In an age of scepticism about the relevance of neoclassical economics for today's economic policy, it's easy to argue that what went wrong lay primarily with the discipline's over-reliance on highly idealized theories such as rational choice and rational expectations in applied policy research....

Recognizing and understanding the seminal role that the Kennedy tax cuts and those 15 years of inflation played in the cascade of deregulation and class entrenchment that put us where we are is necessary for plotting appropriate course corrections, but it is not sufficient.Identification of the...

Keynes' General Theory was a massive step forward relative to classical economics, but it was also a step backward in its denial of the conflictual nature of capitalism. There is need to understand Keynes' technical contributions regarding the workings of monetary economies, but also need to...

The current crisis has triggered significant debate concerning economic theory and policy. Largely absent from this debate is an informed discussion of the methods used by economists in analysing the economy and formulating their proposals. But method matters. Here I argue that current academic...

Public choice economics, like most economics, typically assigns only a small role to various forms of talk between individuals. By contrast, throughout Richard Wagner's oeuvre, there is an undercurrent of talk about talk. This essay argues that talk matters because of two key assumptions in...

This paper examines the role of misleading economic ideas that most likely promoted the economic disasters of the two deflationary periods in Japanese economic history. Misleading ideas deepened the depression during the interwar years, and erroneous thinking prolonged the stagnation of the...

This paper suggests that, with the help of Concordian economics, the economic process can be studied through the perspectives of Production of real wealth; Distribution of ownership rights; Consumption of financial instruments (as well as the integration of these three perspectives). The...

The aim of this paper is to systematically enquire into the relationship Robbins sets in his writings - prior to the Essay and further brought out in several subsequent works - between 'economic science' and 'political economy' in order to understand the role of each in the work of the...

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the Great Depression (1929-1933) and the Great Financial Crisis (2007-2009) by contrasting the crises' main driving forces and how they relate to each other with respect to the United States. To this end, causes, consequences and measures undertaken...

This article posits the issue of American poverty and governments' inability to significantly alter this adverse social condition. While data suggests there has been a substantial and measurable improvement in poverty rates over the past four decades, the fact remains, poverty is an inherent and...