Economic Thinking Research Articles

Whitlam's Economic (Inter)Nationalism

By his own admission, Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was not much of an economist, a disclosure that has fuelled criticisms of his government's performance during the economic crises of the 1970s. By contrast, Whitlam was a self‐declared internationalist who promoted the domestic and global possibilities of the international system. Of course, twentieth‐century economics and internationalism were mutual rather than dichotomous. Accordingly, Whitlam's internationalism provides a vantage point to re‐evaluate his economics. This article focusses on how one strand of Whitlam's internationalism — his Third World sympathies and alignments — informed his government's resource policy, as designed by Minister for Minerals and Energy, Rex Connor. Rather than seeking to redeem Whitlam's economic credentials via this internationalism, however, I argue Whitlam's appeal to Third Worldism sought to infuse an anti‐economics — or, more precisely, a critique of mainstream economic thinking — into Australian resources policy. The legacies of this critique have been enduring. Whitlam and Connor's attempts to establish export controls, foreign investment regulations, and state‐owned enterprise galvanised a fierce backlash from miners and libertarian economists. This backlash has helped shape the neoliberal framing of Australian mining and energy policy over the past 40 years. At the same time, with climate change and energy transitions again illuminating the politics of natural resources, Whitlam's Third World critique remains salient.

Shifting boundaries, dismantling brick walls: Feminist knowledge in the struggles to transform economic thinking and policy

Shifting boundaries, dismantling brick walls: Feminist knowledge in the struggles to transform economic thinking and policy

Economic geography of talent migration and agglomeration in China: A dual-driver framework

The long-standing debate on the role of economic factors and amenities on talent migration and redistribution foreshadows the importance of spatial economic theoretical thinking in resolving the effects of duality, a point yet to be conclusively addressed in the existing literature. Situated within the framework of new economic geography (NEG), this article introduces an innovative theoretical model – the Dual-Driver (DD) framework– aiming at comprehending the nuanced dual impact of economic and amenity factors on talent movements between regions. While the DD framework retains the mechanisms of increasing returns to scale, iceberg transportation cost, and talent agglomeration presented in the NEG models, it depicts, for the first time, the self-reinforcing mechanisms between non-traded goods (i.e., amenities) and talent agglomeration. The model describes a logic of talent movements influenced by the dual drivers of regional economic factors (nominal wage, the diversity of local manufacturing products) and amenities (the diversity and quality of amenities, transfer payment for talent), among which the economic effects play a predominant role versus the amenity effects. Empirical evidence has been given by the geographical analysis of China's internal talent migration between 2000 and 2015 and the corresponding econometric analysis using the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimation. Our findings furnish a theoretical perspective for comprehending talent geography and offer policy insights into China's logic of talent migration.

Plowing New Fields of Scholarship in Social Studies: Planting New Seeds With Civic, Economic, and Geographic Thinking

This manuscript is the introductory article for the special issue of the Journal of Social Studies Research titled Teaching Disciplinary Thinking, Literacy, and Argumentation Skills. In it, the authors provide an historical overview of disciplinary thinking as outlined by Edwin Fenton and Sam Wineburg. They talk about how the C3 Framework is a melding of a focus on disciplinary thinking outlined by Fenton and Wineburg with the emphasis on preparing K-12 students for their future roles as democratic citizens as stressed by scholars like Shirley Engle. Then, the focus of the manuscript shifts to highlight the underdeveloped areas of disciplinary thinking in civics, geography, and economics. The authors define economic, civic, and geographic thinking and provide habits of mind for each of these disciplines along with classroom activities for each. They close with arguments for why K-12 social studies teachers and social studies education scholars should focus on developing K-12 students’ civic, economic, and geographic thinking skills.

Book review: Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson, Campus Economics: How Economic Thinking Can Help Improve College and University Decisions

Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson, Campus Economics: How Economic Thinking Can Help Improve College and University Decisions. Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 2023, pp. 143 + index. ISBN: 9780691229928. Price: $35.00/£30.00 (hardcover); $24.50/£21.00 (ebook).

Https://armgpublishing.com/journals/sec/volume-8-issue-1/article-5/

In the 21st century, various socio-economic crises have revealed that traditional economic science and (neo)classical thinking are unable to explain all the complexity of current economic problems, therefore the application of more complex and non-trivial economic concepts is gaining relevance. In addition to behavioral and evolutionary economic thinking, models of quantum economics have been developed in recent years, which allow solving economic problems, using mainly quantum thinking and the principles of quantum physics, in particular particle-wave dualism, the principle of uncertainty, the absence of a subject-object distinction, superposition and confusion. The article addresses 3 research questions (RQ). According to RQ1, the paper finds that quantum economics research is dominated by the following topics: quantum economics, quantum finance, quantum decision making, and quantum game theory. According to these four thematic descriptors, the article carries out a systematic modern review of scientific works in the period from 1978 to 2022 (if only 50 works were published in 1978-1999, then in 2000-2022 already 3430), with an emphasis on the most cited (Google Scholar) English-language journal articles. The analysis showed that articles on this topic are published mainly in journals of a non-economic profile, that the peaks of publication activity occur at times of powerful socio-economic upheavals (for example, the dot.com bubble, the substandard/financial crisis, the European debt crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, etc.). In accordance with RQ2, the article defines the key characteristics of the quantum economic model: in contrast to neoclassical economics (based on mechanistic classical physics, is rational and deterministic, with the help of the invisible hand of the market it leads to a stable equilibrium), the quantum approach, on the contrary, considers the economy as more complex, empirically oriented, uncertain, probabilistic, superpositional, as an archetypal example of a quantum social system that has its own versions of duality, measurement, and entanglement. According to RQ 3, the article determines to what extent quantum economics can update (neo)classical economics (integration of new ontological premises into economic thinking, more experimental and practical approach, connection between the concept of entanglement and sustainable development, management of financial risks based on the concept of quantum probability, rethinking the concept of randomness by quantum probability, introduction of quantum money, equilibrium using quantum games, etc.).

Financial Wealth, Value and Moral Corruption in Seneca's Economic Thinking

This article scrutinises Seneca’s moral engagement with complex financial accounting as a speculative form of wealth and moneymaking that challenged social norms and subverted systems of value. The contribution discusses Seneca’s construction of a form of greed and corruption that is often anticipated by psychological biases, such as loss aversion and self-deception. This degenerating process is exemplified by the misuse of financial ledgers, and specifically of the kalendarium, an account book associated with moneylending that Seneca describes as a suspect instrument of avarice that provoked the ruin of fortunes.

Pedagogical potential of competence tasks as a means of developing critical thinking of future economists

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to present the means of training future economists for analytical professional activity, which contributes to the development of critical thinking of specialists in economic specialties. Results. The article is devoted to one of the urgent problems of training future bachelors in economics: developing critical thinking in the professional training of economists. We prove that competency-based tasks of economic content are an essential means of developing the critical thinking of future economics specialists. The main competence tasks with economic content include problems with labor productivity, cost, elasticity, rent, interest, compound interest, profitability, market equilibrium, profit, income taxes, credit, optimal decision-making, etc. The competence tasks bind economic concepts with their quantitative and qualitative characteristics and connections. These tasks reflect real economic situations, and solving them contributes to the familiarisation of students with economic concepts and cause-and-effect relationships between them (at the level of representation, assimilation, or consolidation), mathematical models in the economy, development of skills to build and research mathematical models of economic situations, apply mathematical methods and regularities in specific production processes. Scientific novelty. The theory and practice of training economists, which uses competence tasks of economic content as a leading means of developing their critical thinking, has gained further development. The results of the survey of teachers and students confirmed the feasibility of the proposed approach to the use of competence tasks with economic content for the development of critical thinking of future economists. Practical value. Solving competence tasks contributes to developing students’ critical thinking, as it illustrates the process of applying knowledge, skills, and abilities to solving any problems that arise in practice (formalisation, solving a problem within a built model, interpretation). It is advisable to offer such tasks in studying specialised economic disciplines and the first courses in studying “Higher Mathematics”.

METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF FUTURE ECONOMISTS' CRITICAL THINKING IN THE PROCESS OF THEIR PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

The digitalization of Ukrainian society creates a demand for specialists in economic specialties who work effectively to develop the country's digital economy. That actualizes the modernization of their professional training and the need to create various professional qualities, particularly critical thinking. The need to develop critical thinking in training future economists requires the development of a scientific basis on which such development will take place. In other words, a methodological basis for developing future economists' critical thinking in their professional training needs to be developed. The article aims to identify and substantiate a methodological basis for the development of critical thinking of future economists using information technologies. To achieve this goal, we used several methods: theoretical analysis, systematization, and generalization of scientific results on the problems of training future economists, the use of information technology in the training of future economists, and the development of critical thinking of young people. We used the materials of Google Academy for the following queries: "critical thinking," "development of critical thinking," "training of economists," "use of information technologies," "methodological principles," "methodological approaches," "information technologies in the training of economists," "training of students of economic specialties." The result of the study is the substantiation of the importance of methodological approaches (systemic, axiological, synergistic, personality-oriented, cognitive-visual, contextual) for developing critical thinking of future economists through information technologies.

It’s (not only) the economy, stupid: examining the European Central Bank’s marginal attention to the human and social implications of austerity during the euro-area crisis through the lens of organizational culture

ABSTRACT Since the global financial crisis central banks expanded their roles and responsibilities and their impact on the economy and society grew significantly. Thus, during the euro-area crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) engaged in decisions with profound human and societal implications while turning a blind eye towards them. The Bank’s dismissive approach is remarkable given EU institutions duty to respect fundamental rights, and EU’s identity as a human rights protector. Building on literature and interviews with ECB officials, this work suggests that organizational cultural features, i.e. mainstream economic thinking and narrow mandate interpretation steered the Bank towards overlooking the impact of its policies on EU citizens’ rights. While much has been written about central banks and organizational culture, the two spheres have rarely been connected in research. This research addresses the intersection between the two and calls for broader perspective to consider a wider range of factors influencing economic policies.

Understanding Creative Entrepreneurs’ Work Practices: The Varying Conversation between Artistic and Economic Rationales

Research on creative organizations often questions how artistic practices can be squared within the rational decision-making of economic thinking. This paper examines how the relational language, or conversation, between artistic and economic rationales unfolds for creative entrepreneurs. Through ethnographic work with a designer-entrepreneur, this paper presents a fine-grained analysis of the conversation the designer cultivates between artistic and economic rationales through work practices. We contribute to the literature about artistic and economic rationales at work, and more specifically to the concept of conversation. First, we show that high levels of conversing make way for low levels of conversing and vice versa. In the studio, the designer’s engagement with either rationale varies as the creative process progresses. Second, on a more global dynamic, we demonstrate the conversation is continuous. It relies on its variations, which ensure the balance between rationales in the long run. We also contribute to the field of creative entrepreneurship research. We identify here one type of creative entrepreneur, with what we call a ‘small is beautiful’ attitude. Far from the mythical figure of the entrepreneur, this unconventional entrepreneur aims for sustainable use of creative resources rather than growth at all costs.

Idea(s) of Dutch Neutrality in the American Debate on Neutral Rights (1793–1807)

ABSTRACT Since the latter part of the seventeenth century trade and war had become increasingly entangled due to the bellicose commercial rivalry of European colonial powers, who emulated one another in a system dominated by ‘jealousies of trade'. European economic thinkers therefore felt increasingly compelled to search for means to uncouple trade and war. Propositions for potential solutions to cure these commercial conflicts are to be found throughout the eighteenth century. The strengthening of neutral rights, especially, was regarded as offering a possible remedy. Leading up to the War of American Independence, a debate began in the Dutch Republic on how neutrality could be advantageously defined to promote commerce without becoming involved in wars of ‘entangling alliances'. The actors in this debate would produce arguments that were later adopted by members of George Washington’s cabinet. Alexander Hamilton was the advocate of ‘strict' neutrality, while Thomas Jefferson was in favour of ‘active’ neutrality. These two concepts of Dutch foreign policy are examined in this research article with special attention given to their influence on the direction of American foreign policy from 1793 to 1807.

Relevansi Pemikiran Ekonomi Islam Al-Maqrizi di Indonesia

Economic problems always attract people's attention in various fields of life, because economic stability is the basis of people's material well-being. While the monetary phenomenon that causes inflation is a continuous process of currency depreciation. The focus of this research is on the relevance of Al-Maqrizi's Islamic economic thinking in Indonesia, as well as the role of the government in overcoming inflation in Indonesia. The purpose of this research is to find a solution to the problem and control inflation so that it is not high in Indonesia, and to see how the government's policy is in overcoming Indonesian inflation from the perspective of Al-Maqrizi. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. The results of this study are Al-Maqrizi's thoughts which are still relevant to the economy in Indonesia, namely regarding the problems of money and inflation. Al-Maqrizi to overcome the problem of inflation with the establishment of the Baitul Maal. Meanwhile, what the Indonesian government has done in dealing with inflation is combining central bank policies with finance department policies such as a tight money policy by the central bank.

Who is responsible for fixing the food system? A framing analysis of media reactions to the UK's National Food Strategy

PurposeHigh levels of child obesity alongside rising stunting and the absence of a coherent food policy have deemed UK’s food system to be broken. The National Food Strategy (NFS) was debated intensely in media, with discussions on how and who should fix the food system.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mixed methods approach, the authors conduct framing analysis on traditional media and sentiment analysis of twitter reactions to the NFS to identify frames used to shape food system policy interventions.FindingsThe study finds evidence that the media coverage of the NFS often utilised the tropes of “culture wars” shaping the debate of who is responsible to fix the food system – the government, the public or the industry. NFS recommendations were portrayed as issues of free choice to shift the debate away from government action correcting for market failure. In contrast, the industry was showcased as equipped to intervene on its own accord. Dietary recommendations made by the NFS were depicted as hurting the poor, painting a picture of helplessness and loss of control, while their voices were omitted and not represented in traditional media.Social implicationsBritish media’s alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system. Media firms should move beyond tropes of culture wars to discuss interventions that reform the structural causes of the UK’s broken food systems.Originality/valueAs traditional media coverage struggles to capture the diversity of public perception; the authors supplement framing analysis with sentiment analysis of Twitter data. To the best of our knowledge, no such media (and social media) analysis of the NFS has been conducted. The paper is also original as it extends our understanding of how media alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system.

Prinsip Keadilan dan Kebebasan dalam Pemikiran Ekonomi M. Umer Chapra

This research was motivated by researchers' interest in the figure of Umer Chapra as one of the leading figures in Islamic economics and finance. One of Chapra's deep and critical ideas is about usury or bank interest which he put into a small book entitled "Prohibition of Interest: Does it make sense?". This work was quite "impressive" for Chapra because it was written at the request of many people who wanted to see Chapra's critical review regarding bank interest. This research aims to examine various main ideas that dominantly exist in Chapra's economic thinking in the book "The Prohibition of Interest". This research is a study with a qualitative paradigm and is also included in library research. The primary source for this research was obtained from Chapra's original work, while the secondary source came from the works of other people who studied Chapra's thinking, both from research, book reviews and other articles. There are various interesting views discussed by Chapra on economic problems. However, overall, it is revealed that Chapra's thinking in an economic context basically carries the principles of justice and freedom, as part of the principles of Islamic economics.

SMOKE ON THE WATER: HES AT 50 AND THE NON-NEUTRALITY OF HISTORY

Recently, I participated in the thesis defense on an eminently local subject, political economic writing in the eighteenth century in the cantons of Vaud (where I live and teach) and Berne (which at the time had occupied the Canton of Vaud) in Switzerland. I will spare you the details of this 700-pages-thick thesis, with an appendix of another 200 pages, which was not even about political economic writing in all of the Swiss Federation, but only in these two small regions in one of the most beautiful spots of Europe. But I became mesmerized by the profoundness of the political economic thinking of a group of now largely forgotten administrators and members of the Swiss socio-economic elite that grappled with questions of how to position their economic doings against a Europe that was plagued by the early eighteenth-century War of Succession, questions about the economic consequences not of population growth but of population decline, and the consequences of what David Hume has characterized so well as the “Jealousy of Trade” between the emerging European colonial empires. More in particular, these local men of politics and power were concerned with if and how they could preserve the agricultural system of common pastures—that were to figure prominently in Elinor Ostrom’s early studies of the “commons”—or whether they should copy the English model of enclosures that seemed to promise agricultural innovation and economic growth. How would this pan out for the means of existence of the local population? And, of course, what would this mean for their own economic and political interests and standing? All these concerns brought them in conversation with the work of such writers as François Forbonnais, Richard Cantillon, the Physiocrats, and Scottish philosophers such as Hume, James Steuart, and Adam Smith, with some of whom they were also in correspondence. The measures the local elites implemented on the basis of these discussions were consequential for such important issues as land use, manufacture and commerce, and poor relief. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the thesis was supervised by one of Istvan Hont’s students, Béla Kapossy, a professor in the history department of the University of Lausanne.

Theoretical approaches to the impact of culture on the economy through the prism of the European course of the countries’ development

This paper tries to synthesize the history of economic thinking regarding the correlation between culture and the economic development during the last centuries. The use of culture to explain the economic performance has not been popular among social science researchers in recent decades. Most economic models are based on the idea that people are essentially rational beings and make decisions in their own interest. What people choose to do depends on their beliefs. But culture can give rise to a set of rational beliefs. In economic history, some economists have questioned the classic concept of the „rational economic man” mentioning the increasing role of non-economic behavior in modern economies. These two positions can be reconciled if we reduce the social norms that govern entire societies based on the actions of individuals who look out for their own interests. Regardless of which models of economic thinking a historical retrospective is based on, an important conclusion is that throughout history, social and cultural factors have been among the important catalysts of the economic life. In the paper, it is argued that some factors such as European culture and European political traditions, etc., have an essential contribution to the economic success of those countries that follow them.

Plato, Aristotle, and Locke on the accumulation of wealth and natural law

The possibility of a growing accumulation of wealth, what we now refer to as economic growth, was something already considered by Plato, Aristotle and Locke, under the concept of chrematistics. In this paper we show how the economic thinking of these authors cannot be fully understood without considering the intimate relationship they establish between politics and property accumulation. In addition to continuities and ruptures in the arguments, there can be seen a growing understanding of the phenomenon of economic growth in such a way that, when we arrive at Locke, an evident paradigm shift can be appreciated. This change is rooted in the contributions of scholastic thinking for which the acquisition of property through human labour or industry enjoys legitimacy according to natural law.

The Effective Use of Economics in the EU Digital Markets Act

Abstract Economic thinking and analysis lie at the heart of the objectives and the design of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA). However, the design of the DMA reflects a very deliberate—and reasonable—intention to ensure clarity, speed, administrability, and enforceability. In doing so, this pro-competitive regulation omits several elements of standard competition law where economics has typically played a key role. Nonetheless, we believe that economic insights and analysis—including behavioural economic thinking—will continue to play an important role in enabling the DMA to achieve its ambitious and laudable goals, albeit in a somewhat different way.

Economic knowledge of a group of adults from the Ashaninka and Shipibo-Konibo indigenous peoples

This psychological study explores the level of economic thought among 16 adults from the Shipibo-Konibo and Asháninka Amazonian indigenous groups, in Peru. A constructivist-informed qualitative interview based on the Psychogenesis Model of Economic Thought (Denegri, 1995) was used in this study. Following the Piagetian cognitive stages, this interview proposes a three-level model for the psychogenesis of economic thought to account for the process of construction of explanations of the economic world. The results show the participants' particular modes of using formal logic tools to formulate a systematic understanding of economic processes, which possibly compromise their ability to make adaptive economic decisions and may encourage irrational economic behaviors such as thoughtless consumption and over-indebtedness. None of the participants displayed Level III inferential economic thinking, which requires the use of formal logic to understand economic processes in a systematic way. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development and fulfillment of indigenous people’s rights, especially the right to achieve human development that responds to their own complex cultural characteristics.