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from David Ruccio James Ensor, “The Intrigue” (1890)Mainstream economists have, it seems, discovered the existence of economic ideas outside the official discipline of economics. It took them long enough! But, unfortunately, they don’t treat the topic particularly seriously —certainly not in the way the scholars who pioneered the project of the New Economic Criticism, starting in the mid-1990s, set out to conduct their theoretical and empirical work. No, for mainstream economists it’s...

That’s the self-explanatory headline for my latest piece in The Conversation. Read there, comment here.I should mention that The Conversation edits quite vigorously, including adding material. So, while I stand by the argument in the piece, not every turn of phrase is exactly what I would have written. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

American exceptionalism is the most dangerous doctrine in the world, and it has been on full display in the current Ukraine crisis. Worse yet, the loudest advocates have been America’s elite liberal class. The doctrine of exceptionalism holds that the US is inherently different from and superior to other nations. That superiority means the US […]

In general the price system does not reveal all the information about “the true value” of the risky asset … The only way informed traders can earn a return on their activity of information gathering, is if they can use their information to take positions in the market which are “better” than the positions of uninformed traders. “Efficient Markets” theorists have claimed that “at any time prices fully reflect all available information” … If this were so then informed traders could not earn...

from Lars Syll  So what is the MMT solution to dealing with inflation ex post—i.e. once the problem is here? There isn’t one. And I’d suggest running fast and far from anyone who offers you a quick and easy prescription for dealing with any and all inflation. Mainstream economists, of course, offer just such a solution. The Federal Reserve will fix it! After all, it’s already their job (dual mandate), and they can act quickly and “independently,” tightening policy without fear of any...

Are we living in an epoch of high inflation? it’s a difficult question to answer as we’re lacking the tools to do this. Economics – heterodox and mainstream alike – is lacking a profound ‘periodic table’ of prices. This hampers them when they write and talk about inflation. There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle. The framework of the national accounts provides us with the distinction between expenditure prices (investments, government purchases, household...

from Asad Zaman This lecture is about the personality of Sr Ronald Fisher and his foundational ideas about statistics. The idea that statistics is all about “data reduction” is due to lack of computational capabilities at the time of Fisher – it was not possible to analyze 1000’s of data points, without reducing them to manageable summaries. Even though computer capabilities now make this possible, intellectual inertia has kept the discipline of statistics bound to the now obsolete mold...

A conference by the World Economics Association (WAE) and IDEAs, 20th April to 20th May, 2022. Rationale This World Economics Association (WEA) – International Development Economic Associates (IDEAs) Conference, led by the Professors Alicia Puyana and Maria Alejandra Madi, calls for a pluralist reflection about current knowledge in...

from Dean Baker We all know about the Trumpers’ big lie: somehow millions of votes were stolen from their hero, but the liberals were so smart in their steal that Trump’s team can’t produce any evidence. That one rightly draws contempt from anyone not in the cult, but what about the big lie that the vast majority of intellectuals seem to accept? Regular readers know what I am talking about. The big lie is that the massive rise in inequality over the last four decades was somehow the...