Archive

US Military needs during the Cold War induced a mathematical modeling of rational allocation and control processes while simultaneously binding that rationality with computational reality. Modeling strategies to map the optimal to the operational ensued and eventually became a driving force in the development of macroeconomic dynamics.

A student of microeconomics learns that any competitive equilibrium leads to a Pareto efficient outcome (First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics). What do we mean by the efficiency or inefficiency of markets?

We provide an explanation for the large spatial wage disparities and low male migration in India based on the trade-off between consumption-smoothing, provided by caste-based rural insurance networks, and the income-gains from migration.

The effect of ethnic violence on electoral results provides useful insights into voter behaviour and the incentives for political parties in democratic societies.

The reality of human homeostasis expands the views on preferences and rational choice that are part of traditionally conceived Homo economicus and casts doubts on economic models that depend only on an “invisible hand” mechanism.

A student of microeconomics learns that any desirable efficient market allocation can be sustained by a competitive equilibrium (the Second Theorem of Welfare Economics), given appropriate lump-sum wealth redistributions. This is typically understood as a means to correct unfair market outcomes. What are the real world implications of the second theorem? How well does it address distributional concerns?

The best-known China bear says the emperor is not yet naked, but getting there.

Join Columbia University Dean Merit E. Janow for a talk by Lord Adair Turner, Chairman, Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Professor Richard Portes discusses the problems of Europe and then specifically drills down into Greece itself.

We consider nonparametric identification and estimation of pricing kernels, or equivalently of marginal utility functions up to scale, in consumption based asset pricing Euler equations. Ours is the first paper to prove nonparametric identification of Euler equations under low level conditions (without imposing functional restrictions or just assuming completeness).

Have economists fallen in love with an idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets? To what extent is standard microeconomics responsible for this state of affairs?

As Greece heads to the polls, a look back at the crisis and what the future will bring.

Marc Lavoie discusses the methodological foundations of heterodox economics, and offers a very different model of money and credit, firms and pricing, consumer theory, effective demand and employment and growth theories.

Professor Heckman was invited to speak at the HDCA 2015 Conference as the keynote speaker for the Amartya Sen Lecture. The presentation offered recent research on the economics of creating flourishing lives, discussing the importance of cognitive skills, character skills and health.

Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford researcher Max Roser recently collaborated with world famous Swedish statistical showman Hans Rosling on the upcoming documentary ‘Don’t Panic: How To End Poverty In 15 Years’.