The US president “had no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas whatever”, according to one of the world’s most influential economists. He was “in many respects, perhaps inevitably, ill-informed”. He was “slow-minded and bewildered”, and failed to remedy these defects by seeking advice. He gathered around him businessmen, “inexperienced in public affairs” and “only called […] … learn more→
Tag Archives: economics

‘Slow-minded and bewildered’: Donald Trump builds barriers to peace and prosperity

Why the world is due a revolution in economics education
Economic thinking governs much of our world. But the discipline’s teaching is stuck in the past. Centred around antiquated 19th-century models built on Newtonian physics, economics treats humans as atomic particles, rather than as social beings. While academic research often manages to transcend this simplicity, undergraduate education does not – and the influence of these simplified ideas is […] … learn more→

Getting out of financialisation: teaching economics and finance differently
Faced with the challenges of ecological transition, social inequality or tax justice, there are many debates about the urgency of integrating these issues in training in finance and economics. Many academics today are protesting against the model of financialization, the obsolescence of theories implying a rationality of the “homo economicus”, while insisting on the role of […] … learn more→

Teach the economy with “The Simpsons”
The economy, a matter too abstract? If it permeates their daily lives, from the evolution of prices at the local supermarket to the opening of a bank account, through the search for a summer job, the economy raises many a priori in students. Even in business schools, though frequented by young people interested in principle by the […] … learn more→

The academic economics war
I know I pick on Women’s Studies often; I have many issues with this particular field of “study,” namely that it isn’t one. There’s another field that sure looks like it should be a legitimate academic topic, which nevertheless bears even more claim to absolute scorn: economics. It isn’t simply because economics departments succumb to […] … learn more→

The way economics is taught needs an overhaul: a South African case study
Economics is a discipline that ought, at its best, to explain the world and its complexities. Unlike physics, it is not an exact science. Due to its nature as a social sciences, lecturers must assist students to understand the complex relationships between companies, governments, consumers and diverse stakeholders. They also need to guide their students […] … learn more→

Higher education pays for itself many times over
The relative neglect of higher education investment in political debate is a missed opportunity. The economic evidence is that not only does higher education build the economy’s skills and knowledge, but that it pays for itself many times over. On average, university training in Australia has paid a rate of return of around 14-15% according […] … learn more→
Economics: What’s love got to do with it?
Economists understand greed very well; after all, the urge to get rich is our discipline’s main explanation for human actions. Economists further recognise that greed can be good. When our greedy urges are constrained by institutions, so that we compete with each other by means of specialisation in production rather than by killing or cheating […] … learn more→
Fear the no-grow zone: has technological innovation reached its final frontier?
The economic profession lacks a unified theory of economic growth. Textbooks and academic journals contain a plethora of models and paradigms which generate different (and sometimes contradictory) predictions about the mechanics of the growth process. Amid this intellectual confusion, an element in common to the bulk of modern growth models from Solow’s neoclassical growth theory […] … learn more→
Why Jim Young Kim was the more radical choice for World Bank President
GABORONE, BOTSWANA. While I am an American, I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment that it is inappropriate for the United States to have a strangle hold on the World Bank Presidency. I also sympathize with the frustrations of many Africans that one of their own, highly qualified Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was not […] … learn more→