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from Dean Baker New York Times columnist Peter Coy did a piece yesterday questioning the existence of a gap between productivity growth and the typical worker’s pay. This gap was established decades ago by my friends and former colleagues at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The fact that it is now being questioned says a lot about economics and even more about politics in this country. First, let me be clear, my purpose is not at all to beat up on Coy. I’ve known him for many years...

To the death toll of the violence in Gaza, around 15.000 additional deaths of infants and children between 1 and 5 have to be added. This is a rough and, in my opinion, a lower-bound estimate. However, the calculations are based on robust information, and sizeable additional mortality in infants and young children in Gaza is real. Next to the direct victims of war, there are indirect victims who die because of lack of proper medical care or because of harsh circumstances. Here, I´ll...

This paper examines the military-industrial complex (MIC), which is a prototype widely imitated by other business sectors. Collectively, they constitute a variety of capitalism which can be termed the poly-industrial complex (PIC). Understanding the MIC is critical to understanding contemporary US capitalism, US international policy, and the drift toward Cold War II. The MIC exerts […]

from Edward Fullbrook Humankind urgently needs a new discipline.  Our very survival may depend on it.  Natural science tells us that the economy now threatens humanity with calamity and potentially with extinction; and the daily news tells us that the economy’s forty-year upward redistribution of wealth, income and power threatens democracy and social order.  But meanwhile the only discipline that directly engages with today’s economy is the one whose “wisdom” has guided it to its present...

from Lars Syll Recognition of the speculative value of counterfactualizing provides the grounding for a defense of theoretical pluralism in economics. The existence of multiple contending theories in economics is inconvenient, of course. It casts doubt on the truth content of the counterfactual scenarios generated by the predominant approach and challenges the predominant causal claims … But that is precisely the virtue of contending theoretical perspectives in economics. They serve to...

Ιουνίου 06, 2024 Σε αυτό το επεισόδιο ο Στέλιος Μερμίγκης και ο Γιώργος Κατσιπάνος συνομιλούν για τις επικείμενες ευρωεκλογές με τον Σταύρο Μαυρουδέα υποψήφιο ευρωβουλευτή με το ψηφοδελτίο της ΑΝΤΑΡΣΥΑ. Ο Σταύρος Μαυρουδέας (γενν. 1961) είναι Έλληνας οικονομολόγος που ακολουθεί την παράδοση της Πολιτικής Οικονομίας. Είναι καθηγητής (με γνωστικό αντικείμενο «Πολιτική Οικονομία») στο τμήμα Κοινωνικής Πολιτικής του Παντείου Πανεπιστημίου. Προηγουμένως εργάσθηκε από το 1993 έως το 2019...

from Lars Syll In practice, what math does is let macro-economists locate the FWUTVs [facts with unknown truth values] farther away from the discussion of identification … Relying on a micro-foundation lets an author say, “Assume A, assume B, … blah blah blah … And so we have proven that P is true. Then the model is identified.” … Distributional assumptions about error terms are a good place to bury things because hardly anyone pays attention to them. Moreover, if a critic does see that...

from Jayati Ghosh The international-development sector has become fixated on calculating financing gaps. Hardly a day goes by without new estimates of the funds low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) need to meet their climate targets and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, for example, estimates that developing and emerging economies (excluding China) need $2.4 trillion annually by 2030 to close...

Brad DeLong (in a recent post summarising a joint podcast with Noah Smith) walks back his previous suggestion that it was time for neoliberals, among whom he had numbered himself, to pass the baton to “the Left”. The political basis for this is that 20 or so Senate Republicans have been willing to pass legislation from time to time, rather than shutting down the government altogether. I don’t find this compelling, but I also don’t want to debate the issue. Rather, I’m interested...

Armine Yalnizyan, Atkinson Fellow on the Future for Workers – Recipient of the 2023 Galbraith Prize in Economics This lecture was delivered on May 31, 2024, at the Canadian Economics Association Annual Meetings, Toronto Metropolitan University Thank you for the immense honour of being awarded the Galbraith Prize in Economics — and for agreeing to wait a year to hear this speech in Toronto instead of Winnipeg.  Some of you know why the delay occurred. Others can find me later and...