Tag Archives: history of economic thought

I’ve written a report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy about social assistance—specifically, about social assistance for employable single adults without dependants. A ‘top 10’ overview of the report can be found here. Nick Falvo is a Calgary-based research consultant with a PhD in Public Policy. He has academic affiliation at both Carleton University and Case Western Reserve University, and is Section Editor of the Canadian Review of Social...

In an important new book Keynes Against Capitalism: His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism (Routledge, 2019) James Crotty argues that Keynes was a socialist who advocated a much more radical economic agenda than most mainstream economists and political analysts realize. Based on a very close reading of Keynes’ work, Crotty argues that core Keynesian economic ideas should inform democratic socialism today. The conventional wisdom assimilated into mainstream perspectives is that...

In an important new book Keynes Against Capitalism: His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism (Routledge, 2019) James Crotty argues that Keynes was a socialist who advocated a much more radical economic agenda than most mainstream economists and political analysts realize. Based on a very close reading of Keynes’ work, Crotty argues that core Keynesian economic ideas should inform democratic socialism today. The conventional wisdom assimilated into mainstream perspectives is that...

Value theory in economics. Economic Sociology and Political Economy Finance, Class, and the Birth of Neoclassical Economics: The Marginalist Revolution Revisited Yair Kaldor | PhD candidate in the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of Koah LaOvdim (“Power to the Workers”), an Israeli labor union.

It's about mathematical economics and its limitations. Don't let the title scare you off. Not at all wonkish (no math), although it helps if have some background in the controversy.Basically, it's Plato (formalism) versus Aristotle (empiricism). Most mathematicians today are Platonists, while most scientists are Aristotelians. But that is another story.Lars P. Syll’s BlogArrow-Debreu and the Bourbaki illusion of rigour Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Some history of economics.Conversable EconomistOrigins of "Microeconomics" and "Macroeconomics"Timothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

The ‘Matching functions’ mentioined in the quote explain unemployment by assuming that finding a job or a worker takes time. And this does explain unemployment – part of it (2%-point?). The rest must be explained by crises and the inability of the market system to create jobs. As is clear from comparing graph 2, short-lived crises cause lower levels of job creation and higher levels of job destruction. Basically, these swings are not even that large. But together they lead to a fast...

What should the purpose of studying the history of economic thought be? Piero Sraffa explains it.The post is short and important in the study of history of thought, not only economic thought.Sraffa's answer is consistent with Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change.Naked KeynesianismOn Sraffa and the History of Economic ThoughtOpening comments, "Roundtable on Sraffian Economics as Part of the Radical Political Economics Tradition," URPE 50th...

Book Review Mariana Mazzucato. The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy. Allen Lane. 2018. The playwright Oscar Wilde quipped that a cynic is a person who “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” As Mariana Mazzucato argues in her important and stimulating new book, “The Value of Everything,” that adage could be applied to the vast majority of mainstream, neo-classical economists. Mazzucato is the author of the previous bestseller, The Entrepreneurial...

Allan Moscovitch and I have co-authored a blog post that looks at the history of child benefits in Canada. Points made in the blog post include the following: -Child benefits can reduce both poverty and homelessness. -When child benefits began in Canada after World War II, one major motivating factor for the federal government was to avoid recession. Another was to fend off social unrest (i.e. Canada’s growing labour movement and the growing popularity of the CCF). The full blog post can be...