Tag Archives: Economics

On the limited applicability of statistical physics to economics Statistical mechanics reasoning may be applicable in the economic and social sciences, but only if adequate consideration is paid to the specific contexts and conditions of its application. This requires attention to “non-mechanical” processes of interaction, inflected by power, culture, institutions etc., and therefore of specific histories which gives rise to these factors … Outside of very...

A couple of years ago, former chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, wrote in an article in the Financial Times, re the increased demands for stronger regulation of banks and finance: Since the devastating Japanese earthquake and, earlier, the global financial tsunami, governments have been pressed to guarantee their populations against virtually all the risks exposed by those extremely low probability events. But should they? Guarantees require the building up of a buffer of...

.[embedded content] (In case you’re not familiar with the ongoing debate on how to analyse mediation and moderation (interaction) in causal models, yours truly suggests you start by reading Judea Pearl’s The Book of Why (2018), chapter 9.)

Sergio Cesaratto – Those Italian subsidies for Germany December 8, 2021 Economics, EU politics, EU-Institutions, Finance, Inequality, National Politics, Regulation Italy has paid for certain ill-advised policies of the ECB – influenced by Berlin, the dominant power in Europe – with dozens of points of additional debt/GDP and finding itself ever poorer, while Germany symmetrically gained. Sergio Cesaratto teaches European monetary and fiscal...

.[embedded content] A great scholar has passed away. R.I.P.

Monnaie d’hier, monnaie de demain Enfin, pour ce qui est de la dangereuse privatisation de la monnaie qui adviendrait avec les cryptomonnaies, demandons-nous si la monnaie légale est le bien public qu’elle prétend être. C’est à son accaparement par le secteur bancaire et financier qu’entendent répondre des innovations financières comme les cryptomonnaies ou les monnaies complémentaires, aussi différents soient leurs projets sous-jacents. Alors, plutôt que...

Does it take a theory to beat a theory? If the substantive theories and methods you use, given their ontological presuppositions, are appropriate to the nature of those aspects of social reality you are addressing, then fine. The only methodological ‘dictum’ I support is tailor methods to the nature of the phenomena you are addressing. Certainly, I would offer no ontological critique. Specifically, if the five sets of properties you list do characterise the...

Few volumes in contemporary economics have been more lauded, and have summarised a zeitgeist, as much as Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s Poor Economics … The implicit premise of the book is that interventions that work in one place can be expected to work in another. This presumes not only that the results of such “micro” interventions are substantially independent of the “macro” context, but also that a focus on such interventions, as opposed to those which reshape that...

‘Vår ekonomi’ — nationalekonomisk lärobok med stora brister Varje höst håller your truly sedan fler år tillbaka en introduktionskurs i nationalekonomi för blivande gymnasielärare. Förutom några av mina egna böcker, står även Klas Eklunds Vår ekonomi på litteraturlistan. Vår ekonomi kom år 2020 ut i sin femtonde upplaga. Imponerande och i sig ett bevis på bokens många förtjänster, inte minst de pedagogiska. Men tyvärr har boken också — fortfarande — några...

Mainstream economics — a harmful fantasy Anyone who accepts the Neoclassical definition of ‘rational’ has, to some significant degree, lost touch with reality. So, I was expecting an ‘irrational’ reaction from this young zealot to my talk … He tried to engage me in further debate after the session, and shouted ‘But we have to make some simplifying assumptions!’ at me as I left the seminar room. My riposte, cast over my receding shoulder, was ‘Mate, you have...