All are agreed that orthodox economics is unsatisfactory but there is wide disagreement, especially among heterodox critics, whether the problems lie at the level of substantive theory or at the level of methodology. This paper gives first an overview of the methodological questions at issue....

There is no way around it: each theory rests on a tiny set of foundational propositions. Standard economics rests on behavioral axioms. After a long intellectual detour it should be clear by now that behavioral axioms are the wrong formal departure point. Being beyond repair, they have to be...

Behavioral assumptions are not solid enough to be eligible as first principles of theoretical economics. Hence all endeavors to lay the formal foundation on a new site and at a deeper level actually need no further vindication. Part (I) of the structural axiomatic analysis submits three...

The average household income of first generation immigrants in Europe and North-America is lower than that of natives, and this difference can not be explained by their amount of human capital (education, age, gender, residence). This is above all true for immigrants, coming from the second- or...

This paper gives empirical evidence of the role of cognitive ability in social stratification by analyzing a Dutch longitudinal data set (the so-called Noord-Brabant cohort), as a contribution to the debates around The Bell Curve. Differences in early cognitive ability influence educational...

A comprehensive dynamic model of the monetary economy that produces the key characteristics of a debt deflation has been presented recently by Steve Keen as an alternative to conventional approaches. His model is based on a double-entry bookkeeping methodology but lacks an acceptable profit...

The present paper takes the explanatory superiority of the integrated monetary approach for granted. It will be demonstrated that the accounting approach could do even better provided it frees itself from theoretically ill-founded notions like GDP and other artifacts of the equilibrium approach....

The present paper takes it as an indisputable fact that subjective-behavioral thinking leads, for deeper methodological reasons, with inner necessity to inconclusive filibustering about the agents’ economic conduct and therefore has to be replaced by something fundamentally different. The key...

Behavioral assumptions are not solid enough to be eligible as first principles of theoretical economics. Hence all endeavors to lay the formal foundation on a new site and at a deeper level actually need no further vindication. Part (I) of the structural axiomatic analysis submits three...

Economists are fond of the physicists’ powerful tools. As a popular mindset Toolism is as old as economics but the transplants failed to produce the same successes as in their aboriginal environment. Economists therefore looked more and more to the math department for inspiration. Now the tide...