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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | L. Randall Wray |
| Abstract: | The over-hyped Dot.com revolution bubbled and crashed at the end of the 1990s, leaving a largely unused physical and virtual infrastructure that eventually supported the rise of social media that did--indeed--transform life. Not necessarily in a good way. As Robert Gordon famously claimed, you can see the evidence of the digital revolution everywhere except in the data. Still, many billionaires were minted. After nearly a quarter century of growth, it seemed to have run its course until digital tech moved into the payments system promising another revolution based on cryptocurrencies. That, too, was over-hyped until Trump's reelection loosened rules to allow crypto to infect the financial system, targeting in particular the accumulated retirement savings of Americans. More billionaires minted. As P.T. Barnum (purportedly) proclaimed, "there's a sucker born every minute" and they add up but the number is still finite. The latest revolution is AI and it has generated the biggest bubble, by far. We are still in the early stages, but not only is AI almost single-handedly driving the stock market, it is also driving the "real" economy with its investments in data centers. One-hundred and three American billionaires were created since 2024, many of those owing to AI-related stock prices and investments. This paper will look in detail at the claims made for AI, the financial arrangements that are supporting its growth, and the dangers it poses for the US (and global) economies. While some argue that the current bubble looks little like the Dot.com bubble, that is true, but beside the point. The fragile financing of the AI bubble looks much more like the financial shenanigans that crashed into the Global Financial Crisis, and--unlike the Dot.com bubble that left us with a physical infrastructure that would eventually prove useful--the AI bubble will leave behind waste and destruction. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence; financial fragility, AI bubble; tech billionaires; financial fraud; technological revolution; Dot.com bubble; Global Financial Crisis; fraud; innovation; labor displacement by robots |
| JEL: | B52 E22 E32 O11 O16 O31 O38 O43 P17 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1107 |
| By: | Peter Skott |
| Abstract: | Macroeconomic models have been extended to incorporate climate change, to analyze its implications, and to examine the costs and benefits of green transitions. This paper discusses some limitations of these models and the critical dependence of their implications on factors that are subject to great uncertainty. Instead of trying to derive optimal trajectories of mitigation and macroeconomic policy, economics may be useful primarily in the analysis of the pervasive collective-action problems and distributional effects associated with a green transition and in the design of economic incentives to ensure a successful implementation of the transition. The analysis, moreover, must move beyond the 'brown'-'green' dichotomy and analyze different mitigation strategies, their scalability and their systemic effects. |
| Keywords: | Integrated assessment models, Keynesian climate models, welfare criteria, damage functions, transition strategies, free-rider prob- lem, distributional conict |
| JEL: | O44 Q43 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2605 |
| By: | Kalyanpur, Nikhil |
| Abstract: | The hyper-wealthy are increasingly, blatantly influencing politics both at home and abroad. Despite multiple paths to plutocrat-status, and perpetual infighting within the very top of the economic hierarchy, political economy scholarship largely treats plutocrats as possessing the same sources of power and facing similar threats to their wealth. Drawing on comparative political economy and international relations theory, this Commentary develops a typology of billionaires based on their sources of income and their relationship to state power. The value of the typology is to help us understand a new phase of international politics that is likely to be marked by the decline of autonomous plutocratic power and the rise of state-dominated kleptocracy. As U.S. hegemony recedes and the liberal economic order weakens, states are set to reassert control over capital, mirroring trends long observed in authoritarian regimes. This transition reshapes global governance: legal institutions once designed to protect capital mobility are set to become sites of contestation between states and the super-rich. Coercion and legal warfare against plutocrats are set to replace markets and the instrumental power of business as key mechanisms underpinning the international economic order. |
| Keywords: | oligarchs; kleptocracy; international order; elite conflict; business power; democratic backsliding |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–02–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:137055 |
| By: | Ken-Ichi Akao; Stefano Bartolini |
| Abstract: | Over the past half century in the US, substantial economic growth coexisted with increasing inequality, and the erosion of social capital and well-being. Currently, no comprehensive explanations is available for such paradoxical mix of brilliant eco- nomic performance and social crises. We present a simple endogenous growth model showing that economic growth, the decline of social capital and well-being, and rising well-being inequality can be interconnected, mutually reinforcing phenomena. This type of growth can be described as defensive because it arises from the expendi- tures of households aimed at defending themselves against growth-related negative externalities, thus fostering economic growth. Defensive growth leads to a loss of well-being in the long run because, beyond a certain level of output, private pros- perity is no longer able to compensate for social poverty. Along a defensive growth path, the decline of social capital disproportionately weighs on the well-being of low- income households, because of their relatively lower capacity to finance defensive spending. This prediction is consistent with the evidence showing that over the past 50 years the loser of the "pursuit of happiness" stated in the American Constitution is the working class. |
| Keywords: | Defensive growth, social capital, relative consumption Jel Classification: O41, I31, D31, Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:941 |
| By: | Stephan Puehringer (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Socio-Ecological Transformation Lab, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Lukas Baeuerle (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Socio-Ecological Transformation Lab, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | The paper introduces the SETER framework, a conceptual tool for analyzing the interplay between Socio-Ecological Transformation (SET) and Economic Reasoning (ER). In the context of global crises and the contested nature of sustainability discourses, the framework identifies nine key categories – ranging from economic goals and the role of the state to transformative dynamics and agency – to systematically compare diverse SET narratives and their basic underlying economic assumptions. Drawing on insights from Social Studies of Economics (SSE) and Sustainability Transitions Research (STR), the framework highlights how ER shapes SET discourses and potential pathways, influencing both the diagnosis of socio-ecological crises and its proposed solutions. The paper applies the framework for two contrasting cases: the EU Green Deal, which exemplifies a market-driven “green growth” narrative, and Kohei Saito’s Degrowth Manifesto, which advocates for commons-based, sufficiency-oriented transformation. These cases illustrate the framework’s ability to map competing visions of SET, revealing the systemic dependencies between ER categories and their manifestations. The SETER framework also enables a typification of antagonistic narratives opposing SET, such as techno-libertarian or fossil-modernization discourses. While the framework provides a useful tool for categorizing and comparing SET narratives, its integration with power-focused analytical tools is necessary to assess the performative influence of these narratives. By offering a flexible, cross-sectoral, and longitudinal approach, the SETER framework provides a robust methodology for navigating the complexities of SET-related discourses, fostering critical reflection on economic imaginaries, and envisioning equitable and sustainable pathways for transformation. |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:set:wpaper:1 |
| By: | Joyce P. Jacobsen (Department of Economics, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Wesleyan University) |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wes:weswpa:2026-003 |
| By: | Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) |
| Abstract: | This essay critically explores the connection between epistemology, political ecology, economy, and technological developments in the Anthropocene, understood as the epoch in which humankind has become a major force of geological transformation. It addresses the Anthropocene as a discourse and as a reality, bringing together epistemological reflexivity, ideology critique, and political economy-cum-ecology. The essay begins with an overview of the genesis and development of the Anthropocene concept—an often-repeated history which I reconsider from the viewpoint of historiographic developments in the history and philosophy of science. Since the Anthropocene hypothesis makes the history of knowledge, technological advancement, and socioeconomic structures fundamental factors in the Earth's history, I point to the necessity of revising our reality-conceptions to account for the development of a world in which epistemic, economic, and political histories intersect with physics, geology, and biology. As a reappraisal of the historico-materialist approaches to science studies, I propose to expand the 'externalist' understanding of the socio-economic roots and social functions of science by including, in the geoanthropological paradigm to come, considerations of social metabolism and ecology. This proposal is also meant to serve as a basis for new forms of cross-disciplinary economic thinking that must comprise cultural and environmental perspectives. These considerations are the background of my criticism of the ideological aberrations in the debate on Anthropocene politics, which I term 'dark ecologies'. I especially refer to Bruno Latour's adherence to Malthusian and social-Darwinian ideas. In the last part, I discuss eco-socialist alternatives to the ecological impasse and advocate for the defence of the commons against their alienation as a premise of future prosperity. |
| Keywords: | Political ecology, geoanthropology, technological alienation, Latour, Malthusianism, tragedy of the commons, eco-socialism |
| JEL: | F64 J10 O14 O44 Q01 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2026:05 |
| By: | Ikwuemesi, Chinenye Egbuna |
| Abstract: | This article proposes 'the Dorian Grayisation of the Black body' as a framework for analysing how racism created the infrastructure enabling imperial violence at unprecedented scale and durability through spatial and corporeal distribution: inscribing violence on Black bodies and Black land whilst maintaining metropolitan narratives of civilisation. Drawing on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray as a conceptual apparatus, I demonstrate that racism was not incidental to imperial violence but its operational foundation: permanent hereditary status, legal property designation, visible inherited marking, and moral justification that endured across centuries. African bodies and African land functioned as quarantined spaces where violence required for European and American 'civilisation' could be perfected, allowing metropolitan centres to maintain narratives of enlightenment, progress, and moral superiority. Through historical analysis of concentration camps, medical experimentation, bureaucratic genocide, and surveillance systems, I show that techniques perfected on Black bodies through this spatial and corporeal distribution are eventually deployed more broadly. The framework demonstrates how racism created an infrastructure within which powerful men could operate without constraint, refining techniques across generations through normalised administrative practice. Once operational, this machinery proved transferable beyond initial racial boundaries. Contemporary developments in the United States (2025-2026) provide empirical evidence that this containment mechanism is failing. The portrait splits, and violence previously confined through spatial and corporeal separation enters white metropolitan life. This framework contributes to necropolitics, critical race studies, and analyses of how power operates through the spatial and corporeal distribution of consequences, demonstrating how violence enabled by racism ultimately threatens the societies that created it. Keywords: spatial and corporeal distribution, necropolitics, racial capitalism, systemic violence, Dorian Gray, imperial violence, concentration camps, medical experimentation, surveillance, epistemological violence |
| Date: | 2026–02–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jnzmc_v1 |
| By: | Lia Bergin |
| Abstract: | Janet Henry, Clare Lombardelli and Almudena Sevilla discuss how the profession can do better |
| Date: | 2026–02–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:728 |
| By: | Hendrik Theine (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Socio-Ecological Transformation Lab, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences); Carlotta Verità (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Socio-Ecological Transformation Lab, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | Socio-ecological transformations are long-term reconfigurations of socio-technical and socio-economic provisioning systems, contested through struggles over pathways, timelines, and distributive consequences. Because these struggles are fought through public sense-making as well as policy and investment, transformation research increasingly turns to large text corpora. Yet a dilemma persists: computational text analysis scales but often remains descriptive, while qualitative, interpretative methods explain power and meaning in context but is typically limited to small samples. This paper develops a critical realist mixedmethods strategy that integrates Structural Topic Modeling (STM) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Drawing on critical methodological pluralism, STM is treated as an extensive mapping device that identifies candidate demi-regularities without reifying them as causal laws. CDA then supplies the intensive interpretation needed to situate these patterns, reconstruct their argumentative and ideological work, and support retroductive reasoning about generative mechanisms in open, stratified systems. Thus, by integrating those methods, we enhance both the explanatory power and critical depth of transformation research. |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:set:wpaper:2 |
| By: | Tim Lloyd; Scott A. Wolla |
| Abstract: | Economic education aids people in making informed choices that better align with monetary policy goals, authors say in a blog post for Economic Education Month. |
| Date: | 2025–10–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00100:102780 |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Sandström, Christian (Linneaus University, Växjö, Sweden); Stenkula, Mikael (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Green Deals have been introduced across Western economies as large-scale, mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) intended to combine economic growth with environmental sustainability. Rooted in the concept of an “entrepreneurial state, ” these initiatives reflect renewed confidence in governments’ ability to direct technological and industrial transformation. However, their outcomes have frequently diverged from expectations. This volume examines the theoretical foundations and empirical results of Green Deals, highlighting the institutional, economic, and behavioral factors that contribute to their shortcomings. Drawing on perspectives from evolutionary economics, public choice theory, and behavioral political economy, the contributors analyze a wide range of cases, including Germany’s Energiewende, Italy’s Superbonus, and the European Union’s hydrogen and battery programs. Across these examples, recurring challenges such as rent-seeking, mission capture, optimism bias, and distorted incentives are identified. The findings indicate that while Green Deals have advanced ambitious sustainability goals, they often undermine competitiveness and fiscal stability while generating limited environmental benefits. The volume concludes by outlining alternative pathways that emphasize incremental, technology-neutral, and institutionally grounded approaches to sustainability—approaches that align more closely with long-term economic resilience and effective environmental policy. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship policy; Green deals; Green transition; Innovation policy; Moonshot policies; Public choice |
| JEL: | H50 L26 L52 O33 O38 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–02–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1553 |