tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25563073095091083912024-03-21T09:22:48.828-03:00The Economics Anti-TextbookAntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-22963661707563273032024-02-13T14:03:00.005-04:002024-02-13T14:03:32.794-04:00Climate Change – still a matter of scientific disagreement?!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKnR_43D2M_FHNPInxXxKVELChrgmv8BlXpRAPA7tF_Y9uio5T6Pg3CSFTGA73m0fUUt8d0liwGkPkNbrKtisUUKPKmDXRJbqJ0r89hAQMWqYBgcpw4I0_1qG1uvW0bDH9A-s5vrgSvWhLjHaJ6nkplhzi0ZJZ6xrDWUmpTSzK7WvqJo-7YZAwbOvo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1766" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKnR_43D2M_FHNPInxXxKVELChrgmv8BlXpRAPA7tF_Y9uio5T6Pg3CSFTGA73m0fUUt8d0liwGkPkNbrKtisUUKPKmDXRJbqJ0r89hAQMWqYBgcpw4I0_1qG1uvW0bDH9A-s5vrgSvWhLjHaJ6nkplhzi0ZJZ6xrDWUmpTSzK7WvqJo-7YZAwbOvo" width="207" /></a></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>In the new 2024 edition of his <i>Principles of Microeconomics</i>, Gregory Mankiw explains "Why Economists Disagree". One reason: "Differences in Scientific Judgements". Fair enough. But his non-economic example of a scientific disagreement is bizarre.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">He writes: "</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">climatologists have debated <i>whether the earth is experiencing global warming and, if so, why</i>. Science is an ongoing search to understand the world around us. It is not surprising that as the search continues, scientists sometimes disagree <i>about the direction</i> in which truth lies" (my emphasis).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">No, there is not a debate among climatologists about whether the earth is experiencing global warming. Global warming is a fact which even those who made a living denying it have had to acknowledge, while they move on to other ways of stalling action to lessen it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">And no, there is no debate about why global warming is occurring. The basic science has been known since the late 19th century.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">So why is this rubbish in his text? (It was in the previous edition as well, and likely in many earlier ones.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">If Mankiw wanted a reasonable example related to climate change, he could explain the debate around 'climate sensitivity' – how much global warming could be expected if carbon dioxide concentrations were twice their preindustrial level. this value is critical in determining where and how fast temperatures in the earth system are headed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div><br /></div>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-83002652974213139252022-12-29T15:20:00.000-04:002022-12-29T15:20:30.635-04:00The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook: Interview with Tony Myatt<p> Tony Myatt was recently interviewed by Henry Levinson-Gower on the subject of his new book, <i>The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook</i>. This is one of The Mint Interviews, part of a broader project to promote pluralism in economics.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xKWUaMILmuo" width="320" youtube-src-id="xKWUaMILmuo"></iframe></div><br /><p>The book has been available in Kindle form for a couple of months and is available in print in the UK and, as of today, in the US. It will be available in Canada in mid January.</p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-32594399877022922122022-04-18T19:01:00.000-03:002022-04-18T19:01:35.335-03:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEZWUsfT-X6T-hjmOEw4T5JHt7d_BQWfIliVCefiI3K8dSVH3Z4asUiY8Rvfw25zneY1m6M8alvB0jMGk3-s_wq1hc0XCJZMA39nnRmip8bME6Mbhpw_zMhb96K867gArGxdDys2BGzdrAj_CglW2-4nZ-vFvj63gJEXCBIpDL9IIWDlX-MfQU9g/s648/Mankiw%20ninth%20edition%20micro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="506" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEZWUsfT-X6T-hjmOEw4T5JHt7d_BQWfIliVCefiI3K8dSVH3Z4asUiY8Rvfw25zneY1m6M8alvB0jMGk3-s_wq1hc0XCJZMA39nnRmip8bME6Mbhpw_zMhb96K867gArGxdDys2BGzdrAj_CglW2-4nZ-vFvj63gJEXCBIpDL9IIWDlX-MfQU9g/s320/Mankiw%20ninth%20edition%20micro.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Mankiw's <i>Principles of Microeconomics</i>:</span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Chapter-by-chapter commentaries</span></b></div></b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">As part of the World Economics Association's <a href="https://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/textbook-commentaries/" target="_blank">Textbook Commentaries Project</a>, I've started writing a series of commentaries, one on each chapter of the most recent US edition of Mankiw's micro principles text. The first eight chapters are currently posted with more to follow. Their goal is to provide students with some assistance in thinking critically about the text if they find it assigned to them.<br /><br />Not surprisingly, the themes from <i>The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook</i> come in handy here, but there are also specific things to be said about the rhetoric and the content of this particular book. One thing that has surprised me is the lack of accuracy here and there – things that should have been weeded out of a book in its ninth edition by an author with no lack of resources for research assistance and accuracy checking. The Commentaries have to stick to important themes, rather than take up space and the reader's patience with what might appear to be nitpicking, but here's an example.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Many economics graduate students will be familiar with Ronald Coase's famous 1974 essay "The Lighthouse in Economics". He examines the way in which the lighthouse has sometimes been portrayed in economists' writings as a pure public good without actually looking into the institutional detail of how lighthouses operated. (Reminder: a pure public good is a good where many can benefit from it without reducing the benefits received by others, while no one can be compelled to pay for the good - the use of the light in this case . This leads to the conclusion that public financing of the good would likely be necessary to try to have the correct amount of it.) </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Mankiw includes a Case Study section, clearly inspired by Coase's essay, entitled "Are lighthouses a public good?" Writing of 19th century England, Mankiw says: “Instead of trying to charge ship captains for the service, however, the owner of the lighthouse charged the owner of the nearby port. If the port owner did not pay, the lighthouse owner turned off the light, and ships avoided that port.” Mankiw gives no source for this, but it bears no resemblance to anything in Coase' exhaustive description of the British lighthouse system. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Coase explained that in England in the 19th century, the “role of the government was limited to the establishment and enforcement of property rights in the lighthouse. The charges were collected at the ports by agents for the lighthouses”. <i>At</i> the ports, not<i> from</i> the ports. Lighthouse owners did not turn off their lights as part of a negotiating process with shipowners or anyone else. “In Britain. no negotiation has been required to determine individual charges and no lighthouse keeper has ever turned off the light for this purpose” (Coase, <i>The Firm, The Market, And The Law</i>, University of Chicago Press, 1988, p. 212).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">RH<br /></span><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p></div>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-48743780789424125272022-04-18T16:19:00.002-03:002022-04-18T19:43:16.577-03:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4AuG6xD5OMu5zKM95gPuMTv2ry52Oe59dgITiUeC64DEpvzfEXNYvJEOHyEbUJLcPDOX48hvL5twB4Q48NWqW0AX4-_eREhLmnhdLC3owTGtERkC1n1oKbkrz6l-ZjGGrWuZwOlNq-FtF7SK5v5yxs-3xMwLu7oahHbRB_Le8n55kO_pt066aMA/s852/9781350323742.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="568" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4AuG6xD5OMu5zKM95gPuMTv2ry52Oe59dgITiUeC64DEpvzfEXNYvJEOHyEbUJLcPDOX48hvL5twB4Q48NWqW0AX4-_eREhLmnhdLC3owTGtERkC1n1oKbkrz6l-ZjGGrWuZwOlNq-FtF7SK5v5yxs-3xMwLu7oahHbRB_Le8n55kO_pt066aMA/s320/9781350323742.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook: out this fall</span></b><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">The publication of the long-awaited companion volume has been announced </span><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/macroeconomics-antitextbook-9781350323742/" style="font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">on the website</a><span style="font-size: large;"> of Bloomsbury Publishing! Updates will follow here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">RH</span><p></p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-28702480322461215822021-10-08T15:36:00.001-03:002021-10-08T15:37:57.374-03:00The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook – production continues<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisssg0Xo_2nPs0I7QhDWAOEMdpP6jRI7mDNkIS2L-hzYzD1zKCxhib0AkJleqX0I71vBSNiEPVJabueOr0Ke8iOT3UAe5JhdIzVTxH-Lch2QHTLubKZEnYw3xWviT4tZ22kEI_Fz9yyA/s1024/9781783607297_exterior_proof0110241024_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1024" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisssg0Xo_2nPs0I7QhDWAOEMdpP6jRI7mDNkIS2L-hzYzD1zKCxhib0AkJleqX0I71vBSNiEPVJabueOr0Ke8iOT3UAe5JhdIzVTxH-Lch2QHTLubKZEnYw3xWviT4tZ22kEI_Fz9yyA/w640-h458/9781783607297_exterior_proof0110241024_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> Just a brief update; the end is in sight. The index is being prepared so I will have the tedious task of trying to check it and fix it up. The copyright date has been changed from 2021 to 2022, but the Canadian Amazon website says that December 16 will be the release date. I've been told nothing officially yet by the editors at Bloomsbury.<p></p><p>While many of the anti-text parts of the chapters have been substantially rewritten, probably the major change is the scrapping of the old Postscript on the financial crisis (which seems a long time ago now). It has been replaced with a new Postscript on 'A case study of climate change and the textbooks'.</p><p>RH</p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-90545910062144636632021-07-17T18:54:00.000-03:002021-07-17T18:54:06.296-03:00The minimum wage – a different perspective <p><span style="font-size: medium;">Peter Baker's long essay "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/13/how-much-is-an-hour-worth-the-war-over-the-minimum-wage" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How much is an hour worth? The war over the minimum wage</a>" originally appeared on <i>The Guardian</i>'s website in 2018. I happened to listen to it last night on their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2018/apr/27/how-much-is-an-hour-worth-minimum-wage-podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Long Reads podcast</a>, as it was being repeated. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The new edition of the <i>Anti-Textbook</i> updates the examination of the minimum wage, including the debate on the effects of a $15 minimum wage in Seattle, </span><span style="font-size: large;">but I realized on listening to the podcast that the discussion fell entirely into the framework that is shared by almost all economists studying the question. This focuses on a narrow set of questions dealing with how hours of work change and whether workers end up with higher paychecks when the dust has settled.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The point that Peter Baker makes is that a broader question is being overlooked. It is nicely encapsulated in a couple of quotes that he gives near the beginning and the end of his essay.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When the minimum wage was being introduced in the United States under Franklin Roosevelt's administration (long after it had been initially introduced in New Zealand and Australia), Roosevelt had this to say in 1933: “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.” Baker writes that Roosevelt "openly declared his desire to reshape the American economy by driving out 'parasitic' firms that built worker penury into their business models." (I know, it is almost unimaginable that an American president could have said and thought such things, but those were very different times.)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then at the end of his essay he returns to this theme: "I met with Kshama Sawant, the socialist economist who [as a member of the Seattle city council] had been so instrumental in passing the $15 wage." Baker writes that "her most impassioned argument wasn’t about the studies [of the effects of the change in the minimum wage in Seattle]– and it was one that Roosevelt would have found very familiar.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“'Look, if it were true that the economic system we have today can’t even bring our most poverty-stricken workers to a semi-decent standard of living – and $15 is not even a living wage, by the way – then why would we defend it?' She paused. 'That would be straightforward evidence that we need a better system.'”</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ1FcuujJNylI-NiyNj1lMhe7AbRsrzrlzjaOs8HsYD52E9Smpa2_Kseg1Aa2GswqGLVxn82kfV17lyxCH5MJ88rIBfVK9Ku_aE4K8tLZ9T3u1pSN-Ed2GQuGoVVfi8Ux-q34ipHBDbg/s620/kshama-sawant-620-flickr-620x370.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="620" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ1FcuujJNylI-NiyNj1lMhe7AbRsrzrlzjaOs8HsYD52E9Smpa2_Kseg1Aa2GswqGLVxn82kfV17lyxCH5MJ88rIBfVK9Ku_aE4K8tLZ9T3u1pSN-Ed2GQuGoVVfi8Ux-q34ipHBDbg/w640-h382/kshama-sawant-620-flickr-620x370.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Seattle Councilmember Dr. Kshama Sawant</span></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-71583813168037697832021-07-08T15:03:00.002-03:002021-07-08T15:03:49.125-03:00The Microeconomics Anti--Textbook is in production<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjLqAHLrik_7rU3O6QdUuNhSqTWutgWobPMfK1Rh05albcnbMXyjpwJdaS_E8mncGZwgHXY-TVHhmpaH6Q14zfrHYBq_EW0u9JJPkoQSNOilM9s40zeGC6TweN-Cp_Ph_Bi5iHkdlhA/s1000/AT2+front+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjLqAHLrik_7rU3O6QdUuNhSqTWutgWobPMfK1Rh05albcnbMXyjpwJdaS_E8mncGZwgHXY-TVHhmpaH6Q14zfrHYBq_EW0u9JJPkoQSNOilM9s40zeGC6TweN-Cp_Ph_Bi5iHkdlhA/w258-h388/AT2+front+cover.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I finished correcting the first draft of the page proofs a few days ago, so things are proceeding at last. I will post an update once I know when the book will be in print. The index has not yet been created, so more work remains to be done.<br /><br />RH</div><br /> <p></p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-66342820776432002512021-01-01T15:23:00.001-04:002021-01-01T15:23:50.000-04:00Schumpeterian competition in wind turbine production <p> Good riddance to 2020. An article in today's <i>New York Times </i>stood out for me as a hopeful story to start out the new year: "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/business/GE-wind-turbine.html" target="_blank">A Monster Wind Turbine is Upending an Industry</a>". <br /><br />The monster in question is General Electric's, produced in a bid to challenge the dominance of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy in offshore wind turbines. It is 260m high and the blades are 220m in diameter. Some test versions, pictured below, are on land along the harbour at Rotterdam.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_dxXnjRQLvv95in8fJuXyGO-1YMR807K4Ht2UoDaKJHQVCk_2m-OoB_Qa3j5zMaVTD7DmXmL19u1NhV86y3ZRYxSKLGObZp0SOTn2TrQ-UxT_lFpfWw37NhhAD44DMWLEpy93Ch8Pw/s2048/GE+wind+turbine+Rotterdam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_dxXnjRQLvv95in8fJuXyGO-1YMR807K4Ht2UoDaKJHQVCk_2m-OoB_Qa3j5zMaVTD7DmXmL19u1NhV86y3ZRYxSKLGObZp0SOTn2TrQ-UxT_lFpfWw37NhhAD44DMWLEpy93Ch8Pw/w640-h426/GE+wind+turbine+Rotterdam.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Joseph Schumpeter claimed that understanding the importance of such dynamic competition was critical in understanding how the capitalist system generates new processes and products, something about which the traditional static models have nothing to say. With rare exceptions, the introductory textbooks' discussion of oligopoly focuses on price competition.<br /><br /><span style="text-align: center;">While the tone</span><span style="text-align: center;"> of Schumpeter's discussion</span><span style="text-align: center;"> was optimistic</span><span style="text-align: center;"> –</span><span style="text-align: center;"> understandable given that he was writing in the 1940s – it's now by no means clear that monopolies will be relatively short lived in a process of 'creative destruction', as the Big Tech monopolies of today look quite well entrenched. As well, it's now also abundantly clear that oligopolies can compete to produce better useful processes and products as well as harmful ones. (We could have done without the technology to extract bitumen from Alberta's tar sands – excuse me, "oil sands" is the politically correct terminology. The same goes with the development of 'forever chemicals' like PFOA, PFOS that contaminate the bodies of virtually everyone on the planet. And so on.)<br /><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But for today, I'm focusing on the positive. At last, it seems that the tide is turning against the fossil fuel industry. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br />AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-37619017311488679152021-01-01T14:03:00.002-04:002021-01-01T14:03:21.456-04:00The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook and The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook: updates<p> I delivered the (extensively) revised edition of the Microeconomics Anti-Textbook to the editors at Zed/Bloomsbury in late November. I'm hoping that it will be in print by about the middle of the year, but the editors have not yet given me a timeline.<br /><br />Tony Myatt, who has been working on the Macroeconomics companion tells me that he is now working on the last chapter so, all going well, it will appear in 2021 too.</p><p><br /></p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-70948369684019212012020-09-29T15:59:00.000-03:002020-09-29T15:59:03.776-03:00The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook: a brief update<p> I will be submitting the manuscript for the second edition of <i>The Economics Anti-Textbook </i>within a couple of months. As a more accurate reflection of the subject matter, the new book will have the title <i>The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook</i>. The content has been quite extensively revised and updated. The book will have a new postscript examining the (rather dismal) textbook treatment of climate disruption.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-55158683557349691912020-04-23T16:20:00.000-03:002020-04-23T16:20:20.324-03:00Greed in the Disney boardroom denounced by Ms. Disney<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUFJNpUpFti2aMD246sRzEAAzT9rS7cdvrWXNAvzZGQu6h8OGp_izAqX6X3diIfHpcsFtVlp1AtEtRHh_FNBAM-0MrOxcGFu0nuiyB-PUQrVmHMqcjFQqVsKVke0NHq13ZZTUCl5dGHQ/s1600/Abigail+Disney.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="780" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUFJNpUpFti2aMD246sRzEAAzT9rS7cdvrWXNAvzZGQu6h8OGp_izAqX6X3diIfHpcsFtVlp1AtEtRHh_FNBAM-0MrOxcGFu0nuiyB-PUQrVmHMqcjFQqVsKVke0NHq13ZZTUCl5dGHQ/s320/Abigail+Disney.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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A recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/apr/22/disney-heir-criticises-company-over-15bn-bonuses-cuts-pay" target="_blank">article</a> in <i>The Guardian</i> caught my eye because I am in the midst of revising and updating the part of Chapter 7 in the <i>Anti-Textbook</i> that deals with CEO pay and whether that can be explained by the conventional supply and demand story. It describes the sharply critical views of Abigail Disney (pictured here) who is unimpressed by Disney employees facing mass layoffs while the company shovels $1.5 billion to senior executives and stockholders. (A web search will uncover many more articles about her critique of the "insane" pay given to the current chief executive.)<br />
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The article details some of the payments to senior executives. The outgoing CEO was paid 900 times the amount paid to an average Disney employee. The new CEO, according to the report, could receive a bonus of "not less than 300 percent of salary" and a long-term incentive payment of "not less than $15 million". A nice floor to have put under one's earnings no matter how the company performs.<br />
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As part of my background work for the book, I have surveyed 10 representative North American introductory microeconomics textbooks on many topics. On this particular topic, eight of the 10 books mentioned the issue of CEO/senior management "compensation". Remarkably, not a single one directly connects issues of corporate governance with CEO pay, despite the prominence of this theme in the academic literature. Not a single one describes how CEO pay is actually determined.<br />
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In public corporations, it is typically the job of a compensation committee of the Board of Directors to determine this. As you know, Boards of Directors are there to look out for shareholders interests, at least on paper. For fun, I am going to quote Warren Buffett's views on compensation committees:<br />
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<i>"The typical large company has a compensation committee," said Buffett. They don't look for Dobermans on that committee, they look for Chihuahuas." He paused, amid laughter, then added: "Chihuahuas that have been sedated."</i><br />
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I decided that space limitations prevented me from extending the quote further, but the report from <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/03/pf/buffett_qanda/" target="_blank"><i>Money</i> magazine</a> continued, quoting Buffett's business partner Charlie Munger who added: "I'd rather throw of viper down my shirt front than hire a compensation consultant." (Compensation consultants or people who make their living advising compensation committees about how much the CEO is worth.)<br />
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Obviously Buffett and Munger have not read the introductory textbooks that could explain to them the error of their ways.<br />
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Or perhaps they have read the nonmainstream introductory textbooks, every one of which discusses the actual issue. I will be quoting from <i>Understanding Capitalism</i> by Samuel Bowles and his co-authors who explain quite clearly the influence that the CEO has over the whole process. (If you are interested in the details, you can still do no better than the 2006 book <i>Pay Without Performance</i> by Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried. Despite some tinkering with the regulations and attempts to improve shareholder say over senior executive pay, the book remains sadly relevant.<br />
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RH<br />
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<br />AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-32902441465934590722019-08-04T13:49:00.001-03:002019-08-04T13:49:46.291-03:00Yet another deadly global externality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqgk1LIo2GZ6aCskh3lwP45gxVO3n99mZS1QX4HH5jobOWK1hvC5qO_9nb4HEM1R_EjFoJCNl3leMaAUTyLWyxst-_rNQmO3B9mihPg5pyz1IeNFJZIWs9o0XLmjdRGXqN3tEsCd1t7A/s1600/p4_Antibiotics_W1712_ts508275807.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="1500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqgk1LIo2GZ6aCskh3lwP45gxVO3n99mZS1QX4HH5jobOWK1hvC5qO_9nb4HEM1R_EjFoJCNl3leMaAUTyLWyxst-_rNQmO3B9mihPg5pyz1IeNFJZIWs9o0XLmjdRGXqN3tEsCd1t7A/s320/p4_Antibiotics_W1712_ts508275807.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Many people are quite rightly worked up these days about what Nicholas Stern called the biggest market failure ever – namely the human decisions that are leading to climate change. Not nearly as many people are worked up about the human decisions that are contributing to another global externality – namely the creation of antibiotic resistant bacteria. I am putting a section about this in the chapter on Externalities in the second edition of the <i>Anti-Textbook</i>.<br />
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There is a very nice article on the subject in today's <i>New York Times</i>. It's a case study of the difficulty of dealing with this problem because, at its root, is the usual suspect: profit maximization combined with the hamstringing of governmental regulation by corporate power, in this case the power of the livestock and poultry industries. Yes, I know, relative to the size of the economy as a whole they are a drop in the bucket, and yet (to mix metaphors) the tail wags the dog.<br />
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/health/pork-antibiotic-resistance-salmonella.html?te=1&nl=morning-briefing&emc=edit_nn_20190804?campaign_id=9&instance_id=11401&segment_id=15864&user_id=83d2f8e791ab7981a87da7142e1798b0&regi_id=6253790620190804" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/health/pork-antibiotic-resistance-salmonella.html?te=1&nl=morning-briefing&emc=edit_nn_20190804?campaign_id=9&instance_id=11401&segment_id=15864&user_id=83d2f8e791ab7981a87da7142e1798b0&regi_id=6253790620190804</a><br />
<br />The <i>Times</i> has produced an excellent video that tells the story in just a few minutes. Have a look:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/health/100000005932983/bacteria-antibiotics-war.html?&module=tv-carousel&action=click&pgType=Multimedia&contentPlacement=7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/video/health/100000005932983/bacteria-antibiotics-war.html?&module=tv-carousel&action=click&pgType=Multimedia&contentPlacement=7</a><br /><br />AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-54704300522226888572019-07-26T11:18:00.000-03:002019-07-26T11:18:16.526-03:00A conversation with Samuel Bowles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFsFmEX5kTSahkgBigRX44yxYXgmsLsRB7xo9Y_qkP9MigAsvZSBkpAgRBNwyXOXZFw8XRX61NPx5mhA5VaKRuIBkub7HHcwhNbVPe3IJb4KLUTPVSQx3Wd60NdDVeMEkadL7RVagXOw/s1600/SamuelBowles1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="567" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFsFmEX5kTSahkgBigRX44yxYXgmsLsRB7xo9Y_qkP9MigAsvZSBkpAgRBNwyXOXZFw8XRX61NPx5mhA5VaKRuIBkub7HHcwhNbVPe3IJb4KLUTPVSQx3Wd60NdDVeMEkadL7RVagXOw/s320/SamuelBowles1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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The University of California Berkeley has a long-standing series of conversations with interesting and important thinkers. Right now, the most recent one is with economist Samuel Bowles, the author most recently of <i>The Moral Economy. </i>If you are interested, here is a link to a review of the book:<br /><a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20171463">https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20171463</a> <i><br /></i>It's a wide-ranging conversation that covers his intellectual development as an economist, particularly his growing disillusionment with it as a graduate student and a young academic in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He makes the case that economics has changed a lot since that time and for the better.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the teaching of introductory economics has not reflected these developments in the discipline. He has an article with Wendy Carlin that will be published in the near future in the <i>Journal of Economic Perspectives</i> entitled "What students learn in Economics 101: Time for a change"; the manuscript for this is available on the web.<br /><br />Bowles has been a key force behind the Curriculum Open-access Resources in Economics (CORE) project that has developed a new textbook that is trying to be a force for change in the right direction.<br /><a href="https://www.core-econ.org/">https://www.core-econ.org/</a><br /><br />Here is the link to the interview. Well worth listening to!<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAkYBfrBk4" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAkYBfrBk4</a><br />
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<br /><br />AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-50164872230034007802019-06-28T17:55:00.001-03:002019-06-28T17:55:41.523-03:00A textbook on the supposed cause of the 2008 recession<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghGF7BDeLEscweftm4GznRLibKstpse68keI3CRMLFXWKYJX8lHgKeykA55QXXEqDA74C5ne-vGPR6pcmUzuKBSnUEnDl53tAK4EsOvV5YYhS-AZHtnUtqbPzt0wYK5_7OvCSIHGVCAQ/s1600/Lehman+Brothers+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="1484" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghGF7BDeLEscweftm4GznRLibKstpse68keI3CRMLFXWKYJX8lHgKeykA55QXXEqDA74C5ne-vGPR6pcmUzuKBSnUEnDl53tAK4EsOvV5YYhS-AZHtnUtqbPzt0wYK5_7OvCSIHGVCAQ/s320/Lehman+Brothers+image.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
While surveying the textbooks to see how much content they devote to behavioural economics, I was surprised by a claim in the new text by William Baumol, Allan Blinder and John Solow – <i>Microeconomics: Principles and Policy</i> (2020). Like most texts, this one has a brief discussion (pages 91-93) of behavioural economics. Its importance for microeconomic behaviour is dismissed, but they do claim that irrational behaviour in stock markets can have a large effect on the overall economy. The example they give is truly bizarre:<br /><br />"… irrational behavior can have an enormous effect on the economy. Returning to our stock market example, when investors rush to sell their stocks simply because they see that others are selling, the result may be an abrupt and prolonged decline in stock market prices. This irrational selling behavior can trigger the process that drives the economy into recession. The Great Recession of 2007–2009 is only one of many historical examples of <i>recessions that have been triggered by stock market investors who irrationally followed the behavior of other investors </i>(i.e., herd behavior)." (P. 93, my emphasis).<br /><br />Apparently the bursting of the housing bubble in the United States and the cascading effect that it had on financial institutions, culminating in the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 was no cause for alarm. AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-30686403283604412742019-06-07T19:50:00.002-03:002019-06-07T19:50:50.993-03:00The textbooks on workplace health and safety<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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While working on the new edition of the <i>Anti-Textbook</i>, I am reviewing the contents of 10 textbooks: nine long-established American ones and a Canadian one, Microeconomics by Chris Ragan, the successor to the classic textbook by Richard Lipsey, which I read as a first year student.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHesox-C1BVog2cb20HMYqSascOGZl3uQHFzQY0ZpOY9aW4AU7CO1qrNqvYkglFJkB6l59QSXH_SDEEWJxOMqphARxzkPzLqEBkILIWBmX8iFvpSE4M_opSDqmUQxzL712hhG07RAdg/s1600/asbestos+mine+Qu%25C3%25A9bec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="400" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHesox-C1BVog2cb20HMYqSascOGZl3uQHFzQY0ZpOY9aW4AU7CO1qrNqvYkglFJkB6l59QSXH_SDEEWJxOMqphARxzkPzLqEBkILIWBmX8iFvpSE4M_opSDqmUQxzL712hhG07RAdg/s320/asbestos+mine+Qu%25C3%25A9bec.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An asbestos mine, Quebec, Canada, now finally closed. Asbestos is killing 107,000 people a year according to the World Health Organization and is responsible for half of occupational–related cancers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While thinking about whether workers are adequately compensated for risks on the job, I recently reviewed what the textbooks had to say about the dangers of the workplace and its regulation. As far as I could tell, by using keyword searches, there was not much said.<br /><br />By far the most extensive discussion was in the text by Robert Frank and co-authors. It explicitly sets out that there is no place for regulation of workplace health and safety in the standard textbook model. Everyone has perfect information about the risks and wages reflect appropriate "compensating differentials". The idea is at least as old as Adam Smith.<br />
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Ignoring the obvious issues, such as employer power and incomplete information, the Frank text tells an idiosyncratic story about how workers will take on too much risk because they are chasing high income jobs (and therefore riskier once) each of them in the hope of increasing his or her relative income. The result is a kind of arms race where no one ends up with higher relative incomes, but people end up bearing too much risk. At least this account does help to drive home the importance to people of relative incomes.<br />
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To my surprise, by far the worst treatment was the Canadian text. As far as I can tell, the entire discussion of workplace safety takes place in the context of the costs of government "intervention".<br />
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To my surprise, by far the worst treatment was the Canadian text. As far as I can tell, the entire discussion of workplace safety takes place in the context of the costs of government "intervention".<br />
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Ragan writes: “Government intervention uses scarce resources.… When government inspectors visited plants to monitor compliance with federally <i>imposed</i> standards of health, industrial safety, or environmental protection, they are <i>imposing </i>costs on the public in the form of their salaries and expenses. ... Regulations dealing with occupational safety and environmental control have all increased the size of non-production payrolls.” (pp.398-399, my emphasis)<br />
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He sums up the cost of "government intervention" in the economy this way:<br />
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“The direct costs of government intervention are fairly easy to identify, as they almost always involve well-documented expenditures. In 2017, the total expenditures by all levels of government in Canada were $864 billion, just over 40 percent of total national income.”<br />
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This is the typical textbook view of government. It is something outside the natural market economy which "intervenes" at a cost "imposed" on the public. No textbook will ever be found saying that "the direct cost of private sector intervention in the economy is 60 percent of national income", although that would make about as much sense as what he has written.<br />
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<br />AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-1940252170635179242017-12-23T15:11:00.000-04:002017-12-23T15:11:32.209-04:00<h2>
A Brief Review of James Kwak's <i>Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality </i>(Pantheon: 2017)</h2>
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What is 'economism'? James Kwak describes it as "the belief that a few isolated Economics 101 lessons accurately describe the real world". What he has in mind are the pernicious effects of the perfectly competitive model, illustrated by the supply and demand curves familiar to every introductory economics student.</div>
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He writes, "This elegant reduction of complex social phenomena to supply and demand curves can have a real impact on impressionable students, who sometimes believe that they are seeing the world clearly for the first time." (I remember it had such an effect on me.)</div>
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The simple model that is at the heart of the textbooks portrays an economy in which resources are allocated efficiently. Firms produce products at the lowest possible cost; consumers maximize utility. There are no free lunches: no one can be made better off without making at least one other person worse off. All well-meaning attempts to improve the outcome with taxes or regulations produce 'deadweight losses' and inefficiencies.</div>
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Any proper introductory text contains lots of material which, if read carefully, contradicts this simplistic story. But, as we argue in our <i>Anti-Textbook</i>, it is still all too easy to come away from an introductory course a believer in economism (although we didn't use that word).</div>
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Most of the population is untainted by exposure to introductory microeconomics courses, but the arguments of economism are everywhere. They are "generated by politically motivated think tanks, amplified by the media, repeated by lobbyists, and adopted by politicians".</div>
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The primary targets of this propaganda are likely the relatively well-off and politically active part of the population. In the case of the United States, the central policy prescriptions of economism do not seem to be accepted by the majority of the population. For example, Page<i> et al</i>. (2013) show that there are systematic differences in opinions about public policy between those in top income groups and the general population. In turn, actual policy reflects the preferences of those with high incomes, not the preferences of the general population (Gilens and Page, 2014). So there can be overwhelming popular support for a living minimum wage and a solid majority for publicly provided universal healthcare, for example, but such policies are not enacted.<br />
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After describing the simple supply and demand model on which economism depends, Kwak shows how it was seized upon by interest groups – namely many wealthy individuals and the business community – in their project to roll back the size and reach of government. Economism provides pseudoscientific arguments for 'free markets', and against redistributive taxation and the regulation of business.<br />
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This right-wing project had important academic collaborators who helped to spread the gospel to the general public. Kwak singles out the Austrians, von Mieses and Hayek, and Milton Friedman and some of his University of Chicago colleagues. He should have included James Buchanan, the subject of Nancy Maclean's brilliant new book <i>Democracy in Chains</i> (2017), but (in his defence) he is not attempting a full intellectual history of the spread of economism.<br />
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Wealthy industrialists established and funded right-wing 'think tanks', many of which adopted the rhetoric of economism. Universities are complicit in allowing themselves to be used as bases for 'research institutes' that churn out free market 'studies' . Law schools were a particular target for penetration. Meanwhile, the general public has been propagandized by people and organizations Kwak labels 'promoters', whose views are found in magazines, the opinion pages of newspapers, and in the school system.<br />
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Most of the book is devoted to showing the defects of economism's simplistic application to complex public policy questions. Separate chapters deal with aspects of taxation, health care, labour market policy, financial market regulation, and international trade policy.<br />
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In short, a great book, unmasking an important aspect of the systematic propaganda that pollutes public discourse in many countries.<br />
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<u>References</u><br />
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Gilens, Martin and Benjamin I. Page (2014) "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens", <i>Perspectives on Politics</i>, 12 (3 ) September, 564-581.<br />
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MacLean, Nancy (2017) <i>Democracy In Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America</i>. New York: Viking.<br />
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Page, Benjamin I., Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright (2013) "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans", <i>Perspectives on Politics</i>, 11 (1) March, 51-73.</div>
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AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-17418403173657558412017-12-22T13:25:00.001-04:002017-12-22T13:25:42.330-04:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #9e5205; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 20.8px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
UPDATE: The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide</h3>
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The authors, Tony Myatt (University of New Brunswick) and Brian MacLean (Laurentian University), have committed to deliver the manuscript to Zed Books by the end of next year. I hope that that book and the second edition of what will now be called <i>The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook </i>will appear at the same time in early 2019.</div>
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RH</div>
AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-72922166466831374022017-12-22T13:16:00.001-04:002017-12-22T13:16:34.778-04:00<h2>
Update on the Second Edition of The Economics Anti-Textbook</h2>
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I have promised Zed Books that I will deliver the revised version by the end of 2018. This is three years later than originally planned, but this is a self-imposed deadline that I will now be able to meet.</div>
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Feedback and suggestions from readers and from those who have used the book in the classroom are most welcome!</div>
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Rod Hill</div>
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AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-7908600467781791562017-12-22T12:53:00.003-04:002017-12-22T12:53:49.248-04:00<h2>
A Turkish edition of The Economics Anti-Textbook</h2>
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We were pleased to learn earlier this year of the publication of a Turkish translation of <i>The Economics Anti-Textbook</i> by (the appropriately named) Heretik Press, Ankara.<br />
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RHAntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-11315567811545740552016-10-05T13:43:00.000-03:002016-10-05T13:43:16.414-03:00<h2>
<u>The textbook commentary project</u></h2>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">For a couple of years now the World Economics Association has had a <a href="https://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/textbook-commentaries/" target="_blank">Textbook Commentary Project</a> led by Stuart Birks of Massey University in New Zealand. Directed at students, it offers brief chapter by chapter commentaries on the seventh edition of Mankiw's <i>Principles of </i></span><i style="font-weight: normal;">Economics</i><span style="font-weight: normal;">. While this is an American edition, the commentaries will be useful for users of that text that have been adapted for other markets (such as the Canadian one) as well as for students using other standard introductory texts.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">I hope to begin contributing to this in the near future with commentaries based on themes raised in our <i>Anti-Textbook</i>.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">RH</span></h2>
AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-4468720784181949582016-06-21T15:41:00.000-03:002016-06-21T15:41:22.926-03:00Dealing with dissent in the classroomRecently, an undergraduate student wrote to me with some advice about what to put in the new edition <i>of The Economics Anti-Textbook. </i>He wrote:<br />
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<i>"One piece of advice I can offer for the next edition, though, is that you be <b>explicit</b> in noting that if the student asks all, or even some large nonzero amount, of the suggested questions in your book during class, the prof is likely to get quite cross at them. :-)<br /></i></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><i>"Seriously. There was this young kid in intro micro, he obviously read Graeber's "Debt" if not your book, and he brought up the myth of barter. Wow, the contingent sessional lecturer shot him down rather fast. I don't think he felt encouraged to continue in the field."</i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">He has a point. I have to admit that we put the "Questions for Your Professor" in the book without thinking about the consequences for students who might dare to ask such impertinent questions.</span><br />
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Here is another account, this one from a graduate student at a North American university, which describes what happened when she showed her tutorial students how to think critically about the material they were learning in introductory microeconomics.<br />
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<i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">As
a new teaching assistant during the first semester of my Master’s degree, I was
excited to learn that I would be running tutorials for an Introduction to
Microeconomics course. These tutorials were meant to provide a space to review
lecture material, complete practice questions, and, of course, allow students
to ask questions. While I wanted to ensure that I covered all of the material
necessary for my students to do well in the course, I also thought the
tutorials were an excellent opportunity to employ a critical lens and examine
some of the course material. I encouraged my students to question some of the
basic assumptions underlying simplistic supply and demand models, and to
consider why we use assumptions at all and how they are limiting. We had wonderfully
insightful discussions about political power – and why it wasn’t discussed in
the course or the textbook. We considered how things like friendship,
community, and kindness fit into the (admittedly basic) theories they were
learning. These discussions were always fruitful and exciting, and oftentimes
students lingered beyond the tutorial time to continue these investigations.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">The
semester finished, and my students generally did well. In fact, my students did
slightly better on average than the students in the other tutorial groups from
the same class (there were 11 tutorial groups for this class in total, taught
by 5 teaching assistants). I had enjoyed my experience, and was hoping to be
assigned to the same class for the second part of the course, Introduction to
Macroeconomics, so as to continue working with my students. However, at the end
of December, I received an email from the administrator who was in charge of
the TA assignments: I was being moved to another department entirely! It was
felt that my ‘radical teaching methods’ were not a good fit for the economics
department and would be ‘better suited’ to another discipline. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">While
I was never told how it was discovered or determined that my methods were too
radical, I had been told by some of my students that when they tried to raise
questions in class, they were often shot down if the questions were ‘beyond the
scope of economics.’ I recall one instance where I was actually sitting in on a
lecture, and a student of mine asked about the ‘antagonistic’ relationship
between equity and efficiency. In particular, he wanted to know why, in the
textbook and class, equity and efficiency were always seen in a negative
relation, where more equity meant less efficiency. Wasn’t it possible that
improving equity may also improve efficiency? Unfortunately, no answer was
provided, and no discussion was encouraged. The professor quickly said this was
not something to be debated in the course and moved on. I can only assume,
then, that my unorthodox teaching became apparent through my students’ willingness
to think critically about the material. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">That
January, I began my work as a TA in a discipline that I had no background in
whatsoever. On the one hand, I was partly shocked – because while I did
encourage the students to think critically, I really did not consider my
teaching to be ‘radical’ – while on the other, it really wasn’t surprising to me
at all: far too often, and especially at the undergraduate level, economics is
taught without consideration for what is omitted and unsupported. Space to move
beyond this, unfortunately, remains difficult to carve out, and it seems that
it was preferable to have me assist in teaching a discipline I knew little
about than to have me encourage undergraduate economics students to engage
critically and thoughtfully with their course material. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Perhaps these attempts to stifle dissent in an ideological subject like economics should not be surprising. Still, it remains disappointing.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">This post is not meant to discourage students, whether undergraduate or graduate, from challenging the content of their courses. One of the primary objectives of <i>The Economics Anti-Textbook </i>is to provide students with enough information and evidence to give them the confidence that such challenges are legitimate. Push back by students will be an important component in eventually changing the nature of economics instruction and the contents of the textbooks.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">PS. The equity-efficiency trade-off is discussed in <i>The Economics Anti-Textbook</i> in chapter 9, pages 202-203 (the textbook view) and pages 208-213 (the anti-textbook critique).</span></div>
AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-86803786689194816152014-12-29T19:14:00.002-04:002015-12-31T17:38:30.716-04:00A new edition of The Economics Anti-Textbook?I have added an update on December 31, 2015 at the end of to this earlier post.<br />
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The earlier post read...<br />
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One of the things I look forward to in 2015 is revising <i>The Economics Anti-Textbook</i>. We have submitted a proposal for the revision to Zed Books. If all goes well, a new edition should be ready about a year from now.<br />
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In the meantime, Tony Myatt and Brian MacLean are working on the first draft of <i>The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook</i>. We're hoping that both books can be launched at the same time. Stay tuned.<br />
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RH<br />
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Update: due to a serious spinal cord injury earlier this year, I will be unable to begin work on the new edition until the summer of 2016. I hope that the revised edition can appear in early 2017.AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-84021579428819588622013-09-28T20:12:00.004-03:002013-10-01T15:26:38.898-03:00The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's GuideYes, it's official! Brian MacLean (of Laurentian University) and Tony Myatt (University of New Brunswick) have signed a contract with Zed Books for <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide</i>. The manuscript for the book should be finished next summer. It seems very likely that Tony and I will also be revising and updating <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Economics Anti-Textbook</i>, which will appear in a new edition.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgit-bFWiUXqA-jif8aURE9RZ8jEv9eOEFmPNeiTKzTxEVdvc04iSD8BLDJNP1SRRpO9LC8TGSCBu1O3GnUxoyNCmSOERbjTnBiDheXph7d95BAnejdqAXAisNxiKTFTNQ7ZGoKvB8c5A/s1600/Lucas+puzzled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgit-bFWiUXqA-jif8aURE9RZ8jEv9eOEFmPNeiTKzTxEVdvc04iSD8BLDJNP1SRRpO9LC8TGSCBu1O3GnUxoyNCmSOERbjTnBiDheXph7d95BAnejdqAXAisNxiKTFTNQ7ZGoKvB8c5A/s320/Lucas+puzzled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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When he heard the news, Robert Lucas scratched his head and muttered:</div>
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<i>"The Macroeconomics Anti-Textbook?! What would <u>that</u> be about?!"</i></div>
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RH</div>
AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-71422192855304152242013-07-23T20:48:00.001-03:002013-07-23T20:48:08.230-03:00A new review of The Economics Anti-TextbookA nice <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-manning-cleveland/the-economics-antitextboo_b_3632119.html" target="_blank">review</a> of <i>The Economics Anti-Textbook</i> by economist <a href="http://www.mcleveland.org/" target="_blank">Mary Manning Cleveland</a> in <i>The Huffington Post</i>, and reprinted widely on the web, it seems. Her <a href="http://www.mcleveland.org/blog/" target="_blank">blog</a> is well worth a look.<br />
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I confess that I'm disappointed, but not too surprised, that no economics journal has reviewed the <i>Anti-Textbook.</i> Self-reflection is not our strong suit, it seems.<br />
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I find it a bit strange that most academic economists spend so much time on the teaching side of things, but so little time reflecting on it and discussing what we are doing with each other. Yes, quite a lot of time is spent collectively reviewing and 'fact-checking' the content of the textbooks, but (from my experience) almost all of that is done within the parameters that define what the conventional mainstream book will consist of. As well, the discussion that takes place is largely between the editors of large textbook companies and individual academics, not between academics themselves. It's not unusual or surprising to see large general conferences of academic economists without a single session devoted to what we are doing in the classroom or to the content of the texts the companies are producing.<br />
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RH<br />
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<br />AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2556307309509108391.post-27373510975053936182012-12-11T15:36:00.001-04:002012-12-11T15:36:14.386-04:00"The story of stuff" -- a great resource for economics teachers and studentsWhile reading George Monbiot's <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/" target="_blank">column</a> (published in today's <i>Guardian</i>), I followed his footnote to this great site that I hadn't seen before: <a href="http://www.storyofstuff.org/" target="_blank">The Story of Stuff Project</a>. I watched their first 20 minute video of the same name -- thought provoking stuff! Perfect to show to my introductory economic class next term just after they've read the chapter on 'resource maintenance' and are doing the one on consumption and consumerism (in <i>Microeconomics in Context</i>, by Goodwin, Nelson, Ackerman, & Weisskopf).<br />
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There's a series of other videos, all with <a href="http://www.storyofstuff.org/downloads/annotated-scripts/" target="_blank">annotated transcripts</a> freely available, where sources and more background information is given. A great resource!<br />
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RH<br />
AntiTexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17975559825072265469noreply@blogger.com0