Suchergebnisse

Introduction to the 2019 edition -- Introduction to the 2007 edition -- Discovering types of economic theories -- The evolution of the two different approaches -- Emulation : how rich countries got rich -- Globalization : the arguments in favour are also the arguments against -- Globalization and primitivization : how the poor get even poorer -- Explaining away failure : red herrings at the end of history -- Palliative economics : why the millennium goals are a bad idea -- 'Get the economic activities right', or, the lost art of creating middle-income countries -- Appendices. David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage in international trade ; Two different ways of understanding the economic world and the wealth and poverty of nations ; Frank Graham's theory of uneven development ; Two ideal types of protectionism compared ; Philipp von Hörnigk's nine points on how to emulate the rich countries (1684) ; The quality index of economic activities ; The quality index expressed in real US data (1899-1937).

Through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European science slowly lifted itself out of the fog of Mediaeval scholasticism. A rational, quantified and mechanised world picture emerged. In 1769 an essay questioned why economics benefited so little from the use of mathematics and quantification. Today the opposite may be argued – the increasing loss of relevance of economics is associated with the use of mathematics. Based on Francis Bacon's criticism of scholasticism, it is argued here that strong parallels exist between the decay of scholasticism and the decay of modern economics. From being a science of practice, late neoclassical economics has degenerated into "working upon itself", as Bacon says about late scholasticism. Since the 1769 essay, economics has come "full circle". The problem for economics is not then mathematics per se – mathematics is just one language in which science may decay.

This paper attempts to trace and describe the role played by the government sector – the state – in promoting economic growth in Western societies since the Renaissance. One important conclusion is that the antagonism between state and market, which has characterised the twentieth century, is a relatively new phenomenon. Since the Renaissance one very important task of the state has been to create well‐functioning markets by providing a legal framework, standards, credit, physical infrastructure and – if necessary – to function temporarily as an entrepreneur of last resort. Early economists were acutely aware that national markets did not occur spontaneously, and they used "modern" ideas like synergies, increasing returns, and innovation theory when arguing for the right kind of government policy. In fact, mercantilist economics saw it as a main task to extend the synergetic economic effects observed within cities to the territory of a nation‐state. The paper argues that the classical Anglo‐Saxon tradition in economics – fundamentally focused on barter and distribution, rather than on production and knowledge – systematically fails to grasp these wider issues in economic development, and it brings in and discusses the role played by the state in alternative traditions of non‐equilibrium economics.

Other Canon Economics: Essays in the Theory and History of Uneven Economic Development brings together key essays on development economics from one of the most prolific and important development economists and historians of economic policy today. Erik S. Reinert argues through essays ranging from 1994 to 2020 that neo-classical economics damages developing countries, mostly via adherence to the theory of comparative advantage. Based on a long intellectual tradition - started by the Italian economists Giovanni Botero (1589) and Antonio Serra (1613), Reinert shows that the country which trades increasing returns goods - e.g. high-end manufacture - has advantages over the country which trades diminishing returns goods - e.g. commodities. This has important implications for today's development strategies that, Reinert argues, should be seen as industrial strategies.

Other Canon Economics: Essays in the Theory and History of Uneven Economic Development brings together key essays on development economics from one of the most prolific and important development economists and historians of economic policy today. Erik S. Reinert argues through essays ranging from 1994 to 2020 that neo-classical economics damages developing countries, mostly via adherence to the theory of comparative advantage. Based on a long intellectual tradition - started by the Italian economists Giovanni Botero (1589) and Antonio Serra (1613), Reinert shows that the country which trades increasing returns goods - e.g. high-end manufacture - has advantages over the country which trades diminishing returns goods - e.g. commodities. This has important implications for today's development strategies that, Reinert argues, should be seen as industrial strategies.

Zusammenfassung: "A Realism of Vision: German Economics from the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War forms a collection of Reinert's essays bringing the more realistic German economic tradition into focus as an alternative to Anglo-Saxon neoclassical mainstream economics. Together the essays form a holistic theory explaining why economic development - by its very nature - is a very uneven process. Herein lie the important policy implications of the volume"--(Provided by publisher.)

Front Matter -- Copyright -- Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction: uneven development - addressing causes versus treating symptoms -- PART I Nature-made versus policy-made sources of uneven development -- 1. Uneven economic development: identifying the blind spots of mainstream economics -- 2. Geography, uneven development and population density: attempting a non-ethnocentric approach to development -- 3. Redirecting growth: inclusive, sustainable and innovation-led -- PART II Assumptions, abstractions and approaches to uneven development -- 4. Altered states: Cartesian and Ricardian dreams -- 5. Gender and uneven development -- 6. Dependency theory: strengths, weaknesses, and its relevance today -- 7. The need to centre imperialism in studies of uneven development -- 8. Imperialism: a note on the unequal treaties of modern China and Japan -- PART III Understanding mechanisms that create and prevent inequality -- 9. Physiocracy, guillotines and antisemitism? Did economics emulate the wrong Enlightenment? -- 10. Technological retrogression and persistent poverty -- PART IV When nations and systems decline and collapse -- 11. When nations collapse: a note on Jacob Bielfeld's 'On the Decline of States' (1760) -- 12. Free trade with the former COMECON countries as unequal exchange -- 13. Escaping the poverty trap in China: the co-evolution of diversity in property and economic development -- 14. Recent experiences of successful economic policies: the case of Uzbekistan -- PART V Finance versus the real economy -- 15. Uneven development, financialised capitalism and subordination -- 16. Unequal growth and the single currency: the fiscal policy paradox -- PART VI Ecology -- 17. Identifying ecologically unequal exchange in the world-system: implications for development -- Conclusion: what are the important lessons from history? -- Index.