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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Economic theory & philosophy
Exploring the modern approach to the economics of happiness, which came about with the Easterlin Paradox, this book analyses and assesses the idea that as a country gets richer the happiness of its citizens remains the same. The book moves through three distinct pillars of study in the field: first analysing the historical and philosophical foundations of the debate; then the methodological and measurements issues and their political implications; and finally empirical applications and discussion about what determines a happy life. A Modern Guide to the Economics of Happiness extends the concept of happiness to that of wellbeing, offering an inquiry into well-being within the paradigm of complex systems. It draws together both recent developments in studies on the economics of happiness as well as its historical roots, covering the concept of Eudaimonia, Aristotle's theories and the important contribution of Italian economists. Critical case studies look at the relationship between physical activity and wellbeing, the value of family for life satisfaction, and the role of social capital for migrant acceptance. An invigorating read for economics and psychology scholars, this book will also be of interest to those researching welfare and development economics.
This book makes the bold attempt at proposing a new general theory of economic development founded on the fact-based perspective of economic behaviour. The main premise is that economic institutions and policies must embody 'economic discrimination' if there is to be any chance of real economic development. By economic discrimination, the author means 'treating differences differently' by selecting and supporting economic entities and behaviour that contribute positively to the economy. By presenting a general theory that goes beyond mainstream and ad hoc economic theories, Sung-Hee Jwa provides a new way to look at capitalism beyond the Marxian interpretation, explaining why some economies develop and others don't. The book identifies markets, government and corporations as the 'holy trinity of economic development', that is, the three most important institutions that must work together via economic discrimination to steer the economy towards real transformative progress. It also warns against the current trend of economic egalitarianism or 'not treating differences differently' because it destroys economic incentives and results in an array of economic problems including growth stagnation and worsening income distribution. The theory presented in this book and its implications for development management will be an invaluable resource for development economists, scholars, instructors, researchers and policymakers.
The re-emergence of institutional economics in the final quarter of the twentieth century is one of the most important and fruitful developments in social science. In bringing together some of the most significant previously published papers by leading scholars in the field, this authoritative collection explores the major changes in the 'new' and 'old' institutional economics, the developments of new approaches and the extension of applications to new areas which have taken place since the early 1990s. This volume is a definitive collection of readings showing both changes in the research agenda and new developments at the cutting edge. It is an ideal reference source for students and researchers in the fields of economics, sociology, business and other related disciplines.
Warren Samuels's second and concluding selection of essays focuses on early 20th century economists who, while relatively well-known in their times, have tended to be obscured by the more prominent stars of the discipline. It illustrates that economics is more diverse and complex than conventional histories of economic thought tend to identify. In particular it includes contributions on those economists who were not in the mainstream, or, if in the mainstream, practised economics in a somewhat alternative manner. Warren Samuels has assembled a collection of essays on thirteen economists - six German and seven Italian - who remain noteworthy of study to this day. The economists featured in the volume represent a variety of ways of practising economics - theoretical, methodological and policy-orientated - who all contributed to the understanding of economic processes and institutions at the deepest levels. European Economists of the Early 20th Century will appeal to all those with an interest in the philosophy and evolution of economics and to historians of economic thought.
This book analyzes the recent development paths pursued by progressive governments in Argentina and Brazil, namely deindustrialization and reprimarization, and the social and environmental consequences thereof. A key part of understanding the trajectories in both Argentina and Brazil has been the role played by international institutions, especially the IMF and WTO, and also, the ever-growing hegemony of transnational corporations in the global economy and as a result, significantly limiting the possibilities of genuine development for local populations. Two major issues which extend beyond Latin America are: the expansion of genetically modified crops and agrotoxics and the concern for global food security and sovereignty; second, how reprimarization, associated with mining, cattle, soy and petroleum, has been key in leading to the risk of desertification in the Argentine pampas and also causing deforestation in the Amazon Rain forest, described as the lungs of the planet, and thus has major implications for climate change for the planet as a whole. In addition, this book engages with a number of theoretical issues: development and dependency in the periphery: neoliberal globalization, accumulation by dispossession, ecological and environmental debates and the role of extractivism and rent. This book is aimed for both academics, activists and those politically motivated to analyze, understand and push for social change from a critical perspective, and also, those interested in a radical analysis of paths of development, dependency and socioenvironmental issues in Latin America today.
This book is about three key dimensions in economics-globalization, migration and the welfare state-that are of enduring interest. These issues are particularly important to consider at the present moment given the strains posed by the pandemic: there is at least a temporary setback to trade-globalization and migration, and the cost of fighting the pandemic will strain the ability of governments to provide welfare state services in a style and scope to which many of their citizens have become accustomed. The book explains the changing function of the welfare state in the presence of intensified globalization, or de-globalization, forces. The welfare state's policy-maker attitudes toward openness and migration depend on open-economy fundamentals, and the income class it represents. The author demonstrates the interactions between migration, globalization and macroeconomic policy in practice, using real-world unique episodes, with Israel deemed as well-functioning trifecta, and the US and Europe as imperfectly functioning trifecta.
Maurice Dobb (1900-1976) was a highly influential Marxist political economist and economic historian. He was famous for his writings on economic development - including the development of capitalism in the west, and the dilemmas of the Soviet Union in their efforts to industrialise what had been primarily an agricultural country. This collection brings together a selection of essays written in the 1960s and 1970s, on socialist economic thought and planning. The essays discuss many issues of relevance today - how to bring about growth in non-industrialised countries; non-market approaches to the economy; and the relevance of Marx to analysing commodity capitalism. The essays are introduced by Dobb's Literary Executor Brian Pollitt, who also gives a useful introduction to Dobb's life and work. Maurice Dobb was author of many works, including Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1946), Soviet Economic Development since 1917 (revised 1966) and Theories of Value and Distribution since Adam Smith (1973). He also collaborated with Piero Sraffa for many years in his work on Ricardo. Brian Pollitt has worked in Cuba, Chile and Nicaragua. His later research has focused on the problems of transition in socialist economies. He has held teaching and research positions at the Universities of Yale, Massachusetts, Concepcion and Adelaide, and has recently retired from his post at the University of Glasgow.
Greening Auto Jobs: A Critical Analysis of the Green Job Solution details current and problematic understandings of what constitutes a "green job." Adopting an approach grounded in critical political economy, this book presents a framework to scrutinize the green job solution and the theoretical framework which overwhelmingly informs contemporary green job creation efforts and ecological modernization. The text also explores the tensions that encircle the world of work and environmental action, often referred to as "jobs versus the environment," by detailing the conflicting commitments of political-economic actors to the idea of green job creation. These conflicts are outlined through an examination of the political-economic debate that has surrounded the Australian Government s environmental plans from 2008 to 2012 and the conflicting positions of Australian trade unions on environmentally transitioning the world of work. Interviews with key political-economic actors provide in-depth and nuanced understandings of the varied perspectives of political and union leaders in Australia. The second part of the book presents a detailed case study of the posited green job solution within the specific context of the Australian automotive manufacturing industry. The case study is also informed by interviews with key industry, union, and policymakers. The automotive industry is scrutinized not only because it has expressed going green as important to its long-term economic future, but because the Australian Government declared that its $6.2 billion "New Car Plan for a Greener Future" policy would create green jobs. Therefore, the book engages with the task of examining the three multinational vehicle producers operating in Australia Ford, GM Holden, and Toyota and how they have responded and engaged with the idea of green jobs, greening the manufacturing process, and the vehicles they produce in Australia."
Is the theory of money that underlies most modern macroeconomics well-grounded? What determines the value of a currency, and how is the state's power over its currency related to its ability to stabilize prices and employment? Charles Goodhart's classic paper 'The Two Concepts of Money: Implications for the Analysis of Optimal Currency Areas' which first raised these questions is reprinted here, and the distinguished authors expand its line of argument and comment on its central themes. The issues discussed are of fundamental importance in contemporary monetary theory and policy. The State, the Market and the Euro presents two sharply contrasting theories of money - Chartalist and Metallist - and the resulting equally sharply contrasting approaches to macroeconomic policy. Academic monetary, financial and political economists will find this book of great interest as will policymakers, financial analysts and journalists.
For individual actors involved in economic activities (i.e. production, exchanges), conventions and structures represent two different types of opportunity or constraint. Conventions refer to values, rules and representations that influence economic behaviour. Structures refer to patterns of resource interdependencies existing among members of any social system. This book contributes to the current rapprochement between economics and sociology. It examines the fact that individuals use rules and interdependencies to forward their own interests, while living in social environments where everyone does the same. The authors argue that to construct durable organizations and viable markets, they need to be able to handle both. However, thus far, economists and sociologists have not been able to reconcile the relationship between these two types of constraints on economic activity. Conventions and Structures in Economic Organization seeks to bridge this gap and will appeal to students and scholars in both economics and sociology, offering them new ideas about how they can co-operate in unsuspected ways and combine their interdisciplinary efforts.
Combining deep moral argument with extensive factual inquiry,
Richard Miller constructs a new account of international justice.
Though a critic of demanding principles of kindness toward the
global poor and an advocate of special concern for compatriots, he
argues for standards of responsible conduct in transnational
relations that create vast unmet obligations. Governments, firms
and people in developed countries, above all, the United States, by
failing to live up to these responsibilities, take advantage of
people in developing countries.
This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways - theoretically or empirically; locally or globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession.
The Economics of Demand-Led Growth is a collection of specially written essays that develop and apply the theory of demand-led growth. Long-run growth is usually portrayed as a supply-determined process. The contributions to this volume, however, are rooted in the theory of demand-led growth. In addition to general discussions of the role of demand in the long-run, the volume contains essays in the Kaldorian and Kaleckian traditions, and a section on the relationship between demand-led growth and structural change. The conclusion reached is that current neglect of the role of demand in analyses of long-run growth is unwarranted. This book will prove indispensable to academic economists and graduate students in economics for its contributions to the field of macrodynamics and, in particular, its development of non-neoclassical approaches to macrodynamics.
In The Methodology of Macroeconomic Thought, Sheila Dow attempts to bridge the gap between methodology and macroeconomic theory through the study of four different schools of thought in economics - the Neo-Austrian, mainstream, post Keynesian and Marxian traditions - and by seeking to understand their methodological foundations in their own terms. In this substantially-revised new edition of her classic work, Macroeconomic Thought: A Methodological Approach, Dr Dow argues for methodological awareness among practising economists as a basis for constructive debate and reasoned argument. The methodological content has been substantially increased to include material on recent developments in the field. After analysing the historical and methodological development of each of the schools, the author covers the micro-foundations of their macroeconomics and their approaches to key concepts including equilibrium, expectations, money and macroeconomic policy. The author seeks to identify the sources of differences between schools of thought as well as potential and actual commonalities before examining their differences at a conceptual level. Unlike other accounts, mainstream economics is treated here as one school of thought on a par with Neo-Austrian economics, PostKeynesian economics and Marxian economics. The Methodology of Macroeconomic Thought will be welcomed by readers for its description and analysis of these schools in their own terms, as well as for the wider perspective it offers on methodology.
This second part of a two-volume set continues to describe
economists' efforts to quantify the social decisions people
necessarily make and the philosophies that those choices define.
Contributors draw on lessons from philosophy, history, and other
disciplines, but they ultimately use editor Kenneth Arrow's seminal
work on social choice as a jumping-off point for discussing ways to
incentivize, punish, and distribute goods.
This collection of essays examines the methodological problems confronting economists in the face of two major developments in the second half of the twentieth century. The first is the vast increase in the number and variety of writings on the methodology or 'philosophy' of economics, especially from those intensively specialising in methodology. This has led to the virtual breakdown in communication between methodologists and mainstream economists, with methodology becoming increasingly isolated from mainstream economics. The second major development has been what Benjamin Ward first called 'the formalist revolution' which he, not unjustifiably, described as 'more important than the Keynesian Revolution'. Professor Hutchison attempts to contribute to serious methodological analysis of this 'revolution' and, at the same time, suggests how communication between mainstream economists and methodologists might be improved.
This book asks, how would a stable, prosperous economy of the future look if one started with a blank sheet of paper? Given that the world's economy is locked into a coevolution with nature, the urgency of this question is brought into stark relief by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and ongoing climate change. While physical technologies to build such an economy mostly exist, the social technologies, in the form of institutions, governance and policies, do not. The development of these social technologies will necessitate a reconsideration of economic norms: in particular, what is the economy for, and what are we, as actors within it, striving for? This book integrates normative, institutional, political and economic requirements into a systematic framework to drive our present growth economy toward a future planetarian one. It outlines a suite of interrelated policies to increase the economy's material efficiency, establish a basic living standard, and reform the money system, while along the way eliminating economic debt and balancing government budgets. The framework and policies together form a paradigm of market planetarianism: the idea that the power of markets may be used to steer the economy toward a desired long-term goal. The methodological aspects of this paradigm are covered in the companion volume, Economics of a Crowded Planet.
This book shows that research contributions from different fields-finance, economics, computer sciences, and physics-can provide useful insights into key issues in financial and cryptocurrency markets. Presenting the latest empirical and theoretical advances, it helps readers gain a better understanding of financial markets and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to use a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending and to control its issue without the need for a central authority, and it has attracted wide public attention since its introduction. In recent years, the academic community has also started gaining interest in cyptocurrencies, and research in the field has grown rapidly. This book presents is a collection of the latest work on cryptocurrency markets and the properties of those markets. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers from disciplines such as finance, economics, financial engineering, computer science, physics and applied mathematics working in the field of financial markets, including cryptocurrency markets.
This publication contributes to the serious games field by investigating original contributions and methods that use serious games in various domains. This comprehensive and timely publication works as an essential reference source, building on the available literature in the field of Serious Games for the economic and social development of countries while providing for further research opportunities in this dynamic and growing field. Thus, the book provides the opportunity for a reflection on this important issue, increasing the understanding of the importance of Serious Games in the context of organizations' improvements, providing relevant academic work, empirical research findings, and an overview of this relevant field of study. This text provides the resources necessary for policy makers, technology developers and managers to adopt and implement solutions for a more digital era.
Human Action - a treatise on laissez-faire capitalism by Ludwig von Mises is a historically important and classic publication on economics, and yet it can be an intimidating work due to its length and formal style. Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action, however, skillfully relays the main insights from Human Action in a style that will resonate with modern readers. The book assumes no prior knowledge in economics or other fields, and, when necessary, it provides the historical and scholarly context necessary to explain the contribution Mises makes on a particular issue. To faithfully reproduce the material in Human Action, this work mirrors its basic structure, providing readers with an enjoyable and educational introduction to the lifes work of one of history's most important economists.
This book examines the evolution of basic income policy and research in advanced economies and is divided into two parts. The first section considers the development of basic income as a social policy initiative in advanced (OECD) nations from the 1960s to today. It reviews what the negative income tax experiments accomplished, their limitations, and what they can lend to the design and implementation of basic income pilots or a full blown basic income program today. It also considers important developments and research in poverty and economic inequality and in technological change and labour market adjustment over the last half century. The second section focuses on the Canadian case, where the prospects for basic income are perhaps among the most promising. In addition to a review of Mincome and its lessons and limitations, this section considers important developments in poverty research by the Economic Council of Canada and the Canadian Senate in the 1960s, attempts at welfare reform, and the policy initiatives to develop a basic income for elderly Canadians that has endured to this day. Many of the important social and technological developments that are reviewed in the first part will be discussed in more detail with specific reference to the Canadian case. The evolution of the important policy innovations the National Child Benefit and its successors and the Poverty Reduction Strategy are outlined in detail and linked to other, more modest, income support initiatives such as the federal sales tax credit that provide a potential foundation for a comprehensive basic income plan in Canada. Research, including recent microsimulation studies of a basic income, are critically reviewed. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in basic income to support those hardest hit, the book argues for careful design of basic income policies in its aftermath rather than simplistic adoption of emergency pandemic measures. |
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