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Your average economics textbook presents the neat image of a discipline with many useful conceptual paradigms for viewing the world. But it almost never gives any sense of how these ideas developed.

And as it turns out, the actual history of economics, like that of every science, is much messier.

That was Bruce Caldwell’s message in his recent address to the Southern Economics Association in November. (Click below to download a PDF of the speech as prepared for address). Read more

Originally posted on Triple Crisis Read more

The Risk Society

Recent social theory dealing with modernity has focused on the increase of new forms of risk as a social challenge. The growing relative importance of manufactured risks (that are the product of human activity) as compared to external or natural risks is well described in the work of the sociologists Ulrich Beck (Beck, 1992) or Anthony Giddens (Giddens, 1990).[1] The emergence of new forms of manufactured risk (e.g. environmental risk, financial risk) is a direct consequence of rising levels of complexity and interconnectedness in industrial societies, reflected in the organization of production, the nature of the technologies employed, etc. Read more

As the year comes to a close, the Financial Times released its annual list of the Best Books of the year. And right at the top was INET co-founder William H. Janeway's new book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, which the FT named one of the the best economics books of 2012.  Read more

Saving Economics from the Economists

"Economics as currently presented in textbooks and taught in the classroom does not have much to do with business management, and still less with entrepreneurship. The degree to which economics is isolated from the ordinary business of life is extraordinary and unfortunate. Read more

From the balance of payment perspective

Despite a larger-than-expected amount of net exports this year, China’s capital accounts have printed negative numbers for several months, while in the past China always reported surpluses in both current account and capital account. Some analysts start arguing that China is facing tremendous amount of capital outflow implying that many people are losing confidence on China’s economy. Moreover, they say, Renminbi depreciation in the first three quarters support the view that capital is flowing out of China. Acknowledging capital flight a very important issue, we at the central banking seminar made an effort to find out the reasons for the Renminbi depreciation and the capital account deficit. Read more

Big business has corrupted economics - Guardian UK

You know the country is in a financial mess when even establishment figures such as Rachel Lomax are calling for revolutionary thinking

by Aditya Chakrabortty Read more

The Institute for New Economic Thinking has openings for 2-4 Postdoctoral Fellows. The Institute is particularly interested in candidates whose work lies within our core research areas: financial instability, economic inequality, and innovation. Fellows pursue their own research while contributing actively to one or more of INET’s many research and education initiatives. Appointment is for one year but may be renewable. PhD must have been received within the past three years. Start date is flexible, salary competitive. The positions will be based in INET's offices in New York. Read more

In a previous post we queried whether the theory of the consumer as developed in the first three chapters of Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green (and indeed other comparable texts) provides anything by way of content beyond what is implied by the abstract description of consumers as agents who are maximizing something.  [We did not discuss chapter four, on aggregation of demand, to which we may return later].  As we noted then, a comparable point can be made about the theory of the firm. Read more

Vital economic debate is alive and well in Chicago.

Post-Kenyesian economist Paul Davidson recently was invited to the University of Chicago to give a lecture on Keynes’s solutions to current economics crises – solutions that are very much at odds with the traditional approaches associated with Chicago School economics. Read more