Real-World Economics Review

from Lars Syll The other day yours truly was sent a copy of the new edition of Chad Jones intermediate textbook Macroeconomics (4th ed, W W Norton, 2018). There’s much in the book I like, e. g. Jones’  combining of more traditional short-run macroeconomic analysis with an accessible coverage of the Romer model — the foundation of modern growth theory — and DSGE business cycle models. Unfortunately it also contains some utter nonsense! In chapter 7 — on “The Labor Market, Wages, and...

TRNN Originally Published on Apr 26, 2017 Published on Apr 26, 2017 Trump would be one of the main beneficiaries of his own tax reform proposal, benefitting from the lowering of "pass-through" income, says CEPR's Dean Baker Special Thanks to The Real News Network for permission to use on DaveStricklers YouTube channel, be sure to visit them for further comprehensive coverage, other news aspects or Donate to them here: goo.gl/BY0Udr Dean Baker co-founded CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy...

from Asad Zaman Currently, I am teaching a course in Advanced Microeconomics where I have started with the premise that conventional economic theory, both Micro and Macro are fundamentally wrong. The number of ways in which they are wrong cannot even be counted. Instead of enumerating errors, the course is devoted to providing a constructive alternative. A lot of the early lectures deal with the basic concepts of optimization and equilibrium, the fundamental building blocks of...

from Lars Syll Alex Rosenberg — chair of the philosophy department at Duke University, renowned economic methodologist and author of Economics — Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminshing Returns? — had an interesting article up on What’s Wrong with Paul Krugman’s Philosophy of Economics some time ago. Writes Rosenberg: Krugman writes: ‘So how do you do useful economics? In general, what we really do is combine maximization-and-equilibrium as a first cut with a variety of ad hoc...

from Mark Weisbrot As France heads into the second and final round of its presidential election on Sunday, a number of observers have compared the choice between the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist neoliberal Emmanuel Macron with the Trump-Clinton contest of 2016. There are similarities: Le Pen, who is politely called xenophobic, like Trump represents an anti-immigrant, right-wing nationalism combined with some populist appeals. Macron is a former investment banker and...

from David Ruccio What happens when you combine conspicuous consumption and consumption productivity? You get Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans—complete with “crackled, caked-on muddy coating”—on sale for $425 at Nordstrom. When Thorstein Veblen invented the term “conspicuous consumption,” in his Theory of the Leisure Class (pdf), he was referring to late-nineteenth-century America as having entered the “predatory phase” of culture, when the people at the top obtained their goods by seizure...

from Peter Radford Jamie Galbraith’s conclusion in his essay at Dissent magazine: “The progressive alternative to an economic program of reckless stimulus and real-estate capital gains is a program of full employment, fair wages, and broad investment in social, cultural, and environmental needs, backed by taxes that fall directly on rents, monopoly profits, and on inheritances, thus directly dismantling the dynastic oligarchy that has been running the United States, through both parties,...

Kevin Dean is a superb trumpet player and composer whose music actually meets that impossible standard of hauntingly beautiful. Here David plays an improv along with Kevin, this being the second version or B. David's book LOVE OF CHROMATIC HARMONICA...TECHNIQUES AND ADVICE FROM THE WORLD'S BEST! is in paperback and Kindle on Amazon. Enjoy David's Facebook Groups...LOVE OF CHROMATIC HARMONICA...CHROMATIC HARMONICA REPAIR...CHROMATIC HARMONICA CUSTOMIZATION...and BEAUTIFUL MUSIC ON CHROMATIC...

from Peter Söderbaum, Judy Brown and Małgorzata Dereniowska and WEA Commentaries What would an alternative economics and economy look like for a sustainable future? As with any normative vision, such as that of a sustainable economy and society, a variety of responses and perspectives can be legitimately sought. Out of those, for many economists, only the perspectives that result in outcomes that are (potentially) Pareto improvements are economically meaningful. But sustainability and...

from Lars Syll The completeness of the Ricardian victory is something of a curiosity and a mystery. It must have been due to a complex of suitabilities in the doctrine to the environment into which it was projected. That it reached conclusions quite different from what the ordinary uninstructed person would expect, added, I suppose, to its intellectual prestige. That its teaching, translated into practice, was austere and often unpalatable, lent it virtue. That it was adapted to carry a...