. As Cartwright convincingly argues, although economics produces knowledge, it is only partial — knowledge that is useful in specific contexts but not universally generalizable. Mainstream economics certainly aspires to be an exact science, but if it is to be considered as such, it only applies to the ‘small worlds’ that economists know how to […]
economics
One line of thought that can be found in Mill is that good methodology consists in investigating significant forces in isolation from all interfering factors. When we have a good understanding of the behavior of all the main forces we can try to see how to put them all together. Thus we need only assume, […]
Despite its pretensions the mainstream failed to predict, has failed to adequately explain, and continues to fail to appropriately diagnose solutions for the major economic crises of the 21st century: from the Dot-Com collapse of 20012, to the financial crisis of 2008-10 and most recently Covid19 and its aftermath. Syll demonstrates that very little if […]
When we provide such a critique, we often hear another mantra to which many economists subscribe: ‘It takes a model to beat a model.’ On the contrary, we believe that it takes facts and observations to beat a model … If a model fails to answer the problem to which it is addressed, it should […]
I verkligheten är bostadsmarknaden otryggare. Arbetsmarknaden är osäkrare. Välfärdsstaten har försvagats. Klimatet förändras snabbt. Samtidigt är de geopolitiska spänningarna större än under kalla kriget. Allt detta påverkar såväl prisbilden som våra allmänna livsvillkor. För att inte tala om våra barns framtid. Mot denna bakgrund behöver vi fråga oss om det är rimligt att det är […]
Given that economic pedagogy is unrealistic and that economic research and economics profession have lost credence and trust in solving the problems of people and planet, how can I as an instructor take a few classes for undergrads on the question as to what is the right way of pursuing knowledge and engaging responsibly with […]
Ninety years ago Keynes could congratulate Great Britain on finally having got rid of the biggest ”barbarous relic” of his time — the gold standard. He lamented that advocates of the ancient standard do not observe how remote it now is from the spirit and the requirement of the age … [T]he long age of […]
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in […]
Behavioral economics is still ‘in a relationship’ with orthodox economics and, in a relationship, one makes compromises … We all know how stubborn the other side in this relationship is: standard economics will always ‘rationalize’ behavior wherever it can and will only recognize ‘irrationality’ when there is clear and convincing evidence of it. Understandably, behavioral […]
During the recent inflationary episode, the RBA relentlessly pursued the argument that they had to keep hiking interest rates, and then, had to keep them at elevated levels, well beyond any reasonable assessment of the situation, because wage pressures were set to explode. They claimed their business liaison panel was telling them that wages were…