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from Blair Fix It was a bet heard around the world. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. It was a bet heard mostly by academics and sustainability buffs. But still, it was a bet … and it was important. The year was 1980. The players were biologist Paul Ehrlich and business professor Julian Simon. The two had conflicting ideas about where humanity was headed. Ehrlich, the author of the 1968 book The Population Bomb, thought humanity was headed for a Malthusian catastrophe. Simon thought the...

from Asad Zaman Classical Physics, the model for modern economics, was based on the ideas of stability and permanence of astronomical orbits; see Mirowski (1992). Deeper examination of astrophysics led to the replacement of this view by big bang which gave birth to the universe, and increasing entropy, which will lead to its heat death. “Equilibrium” just appears as a temporary and local phenomenon in an evolving and chaotic universe. Complexity economics takes non-equilibrium seriously....

from Peter Radford A week or so ago I wrote that I was in the midst of reading Robert Skidelsky’s book “What’s Wrong With Economics”.  His account is complete and balanced, he clearly has a great deal of respect for the discipline, but his critique is well worthwhile the time it takes to read.  At the end the reader might well ask what is left of the mainstream line of theorizing after all the holes Skidelsky punches through it. The problem that many of us might have is that this ground...

from Dean Baker We know that the economy is likely to get worse in the immediate future as the pandemic is spreading out of control in most parts of the country. However, the latest data on average weekly hours indicates we may be facing a longer-term issue that has not generally been anticipated. In a normal recession, we see both a loss of jobs and a reduction in hours for those who managed to keep their jobs. The shortening of hours is a better way for employers to deal with reduced...

Συνέντευξη στον Prisma 91.6 FM για την υγειονομική κρίση COVID-19, την πολιτική κατάσταση και την οικονομία, 1-12-2020 [embedded content]

from Lars Syll Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas leading the reader from sets of more or less plausible but entirely arbitrary assumptions to precisely stated but irrelevant theoretical conclusions … Year after year economic theorists continue to produce scores of mathematical models and to explore in great detail their formal properties; and the econometricians fit algebraic functions of all possible shapes to essentially the same...

from Dean Baker It’s good to see the New York Times making the case for higher wages in an editorial. Unfortunately, they get much of the story confused. First off, the essence of the case is that higher wages will lead to more consumption, which will spur growth. This is true, but higher pay is not the only way to generate more demand. We also get more demand with larger budget deficits, lower interest rates, and a smaller trade deficit. But that is the less important problem with the...

Michael Roberts: Engels – the first critique of political economy Engels was the first Marxist before Marx and was first to develop of critique of contemporary economics and the nature of capitalism. Stavros Mavroudeas: Engels on editing Capital and defending Marx’s law of profitability Engels has been criticised for distorting Marx’s views when editing Capital and thus Marx’s theory of crises: is this right? [embedded content]

Immigration is a hotly debated issue in the EU. To be more precise: immigration from the ‘south’ is hotly debated. Immigration from the East is much more important and increasing. Some facts: Immigration into the EU is increasing and has been increasing for quite some time (the ‘first residence permits’ mentioned in the graph and the quote are not permanent residence permits)This is to a considerable extent caused by immigration into Poland from countries like Ukraine and Belarus....