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Real-World Economics Review

Earth Overshoot Day

from Barry Gills and Jamie Morgan We live in a time of Climate Emergency. Nevertheless, our collective actions do not yet approximate a real understanding nor fully appropriate actions. We are not yet acting as if we are facing an urgent and life threatening Emergency. What does ‘Climate Emergency’ actually mean? According to David Attenborough: It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face...

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Can capitalists afford economic growth? An animation

from Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan Despite the global dominance of capitalism, growth rates continue to trend downward. Mainstream economists blame the slowdown on various ‘distortions’, but as this animation by Elvire Thouvenot shows, the reality is quite different. Capitalists seek not more income per se, but greater power-through-redistribution, which they achieve by strategically stymying growth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTpanudMToA

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Why policy design without theory is useless

from Lars Syll Taking into account the methodologies that support some policy practices that favour inductive reasoning and randomized control trials of impact evaluation (RCTs), there is a controversy around the utilization of these attempts to build experimental programmes or policy intervention … As the decision-making policy process in the real world relies on institutional factors that may be different elsewhere, the methodology based on RCTs does not provide a credible basis for...

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Going digital: the forces shaping the future of business and labour – call for papers for a new WEA Conference is open!

from Malgorzata Dereniowska Call for Papers The advent of digital economy creates new challenges for businesses, workers, and policymakers. Moreover, business prospects for artificial intelligence and machine learning are evolving quickly. These technologies have transforming implications for all industries, businesses of all sizes, and societies. The digitalisation of economic activities calls for a deep reflection on the forces that will shape the future of the global economy. Aims of...

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What works? Policy design without theory is useless

from Maria Alejandra Madi Against a rationalist top down approach to policy making, the evidence-informed policy and practice has rapidly evolved in the last two decades. In this line of research, a new book What Works Now? Evidence-informed Policy and Practice has been edited by Annette Boaz, Huw Davies, Alec Fraser and Sandra Nutley.  It offers not only a synthesis of the role of evidence in policy making but also an analysis of its use in recent economic models and practices in the UK,...

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Do models make economics a science?

from Lars Syll Well, if we are to believe most mainstream economists, models are what make economics a science. In a Journal of Economic Literature review of Dani Rodrik’s Economics Rules, renowned game theorist Ariel Rubinstein discusses Rodrik’s justifications for the view that “models make economics a science.” Although Rubinstein has some doubts about those justifications — models are not indispensable for telling good stories or clarifying things in general; logical consistency does...

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