"The Ghosts of Economics Past" by J. Bradford DeLong. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space In Charles Dicken's great novel "A Christmas Carol," the soulless businessman Ebeneezer Scrooge is tormented by a visit from the Spirit of Christmas Past. Today, economists are similarly troubled by unwanted ghosts, as they ponder the reappearance of economic ills long thought buried and dead.
From Stephen Roach at Morgan Stanley to Paul Krugman at Princeton, to the Governors of the US Federal Reserve and the senior staff at the European Central Bank, to almost everyone in Japan, economists all over the world are worrying about deflation. Their thoughts retrace the economic thinking of over fifty years ago, a time when economists concluded that the thing to do with deflation was to avoid it like the plague. Back in 1933 Irving Fisher --Milton Friedman's predecessor atop America's monetarist school of economists-- announced that governments could prevent deep depressions by avoiding deflation. "The New New Thing in Economics" by J. Bradford DeLong.
Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space The Great Depression brought John Maynard Keynes to the forefront of economic thought. The key "Keynesian" insight was that private investment spending is inherently unstable--due to fads and fashions among investors, or because of shifts in the "animal spirits" of businessmen, or because falling prices disrupt the financial system. Keynesians thought that prudent monetary policy--central banks raising and lowering interest rates to diminish fluctuations in private investment spending--could go part of the way toward stabilizing the economy.
But they also believed that government had to be willing to step in directly, through expansive fiscal policy, to keep the overall level of spending in an economy stable. Such a policy, they believed, would forever banish the specter of large-scale mass unemployment, as in the Great Depression. Moreover, near-full employment might effectively be guaranteed. Round and round we go. General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by Keynes. The early pioneers of economic thinking may have hit upon their maxims of practical wisdom without having had much cognisance of the underlying theoretical grounds. Let us, therefore, examine briefly the reasons they gave as well as what they recommended. This is made easy by reference to Professor Heckscher's great work on Mercantilism, in which the essential characteristics of economic thought over a period of two centuries are made available for the first time to the general economic reader.
The quotations which follow are mainly taken from his pages. (1) Mercantilists' thought never supposed that there was a self-adjusting tendency by which the rate of interest would be established at the appropriate level. On the contrary they were emphatic that an unduly high rate of interest was the main obstacle to the growth of wealth; and they were even aware that the rate of interest depended on liquidity-preference and the quantity of money. In truth the opposite holds good. Glyn Davies.
Denmark and the Aftermath of War Immediately following the Germany surrender at Lüneburg Heath the Royal Dragoons, along with a few other British regiments, took part in the liberation of Denmark. Among the Germans taken prisoner was Lieutenant Otto Wendt von Radowitz, an aristocrat, and Glyn Davies was given the task of escorting him home to Germany on his release. (According to the orders given to Glyn Davies on 22 August 1945, the British Consulate in Copenhagen wanted von Radowitz to search for "some English documents of importance, believed to be in the safe at Falkenberg Castle").
Von Radowitz's mother showed her gratitude at seeing her son again by offering Davies a copy of Mein Kampf, signed by Hitler himself, but the offer was tactfully declined. A more lasting result of his stay in Denmark was the meeting with the young Danish woman, Anna Margrethe, (or Grethe) who, in 1947, was to become his wife. Academic Career and Interests The University of Strathclyde The Welsh Office Family. The Cancer Stage of Capitalism. The Cancer Stage Of Capitalism: Our social immune system is being overwhelmed by growing out-of-control money market cancer By John McMurtry [John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, uses the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer to describe the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism.
Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and--if not soon restrained--could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. This essay is a condensed version of an article Prof. McMurtry wrote for the American journal "Social Justice. "] This article was published in the CCPA Monitor, July/August 1996. When we think of a society's "defense system," we think of its armed forces. Society's real system of self-defense, its public health process, is in this way deprived of its proper resources and functions.
The real incomes of most of society's members have declined across the world. The New York Times > Business > Economic Scene: The Theory That Self-Interest Is the Sole Motivator Is Self-Fulfilling. Published: February 17, 2005 NEW YORKER cartoon depicts a well-heeled, elderly gentleman taking his grandson for a walk in the woods. "It's good to know about trees," he tells the boy, before adding, "Just remember, nobody ever made big money knowing about trees. " If the man's advice was not inspired directly by the economist's rational-actor model, it could have been. This model assumes that people are selfish in the narrow sense. It may be nice to know about trees, it acknowledges, but it goes on to caution that the world out there is bitterly competitive, and that those who do not pursue their own interests ruthlessly are likely to be swept aside by others who do.
To be sure, self-interest is an important human motive, and the self-interest model has well-established explanatory power. But some economists go so far as to say that self-interest explains virtually all behavior. He just happened to have an excellent one on sale for only 18 euros. Robert H. Participatory economics. Albert and Hahnel stress that parecon is only meant to address an alternative economic theory and must be accompanied by equally important alternative visions in the fields of politics, culture and kinship. The authors have also discussed elements of anarchism in the field of politics, polyculturalism in the field of culture, and feminism in the field of family and gender relations as being possible foundations for future alternative visions in these other spheres of society. Stephen R. Shalom has begun work on a participatory political vision he calls "par polity". Both systems together make up the political philosophy of Participism.
Participatory Economics has also significantly shaped the interim International Organization for a Participatory Society. Decision-making principle[edit] One of the primary propositions of parecon is that all persons should have a say in decisions proportionate to the degree to which they are affected by them. Work in a participatory economy[edit] The Malthusian physiognomy of Nazi economics. Krugman contra Hayek - Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan. The current recession has brought back discussion on the merits of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policy. Broadly speaking, the economics profession is divided into two camps. One side is made up of "liquidationists" and "deficit hawks," supporting tight monetary policy and low — or no — government spending. The other group is composed of those fearing a fall in prices, who support easy credit and expansive fiscal policy to combat it.
While most economists probably fall in between, this dichotomy represents the two poles. The extremes are occupied by the Austrian School on one end and Paul Krugman on (or close enough to) the other. The growth of the Austrian School has forced economists like Paul Krugman — who, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to as Keynesians[1] — to reconsider these opposing viewpoints. A recent contribution to the debate, "Antipathy to Low Rates," swipes at Friedrich Hayek's "liquidationism. " Krugman then provides his interpretation, J. S. Mill on Method. 1.0 IntroductionJohn Stuart Mill wrote an essay on the methodology of economics or rather, in the language of his day, Political Economy. I look at it in a Whiggish fashion to show some of his ideas are still around today, namely:The distinction between positive and normative propositionsThe notion of economic man as being motivated solely by monetary considerations (Homo Economicus)The argument that economics should be a deductive, not an inductive, scienceThe complexity of society and the nature of humankind precludes controlled experimentation(I do not claim that Mill was original with any particular concept here.)
Some of these distinctions you will find critics of mainstream economics imposing on the mainstream, while mainstream economists say that they have been long rejected. I am thinking especially of Mill's claim that economics examines the logical implications of a separate economic motive. Humankind has other motives that are altruistic or not directed towards money. How to Understand the Disaster by Robert M. Solow.
A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ‘08 and the Descent into Depression by Richard A. Posner Harvard University Press, 346 pp., $23.95 To make progress in that direction requires some understanding of the origins of the current mess. More striking than what the book says is who says it. Judge Posner evidently writes the way other men breathe. The plainspokenness I mentioned is what makes this book an event. But not this time, at least not at one central point, the main point of this book. Some conservatives believe that the depression is the result of unwise government policies. If I had written that, it would not be news.
Yet another characteristic is the inevitability of market imperfections, so that what is essentially the same object can sell for two or more different prices; or so that some market prices can be manipulated by large, informed operators; or so that some markets take a long time to match supply and demand. This sob story is just the beginning. How Competition Goes Wrong - McMURTRY - 2008 - Journal of Applied Philosophy. GARRISON'S TIME AND MONEY: THE MACROECONOMICS OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE. Economics and Finance: From Theory to Practice to Policy | MIT150 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology 150th anniversary. Watch videos of this symposium This symposium celebrated the role of MIT's faculty and students in advancing the fields of economics and finance, in putting the latest developments into practice, and in contributing to the design of public policy. A series of six panels, which included Nobel laureates, policy makers, and academic and industry experts, addressed three broad questions: What are the key recent scientific developments and the major unresolved issues of economics and finance?
What are the central challenges in economic policy? Faculty leads Andrew W. Organized by MIT’s Department of Economics and the Alfred P. Read more about this symposium in the news: MIT News: January 26, 2011 MIT News: January 31, 2011 MIT Sloan Management Review Wall Street Journal Boston Herald Video archive January 27, 2011 Opening Remarks John S. The Evolution of Economic Science: Individual and Firm Behavior Moderator: James M. The Evolution of Economic Science: Macroeconomics, Growth, and Development David C.
N. ECON 3700 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT. A History of Wealth and Poverty. Videos from the World's Best Conferences and Events. 10 Lesser Known Economic Issues. Politics While not an economist in the traditional sense, I am very interested in the study of economics. While not everyone shares this level of interest, I believe people should have an understanding of economics as the field is so important to understanding the world that we live in. Though this list contains ideas that are controversial, it is not intended to promote anger or controversy. Rather, these entries were chosen to shed some light on lesser known, yet important economic issues facing our world, and give readers something to ponder.
Please give your opinions on these issues in the comments. Also known as the Diamond-Water Paradox, the paradox of value is the contradiction that while water is more useful, in terms of survival, than diamonds, diamonds get a higher market price. This paradox can possibly be explained by the Subjective Theory of Value, which says that worth is based on the wants and needs of a society, as opposed to value being inherent to an object. Why do some countries’ economies grow faster? Where do you make your academic home if your PhD is in physics, you did a postdoc at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and you’re researching macroeconomic theories that defy the conventional wisdom in the field? The MIT Media Lab, naturally. That, at least, is the unusual career path taken by César Hidalgo, one of two new assistant professors to join the Media Lab last fall. Hidalgo says that one of his heroes is Francis Bacon, the 16th-century English statesman, philosopher, lawyer and essayist generally credited with inventing the scientific method, and it’s the breadth of Bacon’s intellectual appetite that Hidalgo finds inspiring.
In his PhD thesis, Hidalgo applied mathematical tools largely derived from statistical physics to problems in economics and urban planning and to the analysis of cell-phone networks; in other work, he’s used similar tools to study gene expression and disease epidemiology. But in recent years, Hidalgo has been concentrating on development economics.