationalisation British Gas Industry

 p. 213

Terry Robinson

 

Innovation, Diffusion and Cumulative Causation: Changes in the Spanish Growth Regime, 1960–2001

 p. 223

Fulvio Castellacci, Isabel Álvarez

 

Unemployment and Welfare Participation in a Structural VAR: Rethinking the 1990s in the United States

 p. 243

Corrado Andini

 

Stability and Turbulence in the Size Distribution of Firms: Evidence from Dutch Manufacturing

 p. 255

Orietta Marsili

 

BookReview

 p. 273

Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) Newsletter- Spring 2006

1. PERI’s Work on African Economies: Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya

2. The Corporate Toxics Information Project: Translating the Right to Know into the Right to Clean Air

3. PERI Dissertations Archive

4. Update on the Living Wage Movement

5. New Working Papers

6. New PERI Communications Director

For detailed information: Political Economy Research Institute.doc

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Heterodox Books and Book Series

Capitalism Unleashed by Andrew Glyn

Oxford University Press has just published Capitalism Unleashed by Andrew Glyn, an account of the development of the advanced capitalist countries since 1979.

ANDREW GLYN, Oxford University

March 2006 | £16.99 | 0-19-929199-3; 978-0-19-929199-1

Free enterprise is off the leash …

New opportunities for profit making are being chased across the globe. This book challenges the notion of our capitalist destiny. Focusing on the recent history of the industrialized economies, Andrew Glyn questions whether capitalism really has brought the levels of economic growth and prosperity that were hoped for.
Glyn looks at the impact of huge growth emerging markets and developing economies such as China and what impact this will have on the established 'North'.

The race is on as the older economies struggle to safeguard a competitive advantage. Is a race to the bottom investigable or is there any alternative model?

• Bestselling author Andrew Glyn presents his unique view of the rise of Capitalism and its implications for the future
• Challenges the view that economic growth and the welfare state are incompatible
• Gives readers a unique overview of how the bewildering variety of economic events and policies reported by the media are related and combine to affect how we live
• Provides a valuable and concise history of the economies of Europe, Japan, and the USA since the 1960s

About the author:
Andrew Glyn has been Tutor in Economics at Corpus Christi College Oxford since 1969. After completing his PhD, he went to work in the Treasury and was rapidly transferred to the Department of Economic Affairs which was set up to produce the UK’s National Plan in 1965. In the 1970s Glyn became involved in left wing politics, writing articles for the Militant group. After publishing articles in the Guardian in 1984 denouncing Thatcher's mine closures, he was asked by Arthur Scargill to turn his arguments into a pamphlet for the National Union of Mineworkers, subsequently working as their economic advisor. Glyn co-edits the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. He co-authored several books on post-war capitalism, edited Social Democracy in Neoliberal times (OUP 2001) and has published journal articles on unemployment, profitability, globalisation and the history of economic thought and newspaper articles on current economic policies.

For further information about the book or author, author interviews, or bespoke author article, please contact:
Natasha Antunes natasha.antunes@oup.com
Tel: 01865 353650

For more information see
http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-929199-3

Macroeconomics in Context

Are you teaching Introductory Macroeconomics this coming fall? If so, don't put in your book order yet!

In 2005, Microeconomics in Context, an innovative micro textbook sponsored by the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University, was published by Houghton Mifflin Company. We have received many enthusiastic comments about that book – and many inquiries about when the companion text, Macroeconomics in Context would be ready.
We are pleased to announce that, by arrangement with our editor at Houghton Mifflin Company, we will be making the Preliminary Edition of Macroeconomics in Context available electronically on the Web. You can use this as your class text this fall by downloading the whole book, or individual chapters, at no cost to you or your students!
See below for (1) a description of the unique features of this text and (2) more details about the web publication. You will receive another e-mail within a few weeks, directing you to a newly-created webpage from which you will be able to start downloading Macroeconomics in Context, Preliminary Edition.

We hope you will join the vanguard of instructors implementing this new way of teaching economics: clear, lively, and relevant to the world of the 21st century!

(1) Unique Features of Macroeconomics in Context

While Macroeconomics in Context incorporates the theoretical content expected in a principles text, it delves deeper, offering a fresh understanding of economic realities. Instructors will find that standard topics – including Classical and Keynesian approaches, in both new and old versions – are covered clearly and succinctly. But, in addition, questions of ecological sustainability, non-marketed production accomplished within households and communities, the quality of life, and income distribution are given more attention than in other texts. Taking history, institutions, and environmental constraints seriously, this textbook balances analysis of market processes in the macroeconomy with discussion of public policies that go beyond short-term stabilization targets to promote long-term sustainability and social goals.

(2) Publication Details
Chapters of Macroeconomics in Context, Preliminary Edition will be available individually as Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files. The documents are entirely in black & white, suitable for economical printing. Instructors (only) may request accompanying Instructor Notes which contain resource materials and answers to exercises, as these become available. More than half of the text will be available for your inspection by mid-April. All of the chapters necessary to begin teaching from this book will be ready before the start of fall term 2006; the last few chapters in Part IV will become available early in the semester. A revised, full-color, print First Edition will later be produced, incorporating feedback from users of the Preliminary Edition. Chapters marked with * are already available for your review as self-contained GDAE Teaching Modules at http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/education_materials/modules.html

Table of Contents of Macroeconomics in Context, Preliminary Edition
I. The Context for Economic Analysis
*1: Economic Activity in Context
*2: Some Useful Tools and Concepts
3: What Economies Do
4: Supply and Demand

II. Macroeconomic Basics
*5: Macroeconomic Measurement: The Current Approach
*6: Macroeconomic Measurement: Environmental and Social Dimensions
7: Employment and Unemployment
8: The Structure of the U.S. Economy

III. Macroeconomic Theory and Policy
9: Aggregate Demand: Classical and Keynesian Views
10: Fiscal Policy
11: Monetary Policy
12. Current Problems and Competing Theories6

IV. Macroeconomic Issues and Applications
13: The Global Economy
14: How Do Economies Grow?
15: Development, Past and Future
16: The Varieties of Macroeconomic Experience
Read more about GDAE Economics Textbooks at: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/index.html 

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For Your Information

Book Sale

Professor Victoria Chick is moving offices in early June 2006. Thus she is offering some very, very interesting books for sale. For information see the link.

Research exercise to be scrapped

For those interested in issues regarding the ranking of economic departments you might want to look at some of the most recent discussions and material with regard to the Research Assessment Exercise that is taking place in the United Kingdom—see the links below.  What is happening in the UK is a good glimpse of what could be happening in the future in other European countries as well as countries around the world.

RAE

RAE 2008 Panel Criteria and Working Methods
http://www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2006/01/ 

“RAE 2008 Panel Criteria and Working Methods: Panel I –Economics”
http://www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2006/01/byuoa.asp?u=i 


Treasury Report and Metric-based Assessment

“Budget 2006: Report”
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget/budget_06/budget_report/bud_bud06_repindex.cfm 

“Budget 2006: Report, Chapter 3-Meeting the Productivity Challenge”
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/20E/EA/bud06_ch3_192.pdf 

“Research Exercise to be Scrapped” by D. MacLeod
http://education.guardian.co.uk/RAE/story/0,,1737082,00.html 

“PSA Target Metrics for the UK Research Base” by OST
http://www.ost.gov.uk/research/psa_target_metrics.htm 

“Online, Continuous, Metrics-Based Research Assessment”
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/75-Online,-Continuous,-Metrics-Based-Research-Assessment.html 

“Oxford Workshop on the Use of Metrics in Research Assessment”
http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/metricsworkshop 

“Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014: Next Steps” (March 2006)
http://news.ft.com/cms/916022f6-b9af-11da-9d02-0000779e2340.pdf 

Hans W. Singer

March 26, 2006
Hans W. Singer, 95, Creator of U.N. Development Program, Dies By HEATHER TIMMONS Hans Wolfgang Singer, an economist who devoted his life to analyzing the causes and effects of poverty and helped create the World Food Program and the United Nations Development Program, died in his sleep on Feb. 26 in Brighton, England. He was 95.

His death was announced by the University of Sussex, where he last worked.

Sir Hans, who was knighted in 1994, was best known for his work on the effects of trade on developing nations. He argued that long-term trade agreements favor developed countries, resulting in falling prices for commodities produced by poorer nations, an idea that came to be known as the Prebisch-Singer thesis.

He was born in 1910 in the Rhineland to a middle-class family.
Originally he was to follow in his father's footsteps and become a doctor. But he turned to economics instead, drawn by a desire to understand the forces behind Germany's great inflation of 1923 and depression of 1930 and 1931, according to his biographer, John Shaw.

As Nazi persecution of Jews increased, he fled Germany in 1933. He had been studying at Bonn University there, and he sought asylum in Britain.
He became one of the Cambridge Ph.D students of the economist John Maynard Keynes.

Like Keynes, Sir Hans "treated economics as a moral science," noted A.
P. Thirlwall, professor of applied economics at the University of Kent in Canterbury. For a study of poverty in Britain, Sir Hans lived with unemployed families and theorized that the loss of dignity that went with lack of work was as serious a problem as unemployment itself.

In 1947, he joined the United Nations from Glasgow University, where he began studying the theories on trade and developing nations that earned him renown in economic circles. He spent 22 years at the United Nations, advocating changes to the treatment of developing nations, like giving aid in the form of food.

After retiring from the United Nations, he took a fellowship at the Institute for Development Studies in Sussex University, where he published 30 books.

Sir Hans was married to Ilse Lina Plaut, a feminist and fund-raiser, for 67 years until her death in 2001. He is survived by a son.

Marx's reserve army of labour is about to go global

The eruption of the Indian and Chinese economies could shift the balance of power sharply in favour of capital in the rich world
By Andrew Glyn

Apiece of conventional wisdom about the world dear to economists is that the share of national income going to workers stays pretty stable. Karl Marx disagreed; he argued that labour-saving capital investment would limit demand for labour, while also bankrupting small-scale producers, in agriculture for example. They would swell the labour supply, creating a permanent "reserve army of labour" that would prevent real wages growing as fast as labour productivity. Workers would thus spend an increasing proportion of working time producing profits for capitalists - a falling share for labour or a rising rate of exploitation, in Marx's terminology.

Labour's share of national income was indeed declining in Britain in the decades before the publication of Marx's Capital in the 1860s. However, labour's share lurched up during the two world wars, and this is often interpreted as reflecting a more even balance of power between capital and labour brought about by the growth of trade unions.

The later 60s and 70s saw a profits squeeze in many European economies, including the UK, reflecting a further decline in the power of private ownership. Subsequently, labour's advances were beaten back through unemployment and the reassertion of "shareholder value". Workers' share of national income has fallen in much of Europe to more "normal" levels. As yet this is not the systematic downward trend predicted by Marx. But could that be about to change?

The Communist Manifesto proclaimed the inevitable spread of capitalism across the globe. This process was halted and even reversed during much of the 20th century by the isolation of the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and China from the world economy and the very slow pace of economic development in poor countries such as India. However, the extraordinary transformation of China's and India's economies promises to bring Marx and Engels' prediction to completion. What might be the implications for workers in rich countries?

At first glance, the eruption of China into the world economy seems to be just the latest example of Asian countries catching up with the leading industrial powers. China's export growth has been spectacular, but so was that of Japan and Korea in earlier decades.

What makes China (and India) fundamentally different, however, are their vast labour reserves. Total employment in China is estimated at around 750 million, or about one and a half times that of all the rich economies, and nearly 10 times the combined employment of Japan and Korea. About one half of China's employment is still in agriculture; together with tens of millions of urban underemployed, they constitute a reserve army of labour of quite unprecedented magnitude.

The effect of this reserve army has been to hold down wages. After nearly 25 years of rapid economic growth, wages in China's manufacturing sector are still only 3% of the US level; after similar periods of rapid expansion in Japan and Korea, wages were some 10 times as high.

Much attention has naturally been devoted to the effects on industrialised countries of the flood of imports. But there is another, more ominous, possibility. What if there was a major drain of capital spending, from the rich countries to China and the rest of the south?

Investment in developing countries by multinational companies has been growing, but it is still only 3-4% of their investment at home each year. Could the trickle turn into a flood? Television pictures of the machinery at the Longbridge car plant being packed up for shipment to China may be an extreme case. However, with such low wage costs in China and growing numbers of skilled workers, why should northern producers continue investing to maintain their capital stock in the north, let alone extend it? If investment peters out, where would northern workers find jobs? When Longbridge closed, a government minister was ill-advised to suggest that the car workers could seek jobs at Tesco. Hardly a comforting response.

It is not too far-fetched to imagine a long period of investment stagnation in the industrialised countries, with "emerging markets" being so much more profitable. This could bring intense pressure on jobs and working conditions in Britain and elsewhere. Even sectors where relocation was not possible, like retailing or education, would be flooded with job seekers. The bargaining chips would be in the hands of capital to a degree not seen since the industrial revolution. Fluctuations in labour's share being confined to the range of 65-75% could disappear too, with Marx's rising rate of exploitation re-emerging, a century and a half after he first predicted it.

Could the economy become ever more dependent on the luxury consumption of the wealthy, who receive a disproportionate share of the higher profits? Alternatively, would taxation of profits be increased to expand government services such as health and education? With recent trends in favour of the wealthy intensifying, the fundamental issue of who gets what could no longer be confined to hesitant debates about minor changes in the share of taxation in national income, or adjustments to the top rate of income tax.

· Andrew Glyn is an economics fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and author of Capitalism Unleashed. Email: andrew.glyn@economics.ox.ac.uk

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