Tag economy

Why Be an Economist?

Niall Kishtainy— If you study economics at university, you mainly learn about those basic economic principles. They’re powerful and useful but you should use them with care. Some people think they’re not really ‘science’ at all. They say that underneath economists’ equations is a conservative political ideal that says that

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The Struggle to Define Strong Sustainability

Dieter Helm— The trouble with strong sustainability is that it contains very little by way of guidance as to what we should do, except ‘preserve everything’. It is in essence the claim that natural capital should be regarded as non-substitutable, and hence, following Eric Neumayer, strong sustainability can be called

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The Tussles over Thrift

This past Sunday “The Way We Live Now,” a regular feature in the New York Times Magazine, covered the effects of the increase in Americans’ inclination towards thrift in these recent years: specifically the cycle of deleveraging, which is a contraction of credit as individuals begin to spend and borrow

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Innovation and Accolades

Do the most innovative economic solutions come from the private sector or from the state? In the midst of an economic slowdown and an election year, the question is unavoidable. Concerned readers might find insights in Dan Breznitz’s Innovation and the State, which was announced the winner of the 2008

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