Download or read book Mapping Mainstream Economics written by Georg N. Schäfer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mapping Mainstream Economics: Genealogical Foundations of Alternativity seeks to establish a definition of the mainstream economics, and by extension the alternatives to it, by adopting a genealogical approach: tracing the methodological development of the economic mainstream through its ancestry, which allows for a definition of the mainstream that is separate from politically charged categories or gridlocked academic arguments between received schools of thought. The book follows the evolution of the economic mainstream through four major transformations of the discipline: from political to analytical economics, debates around a logical empiricist economics, the consolidation of neoclassical economics, and the recent expansion of the mainstream. For each of these steps, the key point of departure is explored, illustrated through the work of leading authors at the time. Thus, the book draws on recent research from the history of economic thought and debates the crucial role of historic concepts of economics for alternativity in the field. To put the approach into practice, it examines the relation between today’s mainstream economics and two of its alternatives: ecological economics and degrowth. Finally, the book reflects on recent exciting developments in the discourse on alternativity and sheds light on some distant relatives of today’s mainstream. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on the debates around the state and nature of mainstream, alternative, and heterodox economics.

Download or read book Wellbeing Economy written by Lorenzo Fioramonti and published by Pan Macmillan South africa. This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic growth is a constant mantra of politicians, economists and the media. Few understand what it is, but they love and follow it blindly. The reality is that since the global financial crisis, growth has vanished in the more industrialised economies and in the so-called developing countries. Politicians may be panicking, but is this really a bad thing? Using real-life examples and innovative research, acclaimed political economist Lorenzo Fioramonti lays bare society’s perverse obsession with economic growth by showing its many flaws, paradoxes and inconsistencies. He argues that the pursuit of growth often results in more losses than gains and in damage, inequalities and conflicts. By breaking free from the growth mantra, we can build a better society that puts the wellbeing of all at its centre. A wellbeing economy would have tremendous impact on everything we do, boosting small businesses and empowering citizens as the collective leaders of tomorrow. Wellbeing Economy is a manifesto for radical change in South Africa and beyond.

Download or read book The New Economics written by Steve Keen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the wall of Wittenberg church. He argued that the Church’s internally consistent but absurd doctrines had pickled into a dogmatic structure of untruth. It was time for a Reformation. Half a millennium later, Steve Keen argues that economics needs its own Reformation. In Debunking Economics, he eviscerated an intellectual church – neoclassical economics – that systematically ignores its own empirical untruths and logical fallacies, and yet is still mysteriously worshipped by its scholarly high priests. In this book, he presents his Reformation: a New Economics, which tackles serious issues that today's economic priesthood ignores, such as money, energy and ecological sustainability. It gives us hope that we can save our economies from collapse and the planet from ecological catastrophe. Performing this task with his usual panache and wit, Steve Keen’s new book is unmissable to anyone who has noticed that the economics Emperor is naked and would like him to put on some clothes.

Download or read book Beyond the Invisible Hand written by Kaushik Basu and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why economics needs to focus on fairness and not just efficiency One of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This deep insight has, over the past two centuries, been taken out of context, contorted, and used as the cornerstone of free-market orthodoxy. In Beyond the Invisible Hand, Kaushik Basu argues that mainstream economics and its conservative popularizers have misrepresented Smith's insight and hampered our understanding of how economies function, why some economies fail and some succeed, and what the nature and role of state intervention might be. Comparing this view of the invisible hand with the vision described by Kafka—in which individuals pursuing their atomistic interests, devoid of moral compunction, end up creating a world that is mean and miserable—Basu argues for collective action and the need to shift our focus from the efficient society to one that is also fair. Using analytic tools from mainstream economics, the book challenges some of the precepts and propositions of mainstream economics. It maintains that, by ignoring the role of culture and custom, traditional economics promotes the view that the current system is the only viable one, thereby serving the interests of those who do well by this system. Beyond the Invisible Hand challenges readers to fundamentally rethink the assumptions underlying modern economic thought and proves that a more equitable society is both possible and sustainable, and hence worth striving for. By scrutinizing Adam Smith's theory, this impassioned critique of contemporary mainstream economics debunks traditional beliefs regarding best economic practices, self-interest, and the social good.

Download or read book Economics The User s Guide written by Ha-Joon Chang and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the internationally bestselling author and prizewinning economist--a highly original guide to the global economy. In his bestselling 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang brilliantly debunked many of the predominant myths of neoclassical economics. Now, in an entertaining and accessible primer, he explains how the global economy actually works--in real-world terms. Writing with irreverent wit, a deep knowledge of history, and a disregard for conventional economic pieties, Chang offers insights that will never be found in the textbooks. Unlike many economists, who present only one view of their discipline, Chang introduces a wide range of economic theories, from classical to Keynesian, revealing how each has its strengths and weaknesses, and why there is no one way to explain economic behavior. Instead, by ignoring the received wisdom and exposing the myriad forces that shape our financial world, Chang gives us the tools we need to understand our increasingly global and interconnected world often driven by economics. From the future of the Euro, inequality in China, or the condition of the American manufacturing industry here in the United States--Economics: The User’s Guide is a concise and expertly crafted guide to economic fundamentals that offers a clear and accurate picture of the global economy and how and why it affects our daily lives.

Download or read book The Limits to Scarcity written by Lyla Mehta and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scarcity is considered a ubiquitous feature of the human condition. It underpins much of modern economics and is widely used as an explanation for social organisation, social conflict and the resource crunch confronting humanity's survival on the planet. It is made out to be an all-pervasive fact of our lives - be it of housing, food, water or oil. But has the conception of scarcity been politicized, naturalized, and universalized in academic and policy debates? Has overhasty recourse to scarcity evoked a standard set of market, institutional and technological solutions which have blocked out political contestations, overlooking access as a legitimate focus for academic debates as well as policies and interventions? Theoretical and empirical chapters by leading academics and scholar-activists grapple with these issues by questioning scarcity's taken-for-granted nature. They examine scarcity debates across three of the most important resources - food, water and energy - and their implications for theory, institutional arrangements, policy responses and innovation systems. The book looks at how scarcity has emerged as a totalizing discourse in both the North and South. The 'scare' of scarcity has led to scarcity emerging as a political strategy for powerful groups. Aggregate numbers and physical quantities are trusted, while local knowledges and experiences of scarcity that identify problems more accurately and specifically are ignored. Science and technology are expected to provide 'solutions', but such expectations embody a multitude of unexamined assumptions about the nature of the 'problem', about the technologies and about the institutional arrangements put forward as a 'fix.' Through this examination the authors demonstrate that scarcity is not a natural condition: the problem lies in how we see scarcity and the ways in which it is socially generated.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Consumer Behavior written by Bruce Pietrykowski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-05-07 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumption forms a major part of people’s lives. As such, geographers, historians of technology and sociologists have devoted much attention to trying to figure out what makes consumption meaningful. By contrast, economists have been content to hold onto theories of consumption that depend on a self-interested representative agent making utility maximizing decisions. Pietrykowski develops this alternative account through the recovery of past attempts to forge a different analytical approach to the study of consumption. In particular, theories of consumption espoused by home economists, psychological economists and Regulation school theorists are critically reviewed. These research projects, marginalized by the mainstream, are the precursors of contemporary scholarship in feminist, behavioural and radical political economics. Reclaiming this work greatly enlarges the scope for contemporary research in consumer behavior. Pietrykowski then provides a richly textured set of case studies of green automobility, slow food and alternative/local currency in order to explore the diversity of user cultures and to highlight resistant forms of consumer practice. By carefully interweaving historical and interdisciplinary research Pietrykowski creates a lively and incisive critique of mainstream economics This monograph will be of interest to academic economists, sociologists, historians and graduate students. In addition, the economics of consumption would also be of interest to readers in management, marketing and schools of business administration.

Download or read book Alternative Approaches to Economic Theory written by Victor A. Beker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2007–2008 financial crisis exposed the shortcomings of mainstream economic theory with economists unprepared to deal with it. In the face of this, a major rethinking of economics seems necessary and in presenting alternative approaches to economic theory, this book contributes to the rebuilding of the discipline. This volume brings together contributions from different perspectives and theoretical approaches that address the challenge of updating the economic theory corpus and seek to recover prestige for this discipline after the failure of neoclassical economics. It addresses a range of topics, including the complexity approach to economics, category theory, the Post-Keynesian approach to micro and macroeconomics, financialisation, multidimensional analysis and ecological economics. The book is aimed at economics scholars, researchers, academics and practitioners, as well as upper undergraduates and graduates in this area of knowledge. It may also be of interest for people interested in methodological issues in economics and the relationship between economic theory and the real world.

Download or read book This Is Why We Can t Have Nice Things written by Whitney Phillips and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the media into a frenzy over a fake teen drug crisis; they post offensive messages on Facebook memorial pages, traumatizing grief-stricken friends and family; they use unabashedly racist language and images. They take pleasure in ruining a complete stranger's day and find amusement in their victim's anguish. In short, trolling is the obstacle to a kinder, gentler Internet. To quote a famous Internet meme, trolling is why we can't have nice things online. Or at least that's what we have been led to believe. In this provocative book, Whitney Phillips argues that trolling, widely condemned as obscene and deviant, actually fits comfortably within the contemporary media landscape. Trolling may be obscene, but, Phillips argues, it isn't all that deviant. Trolls' actions are born of and fueled by culturally sanctioned impulses -- which are just as damaging as the trolls' most disruptive behaviors. Phillips describes, for example, the relationship between trolling and sensationalist corporate media -- pointing out that for trolls, exploitation is a leisure activity; for media, it's a business strategy. She shows how trolls, "the grimacing poster children for a socially networked world," align with social media. And she documents how trolls, in addition to parroting media tropes, also offer a grotesque pantomime of dominant cultural tropes, including gendered notions of dominance and success and an ideology of entitlement. We don't just have a trolling problem, Phillips argues; we have a culture problem. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things isn't only about trolls; it's about a culture in which trolls thrive.

Download or read book Value Maps written by Warren D. Miller and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-05-13 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for VALUE MAPS "Equivocator, Explorer, Experimenter, Exploiter, Extender—Chapter 12 might be well served as mandatory reading for all subject matter experts! SPARC is not a valuation, per se, but rather a separate consulting engagement that might interest a client—especially if that client is preparing for a sale or planning an exit strategy. Miller has taken the good ideas from five disciplines and married them with value enhancement, creating what could become a very good 'add-on' consulting engagement. NACVA recommends, and looks forward to, further dialogue related to this new approach. This book will open your eyes to new opportunities." —Parnell Black, MBA, CPA, CVA, Chief Executive Officer, National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA) "No one illuminates the murky intersection where business strategy and private company value creation meet better than Warren Miller. Now he's focused his extensive professional training and real-world experience to produce this intellectually rich, yet down-to-earth and fun-to-read road map we can all use. Business owners and leaders, financial analysts, management consultants, wealth managers, CPAs, business brokers, private equity investors, business appraisers—no one should plan to increase the value of an enterprise without Value Maps in their passenger seat." —David Foster, CEO, Business Valuation Resources "Private-equity analysts do not often come across scholarly and technical professional reading laced with laugh-out-loud moments! Yet this is exactly what one finds in Value Maps. Warren Miller's advice stems from his career as a finance executive, a CPA, a valuation analyst, and a 'recovering academic.' With pitch-perfect balance, Warren has created both a must-have professional reference guide and a best-practices road map designed to enhance the profitability of your client's business and your own—all in a very readable style with just a 'spoon-full of sugar.' Enjoy the read!" —Gary M. Karlitz, ASA, CPA, Partner-in-Charge, Valuation Services, Forensic Services, and Forensic Accounting, Citrin Cooperman & Company, LLP "Extremely readable, with numerous real-world examples—valuation specialists who don't read this book will soon be looking for a new profession. Miller takes the term 'valuation' to new levels, suggesting that appraisers can indeed add real value to their clients' businesses. Clients should demand that a valuation professional read this book before he or she will be hired." —Alfred M. King, Vice Chairman, Marshall & Stevens, Inc.

Download or read book New Economics as Mainstream Economics written by Malcolm Sawyer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-05-27 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with both a new theoretical framework and the capability of new economics to tackle a number of economic problems. It offers detailed analysis and informed comment on the type of new economics emerging in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the 'great recession'.

Download or read book Handbook of the History of Economic Thought written by Jürgen Backhaus and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-11-12 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reader in the history of economic thought challenges the assumption that today’s prevailing economic theories are always the most appropriate ones. As Leland Yeager has pointed out, unlike the scientists of the natural sciences, economists provide their ideas largely to politicians and political appointees who have rather different incentives that might prevent them from choosing the best economic theory. In this book, the life and work of each of the founders of economics is examined by the best available expert on that founding figure. These contributors present rather novel and certainly not mainstream interpretations of the founders of modern economics. The primary theme concerns the development of economic thought as this emerged in the various continental traditions including the Islamic tradition. These continental traditions differed substantially, both substantively and methodologically, from the Anglo-Saxon orientation that has been dominant in the last century for example in the study of public finance or the very construct of the state itself. This books maps the various channels of continental economics, particularly from the late-18th through the early-20th centuries, explaining and demonstrating the underlying unity amid the surface diversity. In particular, the book emphasizes the writings of John Stuart Mill, his predecessor David Ricardo and his follower Jeremy Bentham; the theory of Marginalism by von Thünen, Cournot, and Gossen; the legacy of Karl Marx; the innovations in developmental economics by Friedrich List; the economic and monetary contributions and “struggle of escape” by John Maynard Keynes; the formidable theory in public finance and economics by Joseph Schumpeter; a reinterpretation of Alfred Marshall; Léon Walras, Heinrich von Stackelberg, Knut Wicksell, Werner Sombart, and Friedrich August von Hayek are each dealt with in their own right.

Download or read book Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology written by Luca Fiorito and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-02 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 39C of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, features a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of Frank H. Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit.

Download or read book Is There a Future for Heterodox Economics written by Geoffrey M. Hodgson and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 50 years, the community of heterodox economists has expanded, and its publications have proliferated. But its power in departments of economics has waned. Addressing this paradox, this book argues that heterodox economists are defined more by left ideology than by a shared understanding of the nature of orthodox economics and of what should replace it. Heterodox economists cannot agree on what heterodoxy means. This volume applies work on the social nature and institutions of science to help explain the failure of heterodox economics to gain ground. It assesses some strategic options for its future.

Download or read book Late Neoclassical Economics written by Yahya M. Madra and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Several contemporary economic theories revolve around different concepts: market failures, institutions, transaction costs, information asymmetries, motivational diversity, cognitive limitations, strategic behaviors and evolutionary stability. In recent years, many economists have argued that the increase in circulation and mobilization of these new and heterogeneous concepts and their associated methodologies (e.g., experiments, evolutionary modelling, simulations) signify the death of neoclassical economics. ? Late Neoclassical Economics: The Restoration of Theoretical Humanism in Contemporary Economic Theory draws on the work of Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault and the Amherst School, to construct the concept of a self-transparent and self-conscious human subject (Homo economicus) as the theoretical humanist core of the neoclassical tradition. Instead of identifying the emergent heterogeneity as a break from neoclassicism, this book offers a careful genealogy of many of the new concepts and approaches - including evolutionary game theory, experimental economics and behavioural economics - and reads their elaboration as part of the restoration of the theoretical humanist core of the tradition. ‘Late neoclassical economics’ is therefore characterized as a collection of diverse approaches which have emerged in response to the drift towards structuralism. ? This book is suitable for those who study political economy, history of economic thought and philosophy of economics. The arguments put forward in this text will also resonate with anyone who is interested in the fate of the neoclassical tradition and the future of economic theory.

Download or read book The Darwin Economy written by Robert H. Frank and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: And the consequences of this fact are profound.

Download or read book Uncertainty and Enterprise written by Amar Bhidé and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2025-01-19 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncertainty--doubt about what is or could be--fuels our ambitions and fears. Tantalizing possibilities spur us to innovate and explore. Yet, we also strive to reduce uncertainty. Mountain climbers and deep-sea divers plan carefully. Rules, routines, and research in business, the law, and medicine are designed to increase predictability and forestall unpleasant surprises. Mainstream economics, however, hides from uncertainty, banishing it to the mystical world of unknown unknowns or reducing it to mechanistic calculation. Its textbooks ignore everyday problems that lack demonstrably correct solutions. But resolute responses to such problems require confidence. Where does confidence come from, especially when we go beyond the known? How do we justify our fallible judgments to ourselves and others? Drawing on more than thirty years of teaching and research, Amar Bhidé offers compelling answers. Inspired by--while modernizing--the forgotten ideas of the economist Frank Knight and other great twentieth-century thinkers, Bhidé challenges both hyper-rational economic orthodoxy and claims of pervasive behavioral biases. He shows that while big bets require more justification, the facts alone don't persuade skeptics. Instead, narratives that combine reason, contextual evidence, and creative interpretations align our imaginations. Bhidé's framework and rich examples explain neglected and surprising features of entrepreneurship. He shows how startups and giant corporations coexist; how seemingly bureaucratic procedures encourage the giants to undertake complex high-stakes initiatives; and, how vividly described possibilities help make the imagined real. Cutting through esoteric theories--but avoiding glib prescriptions--Uncertainty and Enterprise examines the foundations of bold yet reasonable action.