Categories
Dependency theory Development Finance Economic Development Heterodox Economics Imperialism Publications

International financial subordination: a critical research agenda (new article)

I have a new article in the Review of International Political Economy with the fabulous co-author team of Ilias Alami, Carolina Alves, Bruno Bonizzi, Annina Kaltenbrunner, Kai Koddenbrock and Jeff Powell. The article (open access) outlines a research agenda for understanding international financial subordination by drawing on the heterodox traditions of dependency theory, Marxism, and Post-Keynesianism.

Categories
Blog Decolonizing Economics Dependency theory Economic Development Heterodox Economics Imperialism Marx

Beyond Eurocentrism (essay)

I recently wrote an essay about Samir Amin for the popular magainze, Aeon. In it, I go through what I think are major lessons from Samir Amin that can help us understand imperialism, Eurocentrism, uneven development, and ideology better. I contrast his structural and materialist analysis of capitalism and imperialism with the culturalist views of Edward Said, as Said has received much more attention in both academia and in the public sphere. Read the essay here.

Read a Spanish translation of the article here (Letras Libres).

Categories
Critique of Mainstream Economics Decolonizing Economics Heterodox Economics Publications

Standing in the Way of Rigor? Economics’ Meeting with the Decolonizing Agenda (working paper)

I have a new paper out with Surbhi Kesar in the New School Department of Economics’ Working Paper series: Standing in the Way of Rigor? Economics’ Meeting with the Decolonizing Agenda.

The abstract:

This paper critically engages with various aspects of the decolonization movement in economics and its implications for the discipline. We operationalize the insights from this engagement using a survey of 498 economists that explores how faculty across different kinds of departments, disciplines, geographies, and identities perceive the problems of economics teaching, how they think economics pedagogy should be reformed, if at all, and how they relate to decolonial critiques of economics pedagogy. Based on the survey findings, we conclude that the mainstream of the field’s emphasis on technical training and rigor, within a narrow theoretical and methodological framework, likely stands in the way of the very possibility for decolonizing economics, given its strong contrast to key ideas associated with the decolonization agenda, such as positionality, centering power relations, exposing underlying politics of defining theoretical categories, and unpacking the politics of knowledge production. Nonetheless, the survey responses clearly chart out the challenges that the field faces in terms of decolonizing pedagogy, which is a first step towards debate and change.

Categories
Africa Dependency theory Economic Development Heterodox Economics Imperialism Marx Publications

Samir Amin and Beyond: Radical Political Economy, Dependence and Delinking Today (Special Issue)

Along with Maria Dyveke Styve and Ushehwedu Kufakurinani, I edited a special issue in Review of African Political Economy on Samir Amin’s work and its relevance for contemporary problems.

You can read our introductory editorial here: Samir Amin and beyond: the enduring relevance of Amin’s approach to political economy. We also wrote a blog post about the issue that you can find here.

Categories
Events Heterodox Economics Rethinking Economics Norway Video

Video: Why so Hostile? Busting Myths about Heterodox Economics

Back in May I had the pleasure of speaking to Rethinking Economics Norway about what heterodox economics means and how and why it is often misunderstood. They have now published the video online. The talk was based on this blog post and this working paper with my brilliant co-author Carolina Alves.

Categories
Economic Development Heterodox Economics Presentations SDGs Video

A New International Development Paradigm (video)

I had the pleasure and honour of debating ‘A New International Development Paradigm. Do the Sustainable Development Goals Drive Global Progress?’ with Dr. Fred Muhumuza (Makerere University) and Prof. Dr. Aram Ziai (University of Kassel) at the Online Summer Academy for Pluralist Economics, August 2020.

The blurb for the panel:

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations are considered a universal benchmark for development around the world. But is it realistic to have such a benchmark for countries/regions whose societies are structured within different local contexts? During this discussion, the panelists will share their perspectives on what development is, on the relevance of the SDGs, and on what a new development paradigm could look like in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Categories
Blog Covid-19 Critique of Mainstream Economics Heterodox Economics

Reclaiming Economics After Covid-19 (new blog post)

Screenshot 2020-08-15 at 22.39.04

“The pandemic has revealed the poverty of our economic theory. Rupture with the old paradigm is the only route to recovery.”
Read my piece with Carolina Alves on Progressive International’s blog.
Categories
Heterodox Economics Publications

¿Por qué tan hostil? Quebrando mitos sobre la economía heterodoxa (translation)

My work with Carolina Alves on Heterodox Economics is now translated to Spanish and published in the Colombian journal Ensayos de Economía. Download the full Spanish article or read the working paper in English. Thanks to Orlando Nikolai Santos Alvarado for the translation.

Screenshot 2020-08-07 at 20.45.24

Categories
Blog Critique of Mainstream Economics Decolonizing Economics Discrimination in Economics Heterodox Economics INET Teaching

Why Do Economists Have Trouble Understanding Racialized Inequalities? (Blog post)

Screenshot 2020-08-03 at 17.01.17

I wrote a blog post with Surbhi Kesar for the Institute for New Economic Thinking on the Economics discipline’s lack of capacity to understand racial inequalities, based on survey data.

Categories
Covid-19 Critique of Mainstream Economics Heterodox Economics Publications

Changing the Narrative: Economics After Covid-19 (new article)

I wrote an article on how COVID-19 exposes weaknesses in the dominant Economics narrative, and how heterodox economics offer important alternatives, with Carolina Alves for the Review of Agrarian Studies. Here’s the abstract:

In this ar­ti­cle, we argue that so­ci­eties’ un­pre­pared­ness and in­ad­e­quate re­sponses to the Covid-19 pan­demic ex­pose weak­nesses in the foun­da­tions of the dom­i­nant eco­nomic par­a­digm. We doc­u­ment how eco­nom­ics came to dis­em­bed it­self from broader so­ci­etal analy­sis and how this has in­flu­enced pub­lic pol­icy in prob­lem­atic ways, lead­ing to priv­i­leg­ing of ef­fi­ciency over re­silience. We then go a step fur­ther to con­sider the role of eco­nomic ev­i­dence in pub­lic pol­icy more gen­er­ally. Fur­ther­more, we demon­strate how het­ero­dox eco­nom­ics can en­rich our un­der­stand­ings of our economies’ weak­nesses and of how to build a more re­silient and just econ­omy. We con­clude that we need an ex­pla­na­tion of the cri­sis that is ca­pa­ble of see­ing the econ­omy as more than just mar­kets and as em­bed­ded in so­ci­ety; one that is ca­pa­ble of link­ing the causes and con­se­quences of the pan­demic to our sys­tems of pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Read the full paper.