Tag Archives: public goods

The economics of money is back in the limelight. Even five years ago, I cannot imagine that a lecture on money and the payment system could have been a subject for an event like today’s. Theoretically speaking, money is a social convention. People accept money in the expectation that everyone else will do the same. According to this bare-bones definition, anything could serve as money provided that everyone, as it were, buys in. In economic parlance, this equilibrium analysis gives rise to...

Important. Demonstrates the need for a return to political economy" to right the balance, which has swung too far in the direction of economic liberalism.The problem is that the assumptions on which economic liberalism is based are ideological and not empirical, seeming to contradict what actually happens institutionally especially in democratic societies regarding "public goods." Economic liberalism assumes that public goods are only needed as a result of "market failure," so the solution...

Economics has never accepted the idea that the public sector creates wealth. But it does—and acknowledging that can lead to sweeping change.... Democracy — A Journal of IdeasYes, Government Creates Wealth Mariana Mazzucato | RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex

[unable to retrieve full-text content]July 4th May Be Over, But The Fireworks Discussions Continue…: you: yay a day off let’s do some fireworks me, economist: OMG YOU’RE DOING FIREWORKS TOTALLY INEFFICIENTLY LET ME EXPLAIN

[unable to retrieve full-text content]July 4th May Be Over, But The Fireworks Discussions Continue…: you: yay a day off let’s do some fireworks me, economist: OMG YOU’RE DOING FIREWORKS TOTALLY INEFFICIENTLY LET ME EXPLAIN

[unable to retrieve full-text content]So Do We Still Have Unions Now or No? Economics Can (Sort of) Answer That!: I guess it’s not teribly often that behavioral economics can be comforting rather than infuriating, so here you go…

[unable to retrieve full-text content]So Do We Still Have Unions Now or No? Economics Can (Sort of) Answer That!: I guess it’s not teribly often that behavioral economics can be comforting rather than infuriating, so here you go…

Socialism is much more than public ownership of productive enterprises. Still, if there is one policy that clearly distinguishes socialists from their (or rather our) opponents, it is support for public enterprise as a way of organizing large-scale production, and, in particular, as the preferred model for industries characterized by natural monopoly or other major market failures. The opposite view, dominant since the 1970s, is the market liberal framework that favors comprehensive private...

President Trump presented his infrastructure plan last week. If you’re keen on the idea of out-of-control privatized utilities gouging customers and manipulating energy markets, or consortia building overpriced, expensive toll roads (until they go bust), then you’ll love the president’s proposals. His mooted public-private partnerships are another variant of socialism for the rich and free market discipline for the rest of us. PPPs are like a religion that offers its adherents the promise...

More than a century ago, the effective operation of the public economy was a significant, active concern of economists. With the insurgence of market-centrism and rational choice economics, however, government was devalued, its role circumscribed and seen from a perspective of “market failure.” As Backhouse (2005) has shown, the transformation in economic thinking in the latter half of the 20th century led to a “radical shift” in worldview regarding the role of the state. The very idea of a...