Real-World Economics Review

from C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh The monetary policies of the major advanced economies have been obsessively nationalist for more than two decades now, with hardly any genuine international cooperation beyond some coordination among G7 economies. These policies in turn have had all sorts of impacts—often very negative—in the rest of the world, and particularly in the low and middle income countries referred to collectively as emerging and developing economies (EMDEs). After the...

from Dean Baker I remember talking to a progressive group a bit more than a decade ago, arguing for the merits of a financial transactions tax (FTT). After I laid out the case, someone asked me if we had lost the opportunity to push for an FTT, now that the financial crisis was over. I assured the person that we could count on the financial sector to give us more scandals that would create opportunities for reform. Shortly thereafter, we were rewarded with the trading scandal from the...

from Lars Syll The unpopularity of the principle of organic unities shows very clearly how great is the danger of the assumption of unproved additive formulas. The fallacy, of which ignorance of organic unity is a particular instance, may perhaps be mathematically represented thus: suppose f(x) is the goodness of x and f(y) is the goodness of y. It is then assumed that the goodness of x and y together is f(x) + f(y) when it is clearly f(x + y) and only in special cases will it be true...

What’s money? Wrong question. The right question: ‘which kinds of monies do we use for which purposes?’ as there are different kinds of money which are used for different purposes. Here, I want to stress that ‘receivables’ are: money. And are, at the moment, mainly used for inter-company purchases. The quarterly balance sheets (below) of Alphabet (formerly Google) show that, as of September 2020, Accounts Receivable had a value of almost 35 billion dollar. Accounts receivable are...

Kindle edition $5.99   US UK DE FR ES IT NL JP BR CA MX AU IN paperback $14.99    US UK DE FR ES IT NL PL SE JP CA AU “The pressing need for alternative approaches in economics that is evident in the wake of the global pandemic, has also signalled an opening of space for the ideas and prescriptions of heterodox economics. This timely volume interrogates the rich diversity of the legacy of the heterodox economics, the institutional context and constraints that determine its influence,...

Unemployment in the EU is still going down a little. But youth unemployment, a slightly more sensitive cyclical indicator, is rising. The most distinct geographical pattern behind the average: the combination of high levels of youth unemployment (>20%) with clear increases in Greece, Italy and Spain, even when total unemployment in these countries is still going down or stable. France shows a remarkable decline in youth unemployment but is still in double digit territory. Average...

One of the successes of the right is their identification of the left with a sorry pastiche of ‘woke’. But the left is more than outspoken, individual awareness of the role of identities, however constructed and defined, whoever constructs and defines them and whatever role they plays in group dynamics of power and in- and exclusion. Which leads us to the question: What’s Left? I’ll state some points. Some points (many of which are related to social , economic and political in- and...

Consumer price inflation in Greece is, at the moment, 12% (graph 1). This is high and surely bankrupting quite some families. The high level of inflation is surprising, as Greek inflation was quite low and often even negative in the 2012-2022 period. The questions are: (A) what caused this sudden increase? An overheated labour market and runaway wages increases? And: (B) how can we get inflation down again? Does the ECB have to tank the economy to crush wages? Below we will investigate...

from Blair Fix  Are you an aspiring academic? If so, this manual will reveal the secret to maximizing your scholarly output. Follow my advice, and you too can become an academic hyper-producer. The golden rule: Don’t do research Newcomers to the academy typically think that the recipe for success is to ‘do high-quality research’. Nothing could be more false. ‘Doing research’ (and writing papers about your ‘results’) is a tedious waste of time. It is no way to be hyper-productive. Savvy...

from David Ruccio The story currently being peddle by the folks at Bloomberg [ht: ja] is that the American middle-class is currently suffering, as the enormous wealth they managed to accumulate during the past few years is now dwindling. And that crisis—the end of their “once-in-a-generation wealth boom”—is what they will take into the midterm elections. There is a kernel of truth in that story but it is overshadowed by all that it leaves out. The small sliver of truth? Yes, as we can see...