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Economics need to change - now more than ever! With Exploring Economics, we strengthen alternative economic approaches and counter mainstream economics with a critical and pluralistic vision of economic education. We also provide background analyses on current economic debates to strengthen a critical economic discourse.
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356 results
Those who control the world’s commanding economic heights, buttressed by the theories of mainstream economists, presume that capitalism is a self-contained and self-generating system.
Capital and Imperialism
This edited volume put together by Jimi Adesina based on the proceedings of the Social Policy in African Conference in 2017 provides an overview of social policy in varied country contexts and fields especially in light of decades of the reduction in size and hollowing out of the content of …
Social Policy in the African Context
In Colonial Debts Rocío Zambrana develops the concept of neoliberal coloniality in light of Puerto Rico's debt crisis. Drawing on decolonial thought and praxis, Zambrana shows how debt functions as an apparatus of predation that transforms how neoliberalism operates.
Colonial Debts
Introduction Economics is by necessity a multi paradigmatic science Several theoretical structures exist side by side and each theory can never be more than a partial theory Rothschild 1999 Likening scientific work to the self coordinating invisible hand of the market Michael Polanyi cautioned strongly against centralized attempts to steer …
Making Many Maps: Why We Need an Interested Pluralism in Economics and How to Get There
Snow removal, ambulance transport, and school performance -the film aims at illustrating the principles of gender mainstreaming through concrete examples.
Sustainable Gender Equality - a film about gender mainstreaming in practice
In this essay the author outlines the basis for embracing a post-work agenda, rooted in an emancipatory potential from the domination of waged work, which could help answer both feminist and ecological concerns with work.
Towards a post-work future: a necessary agenda to reconcile feminist & ecological concerns with work
This essay focuses on the sources of government revenue within the Middle East and North African (MENA) region and proposes the implementation of a regional tax reset through increased taxation and tax reforms, deregulation in the private sector and economic diversification to reduce macroeconomic volatilities caused by the hydrocarbon industry.
Taxation in the MENA region
What influence do changes in tax policy or state decisions on expenditure have on economic growth? For decades, this question has been controversially debated.
What is the fiscal multiplier and why is it so controversial?
This course provides future change makers in public and private sectors with a comprehensive overview on the structures and actors that shape markets.
The Governance of Markets in Challenging Times: From Classic Authors to New Approaches
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of work-related gender issues and to enable students to analyze the issues using the tools of economics.
Women, Men, & Work
The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the deep structural rifts in modern capitalist economies. It has exposed and exacerbated the long-lasting systemic inequalities in income, wealth, healthcare, housing, and other aspects of economic success across a variety of dimensions including class, gender, race, regions, and nations. This workshop explores the causes of economic inequality in contemporary capitalist economies and its consequences for the economy and society in the post-pandemic reality, as well as what steps can be taken to alleviate economic inequality in the future. Drawing from a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary insights, the workshop encourages you to reflect on your personal experiences of inequality and aims to challenge the way in which the issue is typically approached in economics.
Inequality in the Post-pandemic Era
This essay suggests to bring together two aspects of economic thought which so far have developed largely separately: degrowth and feminist economics. In this strive, the concept of care work and its role in feminist economics will be introduced and the downsides of the commodification of care work will be discussed. Subsequently, contributions to the discussion on the (re)valuation of care work will be taken into account.
Who cares? A convergence of feminist economics and degrowth
Due to the economic crisis of 2008/2009, households faced drastic decreases in their incomes, the availability of jobs. Additionally, the structure of the labour market changed, while austerity measures and public spending cuts left households with less support and safeguards provided by the state. How have these developments affected the burden of unpaid labour and what influence did this have on gender relations?
The effect of austerity on unpaid work and gender relations in Europe
This article explores if power dynamics in the household can be changed, and if so, how. In this context the focus is laid on government childcare policy and its various channels of possible influence.
How can childcare policy affect intra-household power dynamics?
As seen with the United Nations significant promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the past few years, the issue of global development is of growing concern to many international organizations. As humanity continues to become more interconnected through globalization, the inequalities and injustices experienced by inhabitants of impacted countries becomes increasingly clear. While this issue can be observed in the papers of different types (e.g., different schools of thought) of economists throughout the world, the work of behavioral and complexity economists offer a unique, collaborative perspective on how to frame decisions for individuals in a way that can positively reverberate throughout society and throughout time.
Behavioural vs Complexity Economics: Approaches to Development
MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur or Common Southern Market) was the first formalized attempt to integrate South American countries economically and politically.
How can MERCOSUR move forward?
In this essay the author elaborates on the EU's perspective on the fast growing sector of the platform economy.
Sharing is Caring? On the EU- Narrative on Platform Economy
In this essay the authors take a look at how welfare could be provided in a degrowth society.
Bidding farewell to growth: How to provide welfare in a degrowth society
As opposed to the conventional over-simplified assumption of self-interested individuals, strong evidence points towards the presence of heterogeneous other-regarding preferences in agents. Incorporating social preferences – specifically, trust and reciprocity - and recognizing the non-constancy of these preferences across individuals can help models better represent the reality.
A fresh perspective to economic theory: Social preferences and their impact on gender and policy
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a school of monetary and macroeconomic thought that focuses on the analysis of the monetary and credit system, and in particular on the question of credit creation by the state.
Modern Monetary Theory
Markets are the focus in modern economics: when they work, when they don’t and what we can or can’t do about it. There are many ways to study markets and how we do so will inevitably affect our conclusions about them, including policy recommendations which can influence governments and other major organisations. Pluralism can be a vital corrective to enacting real policies based on only one perspective and a plethora of approaches provide alternatives to the canonical view. Although they have differing implications, these approaches share the idea that we should take a historical approach, analysing markets on a case-by-case basis; and they share a faith in the power of both individuals and collectives to overcome the problems encountered when organising economic activity.
Markets, How Do They Work?
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.
GDP Growth: It’s Complicated
An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Economic Impact and Possible Disruptions
The course will teach students to analyze the goals, implementation, and outcomes of economic policy.
Advanced Economic Policy
The module is designed to first present some of the main schools of thought from a historical and methodological perspective. Each week we explore and critically assess the main tenants of each school of thought. In the second part of the module we link history of economic thought and methodology to a specific and contemporary economic question. The second part allows you to engage with current economic issues with an awareness of methodology and methodological differences and with some knowledge of the history of economics.
History of Economic Thought
On July 2020 ZOE-Institute published a unique platform for transformative policymaking: Sustainable Prosperity. Building on insights from new economic thinking the platform provides knowledge about ideas, arguments and procedures that support effective promotion of political change. It aims to strengthen change makers in public policy institutions, who are working on an ambitious green and just transition. As such, it provides convincing arguments and policy ideas to overcome the reliance of economic policy on GDP growth
Sustainable Prosperity
What made the false assumption that saving the economy at all cost during a pandemic so popular? This paper discusses different pathways through the COVID-19 pandemic at national and international level, and their consequences on the health of citizens and their economies.
How not to save the economy? The interplay of economics and health during the COVID-19 pandemic
‘We cannot afford their peace & We cannot bear their wars’:
Value, Exploitation, Profitability Crises & ‘Rectification’
Political Economy based on Marx
In this overview paper, Laura Porak reviews the history of industrial policy in the European Union before the background of a Cultural Political Economy approach.
History of Industrial Policy in the EU
The chapter by the Centre for Economy Studies introduces interdisciplinary economic subdisciplines and their importance for economics education.
Interdisciplinary Economics
Use economic models to learn how prices and markets benefit society in the face of scarcity and then apply those models to analyze policy Jonathan Gruber edX Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Microeconomics
This is a hands on four chapter course to learn how to better understand and act when faced with complex situations By the end of the course students will be able to take a story from the news describe what makes the situation complex and identify opportunities for effective action …
Thinking Complexity
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