Real-World Economics Review

In the USA and the EU, employment is up and unemployment is down. But unemployment is not yet low. Unemployment rates have to decline more (a bit in the USA, a lot in the EU) and participation rates have to recover (a lot in the USA, a bit in the EU). In the EU, there are large differences between countries (compare Spain with Germany). But on the macro level, there is still a large reservoir of involuntary unemployment and, looking at the participation rates, people who have given up...

Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy, discusses the fight over Trumpcare and the problems with the existing healthcare system that the GOP wants to gut even further Visit http://therealnews.com for more stories and help support our work by donating at http://therealnews.com/donate.

from Peter Radford I have been less vexed about economics recently precisely because I have been focused on other, and more urgent, topics. The politics of our age are wondrously absorbing, if not a little disturbing. In any case I do try to keep an eye on what economists are up to. In that endeavor I came across a short article by Diane Coyle on the website “Project Syndicate”. If you want to know what is occupying the establishment it’s a good place to visit periodically. And Professor...

from David Ruccio Obviously, recent events—such as Brexit, Donald Trump’s presidency, and the rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn—have surprised many experts and shaken up the existing common sense. Some have therefore begun to make the case that an era has come to an end. The problem, of course, is while the old may be dying, it’s not all clear the new can be born. And, as Antonio Gramsci warned during the previous world-shaking crisis, “in this interregnum morbid phenomena of the...

real-world economics reviewIssue no. 80 download whole issue Inequality, democracy and the ecosystem Politics, preferences, and prices: the political consequences of inequality          2Luke Petach          download pdf The triumph of Pareto          14Gary Flomenhoft          download pdf Do we need a new economics for sustainable development?          32Peter Söderbaum         download pdf From green growth towards a sustainable real economy          45Jørgen Nørgård and Jin Xue...

Amazing Grace

from Lars Syll In modern times legal currencies are totally based on fiat. Currencies no longer have intrinsic value (as gold and silver). What gives them value is basically the legal status given to them by government and the simple fact that you have to pay your taxes with them. That also enables governments to run a kind of monopoly business where it never can run out of money. Hence spending becomes the prime mover and taxing and borrowing is degraded to following acts. If we have a...

The Federal Reserve's interest rate hike will slow jobs growth, but is probably being done to please Wall Street, says CEPR's Dean Baker Visit http://therealnews.com for more stories and help support our work by donating at http://therealnews.com/donate.

from Jamie Morgan Understanding Brexit requires us to consider the political economy of tax justice and the abuse of wealth protection. At a time when a general election has dominated the press for the last two months and Brexit has been a shadow of anxiety – a most remarkable event that the political parties have been steadfastly refusing to remark upon in any meaningful way – it is important to recall just how we got to the current state of affairs; a state that Craig Berry refers to as...

from David Ruccio When I ask my students that question, they don’t really have an answer. That’s because, like much of the rest of the U.S. population, they don’t have much experience with unions, either directly or indirectly—not when the union membership rate has fallen to below 11 percent nationwide and is only 6.4 percent in the private sector.   And if you pose that question to neoclassical economists, the response is: labor unions cause unemployment, by setting a wage rate that...