Dirk Philipsen on GDP

How countries achieve long-term GDP growth is up there with the most important topics in economics. As Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas put it “the consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.” Ricardo Hausmann et al take a refreshing approach to this question in their Atlas of Economic Complexity. They argue a country’s growth depends on the complexity of its economy: it must have a diverse economy which produces a wide variety of products, including ones that cannot be produced much elsewhere. The Atlas goes into detail on exactly what complexity means, how it fits the data, and what this implies for development. Below I will offer a summary of their arguments, including some cool data visualisations.

John K. Galbraith recounts episodes in the history of money such as the creation of the bank of Amsterdam, John Law's fraudulent Bank Royal, the inception of the Bank of England and of the Federal Reserve to illustrate concepts such as money creation by commercial banks, the bank rate, open market operations or the money supply in general. The emotions, myths and struggles surrounding money are addressed and explained in a clear and consistent manner.

Als Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik ist es unser Ziel, die Vielfalt ökonomischer Themen in die Öffentlichkeit zu tragen. Deshalb veröffentlichen wir seit 2014 eine Kolumne in der Frankfurter Rundschau, in der wir aktuelle gesellschaftliche Themen aus der Perspektive der Pluralen Ökonomik beleuchten.

Ist (übermäßiger) Reichtum moralisch verwerflich? Oder ist die Aussicht darauf ein notwendiger wirtschaftlicher Treiber?