The Heavy Price of Economic Policy Failures
Why economic failures argue for the need for more democratic control over policy, or at least the ability to cut the power of institutions that get it wrong.
Read more...Category Archives: The dismal science
Capitalism Versus The Social Commons
How the struggle over who controls the commons, the monied classes or a broader group of citizens, reveals the fundamental contradictions of capitalism.
Read more...Eurozone Delays and Half Measures
Are the eurozone’s continuing woes the result of its incomplete construction or because of policy errors in responding to the crisis?
Read more...Neoliberal Capitalism, Its Crisis, and What Comes Next
The fundamental contradictions of neoliberal capitalism are pushing it to the breaking point.
Read more...2015: A Failing Fiscal Policy
Although the case study is the UK, this post is yet another example of how counterproductive austerity is, from both an economic and a social perspective.
Read more...How the Labor Cost Competitiveness Myth is Making the Eurozone Crisis Worse
A new article makes a devastating attack on a fundamental belief driving Eurozone policy, that the member economies need to be made more “competitive,” meaning labor needs to be squeezed, for the currency union to achieve more growth.
Read more...Labor Market Policy: Parts of the Picture are Missing
The standard empirical evaluations of labour market policy only consider the direct effects of single programmes on their participants. This column argues that this fails to capture important aspects of real-world labour market policy – policy regimes and strategies. Using Swiss data, it employs a novel empirical approach that concurrently examines the effects of supportive and punitive policies (‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’). Policy regimes are shown to exert economically relevant effects, and accounting for these effects is crucial when designing labour market policy.
Read more...The Anglo-Saxon Hide, Adam Smith, Karl Marx and the 35 Hour Work Week
How the Doomsday book,and the unit of assessment called the “hide,” suggest that medieval laborers had very civilized work weeks.
Read more...Why Lowering the Marginal Corporate Tax Rate Does Not Increase Growth
A new paper puts another nail in the coffin to the idea that lowering corporate tax rates will boost growth.
Read more...Another Slow Year for the Global Economy
The factors that dragged down the global economy in 2015 will persist – and in some cases worsen – in the new year.
Read more...Deflation Denialism: No, Chancellor, 0.5% Inflation is Not “Welcome News”
What is deflation? What has caused inflation to fall? And why is there no such thing as ‘good deflation’?
Read more...Start-Up Governments, or Can Bureaucracies Innovate?
What makes bureaucracies innovative?
Read more...Social Engagement and Cooperative Behaviour: Experimental Evidence
Are you more likely to get a job if you’re seen to be intensively social?
Read more...Job Guarantee Versus Basic Income Guarantee
A lively and well-informed debate on the merits of a job guarantee versus a basic income guarantee.
Read more...Economics Joke Time
An economics joke open thread. Of course, economists might have the presence of mind to retort that economics is too important to be taken seriously.
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