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from Lars Syll Economics students today are complaining more and more about the way economics is taught. The lack of fundamental diversity — not just path-dependent elaborations of the mainstream canon — and narrowing of the curriculum, dissatisfy econ students all over the world. The frustrating lack of real-world relevance has led many of them […]
from Asad Zaman and the WEA Pedagogy Blog Why does “Sovereign Default” become a hot topic with annoying regularity in Pakistan? The fundamental problem is the huge imbalance between our exports and imports. In 2021, our exports were USD 30 Billion, while our imports were around USD 62 Billion. In general, since 1960 onwards, our […]
from Peter Radford Is it just me? Or is the realm of punditry in a state of confusion? There seems to be an emerging consensus that something big is happening. It’s just that we don’t quite know what. The problem is that the template we are all applying is frayed if not shattered. Consequently we […]
The head of cybercrime prevention in France tweeted yesterday that any attempt by Elon Musk to prevent linking to sites or comments which do not break the law is in fact, the assertion of editorial control. Musk seems to be preventing links partly to anyone he personally has a problem with, but in particular to... Read more
In my first column in this series, I gave Hyman Minsky’s explanation of what caused the stagflation of the 1970s—a credit bubble bursting when the economy was absolutely at its peak caused the stagnation, while high wage and oil price rises caused the inflation. I finished with the essence of Milton Friedman’s very different explanation: … Continue reading "This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Inflation Part Two"
I’ve been focusing on the economics of climate change for over four years now, because it’s the most pressing problem facing humanity, and because economists have done such a god-awful job on it—fooling themselves into regarding an existential threat as a minor cost-benefit problem (Keen 2020; Keen et al. 2022). For circumstantial reasons, I can’t … Continue reading "Back to the history of economic thought: “Keynesian Economics” failed in 1935"
I owe enormous intellectual debts to Hyman Minsky and Augusto Graziani. But at one point, my “little knowledge” led me to believe, falsely, that they had both made a huge mistake in claiming that repaying debt destroyed money: Graziani: As soon as firms repay their debt to the banks, the money initially created is destroyed. … Continue reading "A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing"
I’m getting a prize in economics myself this week—the Friede-Gard Prize for Sustainable Economics—and I was going to ignore the Nobel Prize for Economics, which is always awarded to economic insiders rather than rebels like me. But then they gave it to Ben Bernanke. This was just too much: to me, it was like awarding … Continue reading "The Nobel Prize for Mediocrity and Irrelevance Goes To…"
The fact that the Friede-Gard Prize is awarded in Trier, the town where Karl Marx was born, is entirely coincidental: it just so happens that the creators of the Prize (which began in 2021) live near Trier. Nonetheless, it’s a fitting coincidence for me to receive the prize here, since my academic career began with … Continue reading "Receiving the Friede-Gard Prize in Marx’s home town"