122 Results for “ADAM SMITH”

Smith did not advocate a single-minded pursuit of profit

Given that this is a panel on that quintessential Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith, I can think of no better way to begin my remarks than to invoke that most enlightened of modern economists, Kenneth Boulding, who in 1971 penned the delightful essay, “After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith?” 

Adam Smith and his contemporaries were key figures of the Scottish enlightenment. How much of his real thought survives in modern economics, and has something important been lost?

Adam Smith’s modern fame as the founding father of economics has, until relatively recently, obscured the fact that he saw himself as a moral philosopher.

Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer (or UK ‘finance minister’) gave his annual budget speech where UK fiscal policy is set for the coming years.

I was going to call this blog post ‘Utility maximising agents in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments’ but realised that was much too dull - even if it accurately describes my bedtime reading at the present moment.

How do we create a “change in culture”?

So with a suitably provocative title I think we can declare 2012 open.

So with a suitably provocative title I think we can declare 2012 open.

The economist had to learn moral philosophy before anything else—an underpinning that’s still helpful for today’s students

Animal rights, child welfare, social equality are all a direct legacy of the “cult of feeling” 

In his two-tome, 1400 page Dutch Leerboek der Staathuishoudkunde (Textbook of Economics), first published in 1884, Nicolaas Pierson (1839 - 1909) accuses the great Scotsman of being a communist – or at least of consciously clearing the way for the socialists with their ideal of a communist society.

I always think of Adam Smith when I hear the term ‘division of labour’ - but I’m being cured of this by reading a bit more about Britains late 18th century in Jenny Uglow’s The Lunar Men.

In the age of Adam Smith, an economics that masqueraded as natural science and excluded the human condition actually suited the interests of the landed and the wealthy

The Globe and Mail published a long piece about the dismal science, covering a lot of ground from moral philosophy to rational expectations, from Adam Smith to this year’s Nobel laureate Thomas Sargent, from the Post-Autistic Economics movement to the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Excerpts:

How do we rebuild trust in financial services?

Nicola Sturgeon covers a range of topics including how economists’ work relates to policymaking, the financial crisis and the dangers of groupthink, how dissatisfaction with stagnating wages and rising inequality played into political shocks like Brexit, the legacy of Adam Smith, why new economic thinking is so important, and what her government is doing to foster and apply it. 

Nicola Sturgeon covers a range of topics including how economists’ work relates to policymaking, the financial crisis and the dangers of groupthink, how dissatisfaction with stagnating wages and rising inequality played into political shocks like Brexit, the legacy of Adam Smith, why new economic thinking is so important, and what her government is doing to foster and apply it. 

The degree to which economics is isolated from the ordinary business of life is extraordinary and unfortunate.

Branko Milanovic takes us on a historical journey through the evolution of economic inequality in his latest book. Milanovic connects these foundational ideas to contemporary issues, revealing the intricate tapestry of economic, social, and political forces that drive inequality today.

This research project explores Chinese economic thought of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, with direct relevance to the present day, and in particular focuses on one specific thinker, Wang Yanan, and the intellectual debates he animated and in which he participated as a major theorist.

Rob Johnson kicks off INET’s “Reawakening” conference with his take on how economists can win back the trust of a world that has rejected experts

If proof were needed of the maxim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the economic crisis in Europe provides it

New economic thinking is creating change in Germany.

INET gathered hundreds of new economic thinkers in Edinburgh to discuss the past, present, and future of the economics profession.

This research project contends that Piero Sraffa tried to develop an economic theory that could stand up as an alternative to the orthodox theory of value and provide a foundation for the Keynesian and post-Keynesian alternatives.

INET co-founder George Soros has been awarded the Adam Smith Award by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), an association of business economists.

Joseph Stiglitz, noted economist, Nobel Laureate and Institute advisor, had a letter published in the Financial Times yesterday. In it, he noted the need for new ways of thinking about economics, and how this can be achieved.

“While it’s incredibly difficult to get a regulatory reform passed, it’s far easier – and more profitable to politicians – to kill it.

Can Economists Be Adequate Without Studying History?

As the maladies of modern capitalism have multiplied, fundamental questions about the future of the world’s dominant economic model have become impossible to ignore. But in the absence of viable alternatives, the question is how to reform a system that is increasingly at odds with democracy.

Amid mass unemployment and economic turmoil, instructors who lecture on the superiority of free markets without acknowledging the dysfunction in the wider economy are at risk of appearing out of touch and exacerbating antipathy towards economics.

This week Bernanke spoke to the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, and, as Bloomberg Businessweek notes, he was singing a different tune.

How a bleak Christian theology influenced the development of the dismal science

This article originally appeared on Bloomberg

In his contribution to our ongoing series “Experts on Trial”, Alessandro Roncaglia argues that viewing economists as princes or servants of power is inherently authoritarian. We should instead see the economist as a socially and politically engaged citizen

The degree to which economics is isolated from the ordinary business of life is extraordinary and unfortunate.

Do economists live in a world of their own?

If the meetings of European historians of economics are urbane and cosmopolitan, the meetings of American historians are, by contrast, frank and toilful.

Billions living in insecurity and injustice is hardly a rational system.

What can today’s economists learn from the 18th century Scottish thinkers who grappled with societal and economic change?

Researchers studying beasts that pass on resources and advantages to offspring have raised the old question of whether humans are destined to live in stratified conditions. Your view may depend on your relative position.

A response to Jason Furman and Lawrence Summers

What is the purpose of economics?

This article originally appeared on insider.co.uk

By suppressing important questions in favor of being cheerleaders for globalization, economists failed to influence the public conversation

Author Supritha Rajan argues that self-interested competition may be the official line, but it’s far from the whole story

Economists and historians of economics have related differently over time, and the past of the discipline has then served for varied purposes.

Lori Wallach, of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Jayati Ghosh, economics professor at UMass Amherst, discuss how first world countries are protecting pharma companies’ exorbitant profits, at the expense of vaccinating people living in the Global South and thereby also endangering everyone in the world.

Professor Glenn Hubbard, professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School, talks about his just-released book, The Wall and the Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake, and how society and policymakers can help those who are left behind in the wake of today’s competitive world.

We are pleased to announce the program of INET’s annual plenary conference in Berlin.

Why some goods and services should stay in the public domain

As part of our ongoing symposium “Experts on Trial”, Professor Sheila Dow argues that if voters have grown contemptuous of economists’ expertise, that’s because economics has been misrepresented as a technical subject separate from politics and moral judgments

Economic historian and INET board member Richard Vague, talks about his latest book, The Illustrated Business History of the United States, which reveals a number of misconceptions and myths about the development of the US economy

In “celebration” of the late Pete Peterson’s 92nd birthday (see guest list), an excerpt from 19th Century historian Lord Macaulay’s History of England, on hundreds of years of unwarranted panic about government debt.

Author Rana Foroohar explains why the economic policies being touted by both presidential frontrunners offer none of the new thinking necessary to drive a policy response to revitalize the economy

The perverted dreams of western modernity and capitalism may be exhausting themselves, says author Eugene McCarraher. And that’s something to be thankful for.

Donald Trump’s presidency is a symptom of an interregnum between economic orders – a period that will result in a new balance between state and market. While his administration’s economic policies are unlikely to provide the right answer, they may at least show the world what not to do.

As in previous years, young scholars will come together in Trento during the annual Festival dell’Economia. This gathering will serve as the YSI Europe Convening for 2018. Attendees will have the opportunity to share their work with YSI members from across Europe, while also partaking in the Festival dell’Economia. 

Eurocentric modernism has unhinged us from our human nature, argues Rajani Kanth in his new book

When Paul Krugman paints John Maynard Keynes as a pioneering critic of dominant free-market economics, he exaggerates wildly, both about the rigidity of orthodoxy and about the pioneering character of Keynes’ critique.

What happens when we fuse, for the first time, artificially intelligent agents into either our market or political structures?

John Ruskin helps shed light on what it means to have an economy that demands we die for it

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.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking and the Italian Association for the History of Political Economy (STOREP) announce a day and a half of lectures, workshops, and debates held on the 26th and 27th of June, just before the annual STOREP conference, in Siena, Italy.

In the face of  laissez-faire capitalism at home and resurgent nationalism across the globe, INET offers an innovative look at the causes of—and solutions for—the problems that ail a fissuring world economy.

Evidence reveals our remote ancestors were neither brutes nor innocents, but complex beings whose experiments in living have much to teach us. Welcome news as disaster looms in every direction.

Jonathan Haidt deploys insights from moral psychology to help us see ourselves and each other more clearly

I’ve already blogged on how undergraduate education evolved at MIT in the postwar era here and here, but since Mike Konczal and Paul Krugman make the case that, to bring introductory economics closer to the real world, macro should be taught before micro as Samuelson did in the first 13 editions of his Economics textbook, it may be worth returning to it.

Canadian economist Mario Seccareccia, recipient of this year’s John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics, says it’s time to reconsider the idea of full employment. He spoke to Lynn Parramore of the Institute for New Economic Thinking about why 2021 offers a rare opportunity to rebalance the economy in favor of Main Street.

One INET project is to “reconnect the teaching of economics with the working of the actual economy,” which is to begin with a reform of the undergraduate curriculum.

As a pandemic continues to expose weaknesses in our human systems and institutions, psychiatrist and author Iain McGilchrist’s proposition that a battle in our heads is impacting the direction of our future is worth revisiting.

The multipolar financial world is here. The United States can survive it – but only with major political and economic changes at home. It’s time to start thinking about what those need to be.

INET at the Trento Economics Festival 1: A dialogue between Mark Carney and William Janeway, coordinated by Robert Johnson Our world is full of fault lines—growing inequality in income and opportunity; systemic racism; health and economic crises from a global pandemic; mistrust of experts; the existential threat of climate change; deep threats to employment in a digital economy with robotics on the rise. These fundamental problems and others like them stem from a common crisis in values.

Peter Barnes, the entrepreneur and author of the recently published book, Ours: The Case for Universal Property, talks about how new conceptions of property - a universal commons - could fundamentally transform capitalism to make it more ecologically and socially sustainable.

Contrary to rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. has an economic interest in trade and peace with China

Alessandro Roncaglia has mulled the topic of power over his long and distinguished career – a topic most economists avoid. His new book explores the historical dynamics of power and asks how we can change its distribution today.

Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book, Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Properties in America’s Black Cities, discusses the on-going problem of how real estate dynamics continue to maintain racial injustice in cities across United States, and how we need a “reparative culture” to address the problem

To able to deal with these consequences, our crisis response now should not lock us in into a permanent state of austerity, greater inequality and heightened vulnerability to future health calamities. New-old social democratic solutions are needed more than ever before.

Is an ancient financial taboo keeping us from prosperity? Adair Turner, author of a new book on global finance, explains.

Author and peace activist Norman Solomon talks about the double standards in US foreign policy that have smoothed the path for Russia’s inexcusable invasion of Ukraine. The role of the military-industrial-complex in the US is one of the main reasons we lack a single standard for the use of military force and human rights, says Solomon.

INET published a paper, written by John Kay, that deals with the relationship between economics and the world we live in. The Map Is Not the Territory: An Essay on the State of Economics spells out methodological critiques of economic theory in general, and of DSGE models and rational expectations in particular.

Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for The New Yorker, discusses her latest book, Under a White Sky, which explores how technological solutions don’t always lead where we think they will, especially in the face of the climate crisis.

New economic thinking has the potential to make political debates far more productive

Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, discusses his latest book, The Asian 21st Century, in which he relates US decline to the rise of plutocracy and Asia’s renewed rise - after having fallen behind in the last 200 years - to its growing sense of dynamism, optimism, and diversity. This is the 200th episode of the podcast Economics and Beyond with Rob Johnson.

Ruskin scholar Jeffrey Spear, author of “Dreams of an English Eden: Ruskin and his Tradition in Social Criticism,” discusses how the insights of a key 19th-century thinker can help us build a new paradigm for protecting the planet – and save us from ourselves.

Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

The theoretical approaches to analyzing crises have behind them contrasting conceptions of the way the economy works

Does general equilibrium theory sufficiently enhance our understanding of the economic process to make the entire exercise worthwhile, if we consider that other forms of thinking may have been ‘crowded out’ as a result of its being the ‘dominant discourse’? What, in the end, have we really learned from it?

What is “capital”? To Karl Marx, it was a social, political, and legal category—the means of control of the means of production by the dominant class. Capital could be money, it could be machines; it could be fixed and it could be variable. But the essence of capital was neither physical nor financial. It was the power that capital gave to capitalists, namely the authority to make decisions and to extract surplus from the worker.

The education of the next generation of economists too often ignores the real crisis we face today: climate change, inequality, and financial instability. Sam de Muijnck and Joris Tieleman seek to address this problem in their book, Economy Studies, which outlines a practical road map for effectively connecting pluralism of core academic material to real world events, values, and the great questions of our time.

John Fullerton, the Founder of the Capital Institute, discusses the urgent need for a new paradigm in economic thinking, modeled on living systems instead of Newtonian physics, which he calls regenerative economics.

As part of our “Experts on Trial Series”, Antonella Palumbo argues for stripping away ‘scientific’ shibboleths that mask social and political choices

Max Lawson, head of Oxfam International’s Inequality Policy program, discusses Oxfam’s latest inequality report, “Inequality Kills,” which highlights the extreme growth in wealth of the billionaire class during the pandemic and how this has had a direct effect on the health and survival of the world’s bottom 50%.

We are in the midst of another global transformation, but this time we might have the tools to get it right.