Real-World Economics Review

According to the Irish Statistical Office, economic growth in 2015 was an unbelievable 26%. At the same time, employment increased with 2,4% or 151.000 jobs. A brisk but not exceptional pace and totally at odds with the 26% economic growth estimate. Subsectoral data underscore this anomaly: job growth was located in agriculture, tourism (food and beverage service activities) and construction. And to a much smaller extent in the computer, pharmaceutical and leasing sectors which showed,...

1) What is capital? The national accounts define capital as a monetary variable. Many people however also talk about ‘natural capital’, ‘The stock of living and non-living components of the earth that provide a flow of valuable ecosystem goods or services‘. That’s from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which has issued a very good report ‘The environmental accounts landscape‘. They may underestimate the extent to which laws and regulations shape ‘capital’. But here’s an interesting...

from David Ruccio As I have argued many times on this blog, representations of the economy are produced and disseminated in many different spaces (in addition to academic economics departments) and through many different media (in addition to the usual, mostly mainstream economics textbooks). One example of this proliferation of economic representations is children’s literature. Children are the targets of educators and writers, most of whom (at least these days) are determined to make...

from Dean Baker The prospects for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are not looking very good right now. Both parties’ presidential candidates have come out against the deal. Donald Trump has placed it at the top of his list of bad trade deals that he wants to stop or reverse. Hillary Clinton had been a supporter as secretary of state, but has since joined the opposition in response to overwhelming pressure from the Democratic base. As a concession to President Obama, the Democratic...

from Robert Locke Erich Fromm’s 1941 book, with this title, came to mind while watching Donald Trump and his followers in the Cleveland arena. In his book “Fromm distinguishes between ‘freedom from’ (negative freedom) and ‘freedom to’ (positive freedom). The former refers to emancipation from restrictions such as social conventions placed on individuals by other people or institutions. This is the kind of freedom typified by the Existentialism of Sartre, and has often been fought for...

from Dean Baker Thanks in large part to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party recently added a financial transactions tax to its platform. In his run for the presidential nomination, Sanders had promoted the idea of an FTT — a small sales tax on the purchase of stocks, bonds or other financial assets — as a way to finance free college for everyone, with money left over for infrastructure and other important needs. The idea has currency beyond the platform, too: Rep. Peter A. DeFazio...

from Peter Radford We hear it all the time. It is a relentless drum beat on the left. Capitalism, we are told, is in crisis. This crisis is manifested in all sorts of ways. We – meaning those of us on the left – need to prepare. We need to counter attack. We need to seize this moment and retrieve from the mess whatever we can. Democracy, in various forms depending on who is writing, is our way forward. Only through democracy can we save society from the crisis in capitalism. Really?...

I read the rule book – and am not that sure anymore if the Irish GDP figures were calculated ‘according to the rules’. Due to the relocation of headquarters of the headquarters of some large multinational corporations the Irish statisticians mapped an increase of, especially, profit income of the Irish economy of 60 billion euro in two years. Which is a lot, for a country of 4 million people. Eurostat agrees, as it was, according to Eurostat, calculated according to the Eurostat rules....

A selection from the cover of Green Capitalism: The God That Failed. (Image: WEA Books) For some in the environmental movement, it has been tempting to believe that “innovation” and free market solutions could address the challenge of climate disruption. In his provocative and robustly argued book Green Capitalism: The God That Failed, Richard Smith shows why that idea is a myth. Click here to order this important book today with a donation to Truthout! Click here for an abridged...

There has recently been a fuzz about the 26% Irish 2015 GDP growth rate. For more timely discussion of this phenomenon,look here and here on this blog (though I have to admit that I was flabbergasted too by the upward revision of Irish growth from about 9% to about 26%: beyond imagination). What to make of this? The Irish Central Statistical Office is not happy about it, too, and states: “the CSO intends to convene a high-level cross-sector consultative group” to address this situation....