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This lecture is based on the “Introducing the Economy” chapter from the Economy Studies book, which introduces the first building block in their framework for transforming the economics education. The aim is to give students a feel and understanding of the economy as part of a bigger whole. Thus, it is aimed to introduce to students before getting into the economics curriculum with theory and models.
2022
Level: beginner
Introducing the Economy
Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. In From Here to Equality, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen confront these injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery.
2020
Level: advanced
From Here to Equality
In both economics textbooks and public perceptions central banks are a fact of life. On the wall of my A-level economics classroom there was the Will Rogers quote “there have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking”, summarising how many economists view the institution. There is a widespread belief that there is something different about money which calls for a central authority to manage its operation, a view shared even by staunch free marketeers such as Milton Friedman. This belief is not without justification, since money underpins every transaction in a way that apples do not, but we should always be careful not to take existing institutions for granted and central banking is no exception. In this post I will look at the idea of private or free banking, where banks compete (and cooperate) to issue their own currency.
2020
Level: beginner
Whither Central Banks?
How did the industrialized nations of North America and Europe come to be seen as the appropriate models for post-World War II societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America? How did the postwar discourse on development actually create the so-called Third World? And what will happen when development ideology collapses? To answer these questions, Arturo Escobar shows how development policies became mechanisms of control that were just as pervasive and effective as their colonial counterparts.
2012
Level: advanced
Encountering Development
This is a revolutionary and powerfully argued feminist analysis of modern economics, revealing how woman's housework, caring of the young, sick and the old is automatically excluded from value in economic theory. An example of this pervasive and powerful process is the United Nations System of National Accounts which is used for wars and determining the balance of payments and loan requirements.
1990
Level: advanced
If Women Counted
Part I: Basic Economic Problems Is Economics a Science? Is It Useful? (Lawrence Boland, Ian Parker) Is There Such a Thing as a Free Market? (William Watson, Robert Prasch) Part II: Consumers and Firms Is Homo Economicus an Appropriate Representation of Real-World Consumers? (Joseph Persky, Morris Altman) Is the Consumer Sovereign?
2010
Level: advanced
Introducing Microeconomic Analysis
Whiteness is a process of learning: one is not born white, but becomes one. In this rich and compelling volume, Sriprakash, Rudolph and Gerrard offer a meticulous (and eye-opening) reading of educational experiences and structures that endorse systemic racism.
2022
Level: beginner
Learning Whiteness
In this book, Blakely tells us a story of the class nature of capitalism, in which she centers the role of the financial sector and its rapid growth.
2019
Level: beginner
Stolen
Özlem Onaran analyses the current problems of secular stagnation from a global perspective. At the core of global economic problems is insufficient demand caused by falling wage shares, because most individual countries, and the world as a whole are “wage-led”. Hence a strategy for global growth is to aim at increasing wages and thus the wage share, and the abandonment of policies focusing purely on national competitiveness. Financialization has broken the link between corporate profitability and investment. Reregulation of finance and higher public investment is required in order to crowd in private investment, in this way, reversing the declining trend of potential output growth.
2015
Level: advanced
Current Problems of Secular Stagnation from a Global Perspective
The first keynote speech was given by Sebastian Dullien, current spokesperson of FMM and who is one of the most well-known German economists in applied European economics and a very active contributor to the pluralist debate. Sebastian discusses the strategy of “running with the pack” by using orthodox methods to disseminate pluralist economics and politics. Referring to diverse examples Sebastian addresses the pros and cons of “running with the pack” and proposes alternative approaches to achieve more pluralism in economics.
2016
Level: beginner
How to promote alternative macroeconomic ideas: Are there limits to running with the (mainstream) pack?
In this radio program, the anthropologist David Graeber, explores the history of debt in (currently) 12 episodes. The program is based on his book Debt: The First 5000 Years. First, Graeber asks the questions of how debt and money are characterized, which meaning and roles they had in different historic episodes and how they were interrelated. In the most recent episodes, Graeber elaborates on how debt shaped society. He argues that debt had a different moral status in different times of history, one session analyses the current financial and economic crisis and the role of credit in this historical context.
Level: beginner
Promises, Promises: A history of debt
A multimedia dossier outlining the various dimensions of credit and indebtedness for various actors such as individuals and governments. Special emphasis is put on the reflections of normative and power laden discourse sorrounding the issue of borrowing and on false analogies placed between household and government debt.
2017
Level: beginner
Borrowing – I-PEEL.org
Prof. Yanis Varoufakis talks in this introductory lecture about the future of our economy and the current state of economics with special regard to pluralism in economics.
2020
Level: beginner
Introduction to Pluralism in Economics - From an Economics-without-Capitalism to Markets-without-Capitalism
Capitalism is dissolving boundaries - not only in the sense of ever-expanding global trade flows, but also in the concrete everyday working lives of individuals. What implications does this have for our understanding of freedom, work and borders?
Level: beginner
Capitalism & Boundaries
This syllabus opens a literary overview of must-read papers in the field of development economics.
2022
Level: beginner
Development Economics
This is a new online course at bachelor level. It presents an introduction into macroeconomics with a specific focus on the euro area. The theoretical part provides a critical presentation of the two key macroeconomic models: the (neo)classical approach and the Keynesian approach. This allows a comparative analysis of important macroeconomic topics: unemployment inflation government debt and Modern Monetary Theory banks and financial crises. The policy-oriented part discusses the monetary policy of the ECB and the specific challenges for fiscal policy in the euro area. The course also presents other euro area specific topics: Optimum currency area, euro crises, Next Generation EU and Green New Deal.
2021
Level: advanced
European Macroeconomics
The goal of this course is to explore these differences in economic outcomes observed among women and men, measured by such things as earnings, income, hours of work, poverty, and the allocation of resources within the household. It will evaluate women’s perspectives and experiences in the United States and around the world, emphasizing feminist economics.
Level: beginner
Economics of Gender
The U.S. economy today is confronted with the prospect of extended stagnation. This book explores why. Thomas I. Palley argues that the Great Recession and destruction of shared prosperity is due to flawed economic policy over the past thirty years.
2012
Level: advanced
From Financial Crisis to Stagnation
How long the COVID-19 crisis will last, and what its immediate economic costs will be, is anyone's guess. But even if the pandemic's economic impact is contained, it may have already set the stage for a debt meltdown long in the making, starting in many of the Asian emerging and developing economies on the front lines of the outbreak.
2020
Level: beginner
The COVID-19 Debt Deluge
After completing the module, participants should have gained a basic understanding of the economic school of thought referred to as "Modern Monetary Theory" and should be able to analyze the monetary processes at play in the economy and evaluate fiscal and monetary policy decisions from an MMT-perspective.
2021
Level: beginner
Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory
For a long time, price controls were considered taboo, as neoliberal economic theory assumes that prices are supposedly formed freely by supply and demand. But especially in times of crisis, the state must intervene and cap prices to protect wage earners from excessive burdens. However, the how matters.
2025
Level: beginner
Price Controls Against Inflation
MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur or Common Southern Market) was the first formalized attempt to integrate South American countries economically and politically.
2018
Level: beginner
How can MERCOSUR move forward?
In analyzing the global competition between Chinese and Indian tea, Andrew B. Liu challenges past economic histories premised on the technical “divergence” between the West and the Rest, arguing instead that seemingly traditional technologies and practices were central to modern capital accumulation across Asia.
2020
Level: advanced
Tea War
The goal of the course is to deepen students’ understanding of the Latin American development experience by viewing it through a gender lens.
2014
Level: advanced
Gender in Latin American Development
This guide contains a collection of recommended YouTube channels and YouTube videos in the fields of economics, business and economic policy.
2024
Level: beginner
EconTube: The ultimate guide to pluralist economics channels on YouTube
Nature and communities in the global south is being overwhelmed at a shocking rate. In many places this is due to ventures such as large-scale open-pit mining, oil extraction in tropical areas, and the spread of monocultures. These and other such forms of natural resource appropriation are usually known as extractivisms.
2021
Level: beginner
Extractivisms
An ideal type of a pluralistic book. Instead of arguing for one specific interpretation of a complex phenomenon, the authors present six different views on globalisation. Roberts and Lamp carefully balance the different perspectives, presenting the merits of each.
2021
Level: advanced
Six Faces of Globalization
This edited volume presents a collection of articles that engage with various concepts from Marx’s Capital and Marxian theory in general, from a ‘Southern’ perspective. The book engages with four specific themes: “Reception of Capital in the East; Value, Commodity, Surplus Value and Capitalism; Population and Rent in Capital; and Issues Beyond Capital”.
2019
Level: beginner
‘Capital’ in the East
One of the world’s leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations.
2016
Level: advanced
Global Inequality
The Invisible Hand offers a radical departure from the conventional wisdom of economists and economic historians, by showing that "factor markets" and the economies dominated by them - the market economies - are not modern, but have existed at various times in the past.
2016
Level: advanced
The Invisible Hand?
The workshop introduces into the field of critical political economy and tries to identify the role of finacial markets in capitalism, the reason for financial crises and the relevance of Marx in regard to these topics.
2018
Level: beginner
Marxian Political Economy
Islamic finance's phenomenal growth owes to the Shariah compliant nature of its financial instruments. Shariah forbids the charging of interest (Riba) and instead promulgates risk-sharing and trade-based modes of financing. The Islamic financial industry has been subject to both critique and admiration. Critics argue that Islamic instruments (bearing debt-based structures) differ from their conventional counterparts only in legal lexicon and not in economic impact.
2018
Level: advanced
Rethinking Islamic Finance

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