Articles
Why we should abandon GDP
Gross Domestic Product is the most popular and useless quantity in economics say Erald Kolasi and Blair Fix. For all that it purports to say, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fails
Hidden in plain sight
Alan Freeman interprets the art of deft manipulation of fact used in painting an unrealistically assuring, yet remarkably convincing picture of international inequality. In his 1997 book, The Demon-Haunted World:
The silence about violence
Susie Steed used to teach economics to undergraduates, but she can’t bear to any longer. She tells why. I’ve been trying to describe to people why I’m no longer teaching
Interviews
Licence to be Bad
We were probably all told as children to share and not be selfish. This contrasts with economic
A World Away
Economics training in Africa has long been funded by the World Bank so it keeps to the narrow track of mainstream economics – as do the economic policies in Africa.
Significantly speaking
Stephen Ziliak has spent much of his illustrious career in economics examining the significance of significance – that is the statistical test of significance. It turns out how this test
News
Columns
Round for Dinner
My Christmas card from Esther and Abhijit Circular arguments ensue after a round of experiments. And Thomas’ culinary efforts return to the earth. I must admit that last week was
The Dawning of the Age of Acquisitiveness
In 1969, I was seven years old and largely oblivious to the historical events happening around the world. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, half a million people came to
How to stop the brain drain
Nigella Vigoroso-Heck has an idea. It’s really hard to fuck up a lesson on Game Theory. Even the most didactic teacher would find it difficult not to let his students
Books
Economics: A Crash Course : Become An Instant Expert by David Boyle & Andrew Simms
From Publisher: Not long ago, economic theories were generally based on a narrow set of principles. Then the continuing boom-bust cycle combined with the failure of the best economic minds
Jonathan Aldred – Licence to be Bad
Publisher Description Over the past fifty years, the way we value what is ‘good’ and ‘right’ has changed dramatically. Behaviour that to our grandparents’ generation might have seemed stupid, harmful
Markets: Perspectives from Economic and Social Theory – William A. Jackson
Publisher Description Defining markets has never been an easy task. Despite their importance for economic theory and practice, they are hard to pin down as a concept and economists have
Event Recordings
Is there a future for Heterodox Economics?
Over the last 50 years, the community of heterodox economists has expanded, and its publications have proliferated. Heterodoxy was given a big boost after mainstream economics was discredited by the
#NotTheNobel Prize – Final Event
Our economic system is driving us towards a perfect storm. We are facing ecological breakdown. Rising debt is threatening a new financial crash. Inequality is pulling societies apart. For 50
Are some countries destined to remain underdeveloped?
Since the mid-1990s, development economics has witnessed an explosion in the discourse explaining the poor economic performance in developing countries – especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – by non-policy