Category Archives: Economic Theory

A Theory of Consumption and Speculation to Round Out Sraffa’s Theory of Production

Posted on May 6, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

The other day I discussed the fundamental differences between the Sraffian and the marginalist systems. Since then I was perusing Sraffa’s Production of Commodities By Means of Commodities (full PDF available here). It’s a very nice piece of work. Tightly … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory | 14 Comments

Judge, Jury and Executioner: More Moralistic Cant From the High Priests of the Austrian School

Posted on May 5, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Well, the money cranks have weighed in on my last article on the gold standard. The response, which didn’t actually link to my piece as is customary in such debates (does my interlocutor not wish that his readers might read … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory | 2 Comments

Why the Value of Contemporary Money is Not Dependent on the Value of Gold

Posted on May 3, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

I note that there is oftentimes confusion today when the gold standard era is brought up. The reason for the confusion when discussing this era is because the monetary system functioned in an entirely different way. The confusion goes two … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic History, Economic Theory | 7 Comments

Why Economists Fail to Make ‘Rational’ Judgments and Why You Should Too

Posted on May 2, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Recently Cameron Murray directed me to an interesting paper entitled Do Economists Recognize an Opportunity Cost When They See One? A Dismal Performance from the Dismal Science. The paper surveyed a whole bunch of professional economists to see if they … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Psychology | 46 Comments

Arguments Against Free Trade and Comparative Advantage

Posted on May 1, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

In response to Krugman’s awful dismissal of heterodox economics the other day (see here) Ramanan has dug up an old quote reminding us that Krugman actually got his Swedish bank prize for being a defender of the status quo. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic History, Economic Policy, Economic Theory | 16 Comments

On Rising Inequality and Piketty’s ‘Laws’

Posted on April 29, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

I note that some readers might be interested in some of my journalistic economic writing. So, I’m going to start posting it on here. Here is a piece that I wrote for Al Jazeera that was published today. Our fragile … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory, Media/Journalism | 5 Comments

The Capital Controversies Rise Once More

Posted on April 28, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

In recent days the old capital controversies have come up again. This has been in response to the work of Thomas Piketty and its championing by the likes of Paul Krugman. Because this work deals with the issue of inequality … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory | 2 Comments

The Chosen Ones: Krugman’s Critique of the Critics

Posted on April 26, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

Krugman is out with a kind-of-sort-of attack on critics of economics. It’s not surprising because Krugman is a very kind-of-sort-of type of guy in many of his opinions. The language of his latest piece, however, is somewhat bizarre. He labels … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory | 10 Comments

Solow’s Nobel Prize Lecture: Talking Out Both Sides of His Mouth

Posted on April 23, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

The other day I did a post comparing Solow’s growth model to the older Harrod-Domar growth model. After writing it I read Solow’s 1987 Nobel Prize address which looks at the history of growth theories in context. It is a … Continue reading →

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Chasing Utopia: Solow Versus Harrod-Domar

Posted on April 21, 2014 by pilkingtonphil

I’m currently reading Robert Solow’s paper A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth in which he lays out his famous Solow growth model. I don’t want to get into the actual model laid out here but instead ask what … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic Theory | 1 Comment