Real-World Economics Review

The U.S., China, and the New Cold Warriors — Dean Baker On the days when he is not celebrating his friendship and trade deals with China’s president Xi Jinping, Donald Trump has sought to hype China as the United States’ major enemy in the world. This has meant not only absurd allegations about the pandemic (top Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro has claimed that China deliberately sent infected people to the U.S. to spread the virus and damage the U.S. economy), but...

The U.S., China, and the New Cold Warriors — Dean Baker On the days when he is not celebrating his friendship and trade deals with China’s president Xi Jinping, Donald Trump has sought to hype China as the United States’ major enemy in the world. This has meant not only absurd allegations about the pandemic (top Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro has claimed that China deliberately sent infected people to the U.S. to spread the virus and damage the U.S. economy), but also sanctions,...

from The New York Times David Graeber, the radical anthropologist, provocative critic of economic and social inequality and self-proclaimed anarchist who was a coiner of “We Are the 99 Percent,” the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Venice. He was 59. His death was announced on social media by his wife, Nika Dubrovsky, an artist. She did not specify the cause, but Dr. Graeber reported on YouTube last week that he had been feeling ill. A...

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...