Real-World Economics Review

from Lars Syll A couple of years ago yours truly had a discussion with the chairman of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences (yes, the one that yearly presents the winners of ‘The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’). What started the discussion was the allegation that the level of employment in the long run is a result of people’s own rational intertemporal choices and that how much people work basically is a question of incentives. Somehow the...

from David Ruccio We’re all done singing to “days gone by” (even though no one really knows the lyrics). But, unless we change our tune and resolve to fundamentally alter the way the economy is organized, we’re going to have to face up to the problem that’s been haunting the United States for decades now: growing inequality. And it’s only getting worse. Part of the problem stems from the increase in market concentration in the United States. According to a recent research paper by Joshua...

from Lars Syll Bayesian reasoning works, undeniably, where we know (or are ready to assume) that the process studied fits certain special though abstract causal structures, often called ‘statistical models’ … However, when we choose among hypotheses in important scientific controversies, we usually lack such prior knowledge​ of causal structures, or it is irrelevant to the choice. As a consequence, such Bayesian inference to the preferred alternative has not resolved, even temporarily, a...

WEA Commentaries Volume 8, Issue No. 5 Download the issue as a PDF In this issue Raúl Prebish’s Unpublished Manuscripts Esteban Pérez Caldentey Resolutions to improve debates on economic policy in 2019 Dean Baker A specific plan to change economics textbooks Tim Thornton Nine years with euro crisis  – time to think anew Trond Andresen, Steve Keen and Marco Cattaneo Support-bargaining and money-bargaining: a restatement Patrick Spread Announcements and WEA contact details Please support...

from Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan A new, capitalism-denying book is on the shelves, and it makes a stunning discovery: ‘Capitalism without competition is not capitalism’! Distortions: Capitalism Denied Capitalist crisis, like climate change, tends to breed ‘capitalism deniers’. The problem, argue the deniers, lies not in capitalism but in its ‘distortions’. In its pure form, they maintain, capitalism is the best of all possible worlds. But to the deniers’ chagrin, contemporary...

from Lars Syll When the euro was created twenty years ago, it was celebrated with fireworks at the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. Today we know better. There are no reasons to celebrate the 20-year anniversary. On the contrary. Already since its start, the euro has been in crisis. And the crisis is far from over. The tough austerity measures imposed in the eurozone has made economy after economy contract. And it has not only made things worse in the periphery countries,...

Source: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-db653-a39c4f A semi true crime profile on Stanley Dean Baker a cannibal from Montana, with really bad jokes mixed in! Enjoy.

Source: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-db653-a39c4f A semi true crime profile on Stanley Dean Baker a cannibal from Montana, with really bad jokes mixed in! Enjoy.

from Peter Radford “The universe is made of energy, matter, and information, and while energy and matter are here by default, information needs to find ways to emerge.  This is not always easy”  Cesar Hidalgo, “Why Information Grows — The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies” Why is it the economics still restricts itself to constructing its narratives around concepts like labor and capital?  Neither are very precise.  Both are amalgams of more fundamental concepts.  And, even in...

Dean Baker is one of the few economists who predicted the collapse of the housing bubble, and is the co-founder of CEPR, an economics policy think tank. We talked about recession risks for 2019, the Federal Reserve, the stock market and inequality, and what economics has to say about climate change.