The hangover from imbibing Homo economicus
More subtle understandings of human behavior have bounced off the teflon coating of Econ 101 with baleful consequences:
What students are taught in their economics classes can perversely turn models and charts that are meant to approximate reality into aspirational ideals for it. Most economics majors are first introduced to Homo economicus as impressionable college freshmen and internalize its values: Studies show, for instance, that taking economics courses can make people actively more selfish.
Read more here.
Economics: a diversity deficit
The economics profession lags behind the country:
Half a century ago, the American Economic Association, a prestigious 133-year-old society dedicated to encouraging the careers and research of economists, set up the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession in response to concerns that minorities were underrepresented. These concerns are just as relevant today.
Read more here.
Puppets rap ‘economic man’
Homo economicus? These puppets have a better idea of who we are:
Annals of hypocrisy: Welfare … or social insurance?
Robert Reich dissects the hypocrisy about government “handouts”:
Read/see his comment here.
Our World in Data
Our World in Data presents eye-popping visualizations on an array of topics. Check out, for example, worldwide death rates from air pollution:
See more here.
Promoting Economic Pluralism
An international initiative seeks to “make space for diversity in economics,” among other ways by creating a new accreditation program for pluralist economics masters programs around the world. Check them out here.
Merkel’s Eurausterity
Outgoing German chancellor Angela Merkel’s record as a champion of Europe has a nasty stain:
Like many national leaders, Ms. Merkel, time and again, catered to domestic political interests at the expense of broader European concerns, dismissing calls that Germany’s prodigious savings be put on the line to rescue debt-saturated members of the bloc…. She adamantly opposed debt forgiveness to Greece, even as it teetered toward insolvency, and even as joblessness exceeded 27 percent — a special source of outrage given that German banks were primary lenders in Greece’s catastrophic explosion of borrowing.
“She was at the heart of the design of the flawed Greek program, which not only imposed austerity, but most importantly resisted restructuring the debt in order to save the German and French banks,” said Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate economist at Columbia University in New York. “The rhetoric that she used suggested that the crisis was caused by irresponsible behavior by Greece, rather than irresponsibility on the part of the lender.”
Read more here.
Political Economy of the Environment: New video series from Econ4
Econ4 is pleased to announce its new video series on the Political Economy of the Environment, produced in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst department of economics.
Part One: Introduction
- The economy & the environment. Are people different from pondweed?
- Limits to growth – of what? It’s time for a new formula: grow the good, and shrink the bad.
- Political economy. Who wins, who loses, who decides?
- Safety, efficiency, sustainability, and justice. What should be the goals in environmental policy?
Part Two: Environmental protection – in theory and practice
- What is efficiency? There’s more – and less – to neoclassical efficiency than meets the eye.
- Discounting the future. Are the lives of our grandchildren worth less than our own?
- The value of a statistical life. How do economists put a monetary value on risks of death?
- Externalities. External costs and benefits are not the exception – they’re the rule.
- The Coase theorem. Why private bargaining can seldom solve environmental externalities.
- The tragedy of the commons. More accurately, the tragedies of open access.
- Environmental justice. Defending the right to a clean and safe environment.
- Power & the environment. Costs and benefits weighted by the power of those to whom they accrue.
- Regulation & environmental protection. Rules as a solution to environmental problems.
- Incentive-based environmental policies. Prices as another way to solve environmental problems.
- Market failure & government failure. Democracy versus oligarchy: beyond the market-versus-government debate.
Part Three: Global dimensions
- Globalization & the environment. The globalization of market failure poses new challenges for governance.
- The environmental Kuznets curve. What happens to the environment as per capita income goes up?
- Population & the environment. What Malthus got wrong.
- Tropical deforestation. How transnational alliances can change balances of power.
- Building natural assets. How poverty reduction and environmental protection can go hand-in-hand.
- Agriculture & the environment. The costs of industrial agriculture and benefits of ecological agriculture.
- Cultivated biodiversity. Small farmers sustain some of the world’s most valuable biodiversity.
Part Four: Climate policy
- Climate change. The defining environmental challenge of the 21st century.
- Carbon pricing: 1. Why & how? Why we need to put price on fossil carbon, and how we can do it.
- Carbon pricing: 2. The social cost of carbon. What should be the price on carbon dioxide emissions?
- Carbon pricing: 3. Revenue allocation. The trillion dollar question: who will get the money?
- International climate negotiations. No-regrets policies can help overcome myopia and the free rider problem.
State of Resistance
State of Resistance, by Manuel Pastor, draws out lessons from the fall and rise of California’s economy:
Once upon a time, any mention of California triggered unpleasant reminders of Ronald Reagan and right-wing tax revolts, ballot propositions targeting undocumented immigrants, and racist policing that sparked two of the nation’s most devastating riots. California confronted many of the challenges the rest of the country faces now–decades before the rest of us.
Today, California is leading the way on addressing climate change, low-
wage work, immigrant integration, over-incarceration, and more. As white residents became a minority and job loss drove economic uncertainty, California had its own Trump moment twenty-five years ago, but has become increasingly blue over each of the last seven presidential elections.
How did the Golden State manage to emerge from its unsavory past to become a bellwether for the rest of the country?
Read more here.
Economics and morality
Economists cannot avoid grappling with moral questions, says … The Economist:
To be useful, economists need to learn to understand and evaluate moral arguments rather than dismiss them.
Many economists will find that a dismal prospect. Calculations of social utility are tidier, and the profession has fallen out of the habit of moral reasoning. But those who wish to say what society should be doing cannot dodge questions of values.
Read more here.
See also The Economist’s Oath by Econ4’s George DeMartino.
