economics

If scientific progress in economics lies in our ability to tell ‘better and better stories’ one would, of course, expect economics journals to be filled with articles supporting the stories with empirical evidence confirming the predictions. However, the journals still show a striking and embarrassing paucity of empirical studies that (try to) substantiate these predictive […]

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 to demand the […]

• Mind the assumptions — assess uncertainty and sensitivity. • Mind the hubris — complexity can be the enemy of relevance. • Mind the framing — match purpose and context. • Mind the consequences — quantification may backfire. • Mind the unknowns — acknowledge ignorance. Andrea Saltelli, John Kay, Deborah Mayo, Philip B. Stark, et […]

A critique yours truly sometimes encounters is that as long as I cannot come up with some own alternative to the failing mainstream theory, I shouldn’t expect people to pay attention. This is however to misunderstand the role of philosophy and methodology of economics! As John Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: The […]

Keith Hart, a renowned and influential economic anthropologist: “Western civilization represents itself as an economy these days. The TV news bombards us with the ephemeral movements of stock prices, exchange rates, and the latest unemployment figures. Elections are fought and lost on a government’s economic record. International diplomacy is mainly about trade and banking. The […]

Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, one thing is for sure the economic reverberations will be felt by everyone for years to come as the world divides between the West and a rapidly reshaping Eurasia.

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Replacing things that aren’t broken helps push up GDP, but is absurd. Much like Tory economic policy

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On November 4, 2008, Queen Elizabeth visited the London School of Economics for the opening of a new building. While there she was given an explanation on the origins and effects of the global financial crisis. At the end of briefing the Queen asked only one question: “Why did nobody notice it?” Professor of Economics […]

Wassily Leontief,  a Russian-born U.S. economist,  was and still is one of the most recognized names in economics, linked to the development of input-output analysis for which he won the “Nobel Prize” in Economic Sciences in 1973. Leontief earned his Ph.D. degree under the direction of a German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart in Berlin […]