The 'big trade-off', described by Arthur Okun some thirty years ago, is back again. Equality or efficiency, or to put it differently again: modern highly developed economies and societies have to choose between the Scylla of income inequality or the Charybdis of unemployment. Furthermore, it...

The recent judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court has clarified that the debt brake enshrined in the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) is intended to do exactly what the legislature intended when it was adopted in 2009: to tie the hands of political actors and block the 'easy way out...

Populism in modern Western democracies is on the rise. The existing literature concentrates on explanations based on the growing socio-economic and socio-cultural polarisation of modern societies driven by globalisation and individualisation on the one hand and the unresponsiveness of...

Die Welt durchlebt die tiefste Depression seit den 1930er Jahren. Wieso war die Wirtschaftswissenschaft so schlecht auf dieses Ereignis vorbereitet? Welche Verantwortung muss der akademischen Profession übernehmen und welche Konsequenzen muss eine wissenschaftliche Disziplin tragen, die...

In the context of ongoing criticisms of the lack of pluralism in economics, the present article aims to discuss the development of 'heterodox' economics since the 1970s. Following Lakatos's concept of scientific research programs (srp), and concentrating on the situation in Germany, the article...