Real-World Economics Review

from C. P. Chandrasekhar Declared the leading threat to global stability by the United States and a group of its allies, China has been accused of transgressions varying from stealing hi-tech secrets, spying, and interfering in domestic politics abroad to spreading viruses. Sometimes, even normal measures adopted by countries as part of their international economic relations are presented as crimes when practised by China. A case in point is lending abroad, especially to developing...

from Lars Syll Radical uncertainty arises when we know something, but not enough to enable us to act with confidence. And that is a situation we all too frequently encounter … The language and mathematics of probability is a compelling way of analysing games of chance. And similar models have proved useful in some branches of physics. Probabilities can also be used to describe overall mortality risk just as they also form the basis of short-term weather forecasting and expectations about...

from Asad Zaman This continues from previous post on New Directions in Macroeconomics. Among the heterodox responses to the crisis in economic theory created by the Global Financial Crisis 2007, we will briefly discuss the following:  Post-Keynesian Economics, Modern Monetary Theory, Political Economy, Evolution of Global Finance, Ecological Economics, Complexity Economics, Islamic Economics. This post is about Post-Keynesian Economics. The response of mainstream macroeconomists to this...

from Lars Syll As every mainstream textbook on growth theory, most mainstream economists choose to turn a blind eye to the concept of capital and the Cambridge controversy over it and pretend it’s much fuss about nothing. But they are wrong! The production function has been a powerful instrument of miseducation. The student of economic theory is taught to write Q = f(L, K) where L is a quantity of labor, K a quantity of capital and Q a rate of output of commodities. He is instructed to...

WEA CommentariesVolume 10, Issue 3  –    August 2020download the whole issue Human rights and fiscal policy: a necessary link           – Grazielle David, Pedro Rossi, Sergio ChaparroMitja Stefancic interviews Guy Standing Pandemic Musings           – Peter RadfordIs this the end of globalisation (as we know it)?            – Karim Errouaki WEA Conference: Trade Wars After Coronavirus

from Ikonoclast – Origianlly a comment on Are corporate CEOs worth $20 million? The time for nice debates alone is over. The time for voting and direct action to radically change our entire political economy has arrived. Debates, voting and direct action all have to operate in concert. Any one or two are powerless on their own. In a two-party, one-ideology state, where the wealth and power elites have captured the parties, voting on its own is useless. No matter who you vote for you still...

from Dean Baker This simple and important question does not get anywhere near the attention it deserves. And, just to be clear, I don’t mean are they worth $20 million in any moral sense. I am asking a simple economics question; does the typical CEO of a major company add $20 million of value to the company that employs them or could they hire someone at, say one-tenth of this price ($2 million a year) who would do just as much for the company’s bottom line? This matters not only because...

from David Ruccio Right now, the United States is mired in an economic depression, the Pandemic Depression, not dissimilar to what happened in the 1930s and again after the crash of 2007-08. Real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product contracted by an annual rate of 31.7 percent in the second quarter of 2020 (according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis) and at least 27 million American workers are currently unemployed (counting workers continuing to receive some kind of unemployment...

Follow on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/actdottv Julianna welcomes back recurring guest Dean Baker, macroeconomist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, to discuss how starting this week, the oil giant ExxonMobil will no longer have a home on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And it’s about time. Not only are Big Oil companies like Exxon destroying the planet, but they’re no longer sound investments. Dean Baker co-founded The Center for Economic and Policy Research...

Follow on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/actdottv Julianna welcomes back recurring guest Dean Baker, macroeconomist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, to discuss how starting this week, the oil giant ExxonMobil will no longer have a home on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And it’s about time. Not only are Big Oil companies like Exxon destroying the planet, but they’re no longer sound investments. Dean Baker co-founded The Center for Economic and...