Real-World Economics Review

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from Edward Fullbrook and RWER Special Issue: Economics and the Ecosystem “the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”(David Attenborough) Today’s economics, especially Economics 101, is a major source of humankind’s denial of the possibility of the calamity of all calamities which our economy is engineering. Annually millions of students around the world are forced to study textbooks that indoctrinate them in to thinking that there...

from Dean Baker Many of the people who completely missed the worst recession since the Great Depression are trying to get out front and tell us about the next one on the way. The big item glowing in their crystal ball is an inversion of the yield curve. There has been an inversion of the yield curve before nearly every prior recession and we have never had an inversion of the yield curve without seeing a recession in the next two years. Okay, if you have no idea what an inversion of...

from Lars Syll RCTs treat social reality as though some simulacrum of laboratory conditions was a feasible and appropriate scientific method to apply, but in development research, unlike laboratory condition treatments, interventions are not manipulations of individuated and additive or simply combinable material components … but rather intervention into material social relations. While for the former, assuming away or stripping away everything other than a given effect focus can reveal...

from Richard Norgaard Changes in European perceptions of themselves, both with respect to nature and social organization, also coevolved around very important new ideas about individualism that coevolved with the rise in atomism in natural philosophy. Martin Luther’s call for reform of the Catholic Church stressed that individuals were responsible for their own salvation through their own reading of the Bible, the only true source for coming to know Christ and God. Luther’s call awakened...

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from Norbert Häring On 27 March, the highest administrative court in Germany, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht, has referred my case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg. I have insisted to pay my legally required contributions to public radio and TV with the legal tender, euro cash. This is not possible according to their regulations. The Bundesverwaltungsgericht has ruled that there is indeed a requirement for all public institutions to accept cash based on §14 of the...

from Lars Syll It probably shouldn’t worry us if some pocket of the population saw a decline in IQ as things like education and diet affect IQ and these factors can vary from one group or time to another. But according to this new study it doesn’t appear to be some small segment of the population whose IQ is going down. It appears to be the entire nation of Norway. When scientists from the Norway’s Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research analyzed some 730,000 IQ tests given to...

from Asad Zaman Stiglitz: Ricardian equivalence is taught in every graduate school in the country. It is also sheer nonsense  [see “Quotes Critical of Economics” for more.] This post explains why. In this post, we will create a simple model that demonstrates some fundamental truth of Modern Monetary Theory.  This is a variant of “.Simple Model Explains Complex Keynesian Conceptss“, We will show the following phenomena A Market Economy naturally creates an equilibrium with high...

Why do we wait until someone has passed away before we honour them? I believe we should overcome our embarrassment, and say it while they are with us. In this spirit, I want to tell you about the world-changing work of Polly Higgins. She is a barrister who has devoted her life to creating an international crime of ecocide. This means serious damage to, or destruction of, the natural world and the Earth’s systems. It would make the people who commission it – such as chief executives and...