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In this book, distinguished economist Edith Kuiper shows us that the history of economic thought is just that, a his-story, by telling the herstory of economic thought from the perspective of women economic writers and economists. Although some of these women were well known in their time, they were excluded from most of academic economics, and, over the past centuries, their work has been neglected, forgotten, and thus become invisible.
2022
Level: beginner
A Herstory of Economics
The third edition of Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas is a fully updated overview of the political economy and its connection with social concerns. This book investigates the main traditions of economic ideas and provides a 'big picture' overview of the analytical tools and value judgements associated with competing schools of economic thought.
2011
Level: advanced
Political Economy
The 2022 FIFA World Cup (including the construction work required for it) provides a clear example of economic activity that has taken place despite the financial costs to the Qatari state being an order of magnitude larger than the financial benefits it will receive. Whilst this is a fairly extreme case in terms of how many different costs and benefits are involved and how unequally they have been spread, many economic decisions are more complicated than mere financial calculations and it is therefore vital for students to be able to think about multiple dimensions involved in economic decisions.
2023
Level: beginner
The Economics of a World Cup in Qatar
In the interview, Robert Skidelsky discusses the emergence of political influence of a certain school of economic thought and how the success of an economic theory depends on the power relations in the society. He introduces the historical example of Keynesian economics and its replacement by liberal economic theory and policy in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and transfers this historical case to the dominant paradigm of austerity policies in the Europe as response to rising public debts caused by the Financial Crisis. He contrasts austerity policies with a Keynesian approach. Furthermore, he relates the targets of policy to the underlying power structures, for example when not the reduction of unemployment but the protection of financial capital is politically addressed.
2015
Level: advanced
Economics and Political Power during the Crisis
This historic timeline presents economic events, economic thinkers and schools of thought from the 18th century until the 2007/2008 financial and economic crisis with short texts on the respective event or perspective.
2017
Level: beginner
Economics: An Illustrated Timeline
Happiness economics is a branch in behavioral economics, where it explores the economics factors and consequences of happy humans. What makes people happier, and what benefits do we get when people are happier? This dossier introduces you to the field of happiness economics, from a review of economic factors proposed to influence people’s happiness, to a discussion of the economic consequences of happiness, and concludes with economic policy implications of happiness economics.
2020
Level: beginner
Happiness Economics. Does the Easterlin paradox stand?
Modern authors have identified a variety of striking economic patterns, most importantly those involving the distribution of incomes and profit rates. In recent times, the econophysics literature has demonstrated that bottom incomes follow an exponential distribution, top incomes follow a Pareto, profit rates display a tent-shaped distribution. This paper is concerned with the theory underlying various explanations of these phenomena. Traditional econophysics relies on energy-conserving “particle collision” models in which simulation is often used to derive a stationary distribution. Those in the Jaynesian tradition rely on entropy maximization, subject to certain constraints, to infer the final distribution. This paper argues that economic phenomena should be derived as results of explicit economic processes. For instance, the entry and exit process motivated by supply decisions of firms underlies the drift-diffusion form of wage, interest and profit rates arbitrage. These processes give rise to stationary distributions that turn out to be also entropy maximizing. In arbitrage approach, entropy maximization is a result. In the Jaynesian approaches, entropy maximization is the means.
2019
Level: advanced
The Econ in Econophysics
Geographical economics starts from the observation that economic activity is clearly not randomly distributed across space. This revised and updated introduction to geographical economics uses the modern tools of economic theory to explain the who, why and where of the location of economic activity. The text provides an integrated, first-principles introduction to geographical economics for advanced undergraduate students and first-year graduate students, and has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect important developments in the field, including new chapters on alternative core models and policy implications.
2009
Level: advanced
The New Introduction to Geographical Economics
Exploring Economics Dossier on the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the structural crisis of globalization. COVID-19 encounters a structural crisis of globalization and the economic system that drives it, with an uncertain outcome. We asked economists worldwide to share with us their analysis of current events, long-term perspectives and political responses. The dossier will be continuously expanded.
2020
Level: beginner
The Next Great Recession? Exploring Economics Dossier
A central question in development economics literature is, “Why do countries stay poor?” The key disagreements are whether the lack of economic growth stems from institutions or from geography (Nunn 2009). From an institutional perspective, hostile tariff regimes and commodity price dependencies form a barrier to a sectoral shift that would otherwise lead to economic development in developing countries (Blink and Dorton 2011) (Stiglitz 2006).[i]
2020
Level: beginner
Trade Barriers to Development explored through various lenses
The article pursues the two related questions of how economists pretend to know and why they want to know at all. It is argued that both the economic form of knowledge and the motivation of knowing have undergone a fundamental change during the course of the 20th century. The knowledge of important contemporary economic textbooks has little in common with an objective, decidedly scientifically motivated knowledge. Rather, their contents and forms follow a productive end, aiming at the subjectivity of their readers.
2019
Level: beginner
An essay on the putative knowledge of textbook economics
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
Economics: A New Introduction provides a fresh introduction to real economics. Highlighting the complex and changing nature of economic activity, this wide-ranging text employs a pragmatic mix of old and new methods to examine the role of values and theoretical beliefs in economic life and in economists’ understanding of it.
1999
Level: beginner
Economics
Evolutionary economics focuses on economic change. Hence processes of change such as growth, innovation, structural and technological change, as well as economic development in general are analysed. Evolutionary economics often gives emphasis to populations and (sub-)systems.
Evolutionary Economics
Maria Kader provides an overview of the ECB's crisis policies in recent years. She outlines the measures taken, their effects, and their shortcomings.
2024
Level: beginner
The European Central Bank in a State of Crisis: Policies, Effects and Downsides
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
Level: beginner
Sustainable Prosperity
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
Why are income inequalities so large and why do they continue to increase in so many countries? What role can minimum wages play in reducing social and economic inequalities? What is a good system of wage bargaining? What constitutes a fair wage?
Level: beginner
Fair Wage Strategies in a Global Economy
Dani Rodrik reflects in this book on important questions about how economics works and what might be wrong with it. He points out flaws and weakness of the discipline, but also argues that certain criticisms which have brought forward against are without merit. His central point is that there is not just one economic model, but a variety of them and it is important to apply judgment when selecting the most suitable one for a particular situation.
2016
Level: beginner
Economics Rules
The chapter by the Centre for Economy Studies introduces interdisciplinary economic subdisciplines and their importance for economics education.
2021
Level: beginner
Interdisciplinary Economics
It is perhaps fitting that the seriousness of the coronavirus threat hit most of the Western world around the Ides of March, the traditional day of reckoning of outstanding debts in Ancient Rome. After all, problems and imbalances have accumulated in the Western capitalist system over four decades, ostensibly since it took the neoliberal road out of the 1970s crisis and kept going along it, heedless of the crises and problems it led to.
2020
Level: beginner
The Unexpected Reckoning: Coronavirus and Capitalism
An article in the New York Times from early 2025 suggests that the political influence of mainstream economics is declining. While economists have been highly influential in supporting and shaping free-market policies in recent decades, their expertise has become less relevant during intensified economic crises that necessitate state interventions.
2025
Level: beginner
The Strange Non-Death of Mainstream Economics
This is an introductory level core course in macroeconomics for those expecting to take further courses in economics. It provides a theoretical and applied approach of introductory macroeconomics, with an international perspective and applications to account for the growing importance of the global economy and the rising openness of economies.
2021
Level: advanced
Introduction to Macroeconomics
Feminist economics focuses on the interdependencies of gender relations and the economy. Care work and the partly non-market mediated reproduction sphere are particularly emphasised by feminist economics.
Feminist Economics
Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show in this book, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees.
2020
Level: advanced
Trade Wars Are Class Wars
This course teaches basic concepts relevant in political economy. Topics include the contractual nature of the state, public versus private goods, property rights and economic externalities, the logic of collective action and social choice theory. It also refers to the fundamentals of political philosophy, bringing two ideas of liberty into the picture. The relevance and limitations of the economic approach to the study of law and politics are then discussed.
Level: advanced
State, Law and the Economy
One method of economic modelling that has become increasingly popular in academia, government and the private sector is Agent Based Models, or ABM. These simulate the actions and interactions of thousands or even millions of people to try to understand the economy – for this reason ABM was once described to me as being “like Sim City without the graphics”. One advantage of ABM is that it is flexible, since you can choose how many agents there are (an agent just means some kind of 'economic decision maker' like a firm, consumer, worker or government); how they behave (do they use complicated or simple rules to make decisions?); as well as the environment they act in, then just run the simulation and see what happens as they interact over time.
2020
Level: beginner
Agents, agents everywhere
Anwar Shaikh explores alternative economic explanations, emphasizing 'real competition' theory and the role of imperfections in economic patterns.
2017
Level: advanced
Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crisis
International Economics, 15e continues to combine rigorous economic analysis with attention to the issues of economic policy that are alive and important today in this field.
2011
Level: advanced
International Economics
"Heterodox economics can provide a more complete and robust explanation of economic realities than orthodox (or mainstream) economics. Contemporary Issues in Heterodox Economics: Implications for Theory and Policy Action argues that this greater explanatory power gives heterodox economics the ability to illuminate appropriate policy for the major crises of our time, as well as proffer the basis for a more rounded, pluralist approach to economic theory.
2020
Level: beginner
Contemporary Issues in Heterodox Economics
Anwar Shaikh seeks in his lectures for alternative explanations for empirically observed macro and microeconomic patterns of economic fluctuations, price volatility, and economic development.
Level: advanced
Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crisis
This lecture briefly discusses historic understandings of the limits to infinite economic growth on a finite planet (from John Stuart Mill to Marx). Taking a ecological economics perspective it discusses the metabolism of the economy, the economy as a subsystem of the environment, biophysical limits to growth, and sustainable economic scales.
2021
Level: beginner
Ecological Limits to Growth

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