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  3. The Economy Key Ideas

This series of short primers seeks to introduce students to the core concepts, theories and models, both new and established, heterodox and mainstream, contested and accepted, used by economists and political economists to understand and explain the workings of the economy. The books are aimed primarily at undergraduates with little familiarity with economic theory, but who need to orientate themselves in a social science landscape susceptible to fashion, prone to jargon, and thick with competing concepts, theories and methodologies. They will also be welcomed by more experienced readers needing authoritative access to a subject for the first time.

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15 results in The Economy Key Ideas

Nudging
  • Mark Whitehead, Rhys Jones
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    19 December 2024
    Print publication:
    16 May 2024
  • Nudging is a controversial technique for changing people's behaviours. It burst into public consciousness in the early 2000s with the launch of 'nudge units' and departments in government. Its use as a policy tool is particularly polarizing as it raises moral and constitutional issues about freedom of choice and coercion.

    Mark Whitehead and Rhys Jones consider how the nudge as a mechanism for policy implementation came about and why it gives rise to such strong feelings. They explain what a nudge is, how it differs from other behavioural prompts, and consider whether we should use them and, if so, when and where they are best deployed. In particular, they explore how the proliferation of digital media throughout our lives has given nudging a new impetus and sphere of operation, which can be both harder for consumers and citizens to detect and more contentious.

Industrial Policy
  • Steve Coulter
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    20 January 2024
    Print publication:
    06 July 2023
  • Well-designed industrial policies can improve a nation's economic performance. Using a range of tools, such as subsidies, tax incentives, infrastructure development, protective regulations, and R&D support, governments are able to support specific industries or economic activities.

    Steve Coulter examines the patterns of industrial policymaking across late capitalist societies. Drawing on case studies from a range of countries, each with different growth models, national capabilities, policy traditions, and political/welfare state regimes, he is able to offer a nuanced comparative assessment of states' responses to specific economic challenges. The book draws broad conclusions about the trajectories of industrial policy and highlights key technical and political drivers that policymakers consider when addressing whether best practice should centre on general or nationally-specific approaches. The book also focuses on fresh challenges and opportunities for industrial policy and questions the sustainability of current policy practice.

Austerity
  • When Is It a Mistake and When Is It Necessary?
  • John Fender
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    28 December 2023
    Print publication:
    10 September 2020
  • Austerity has dominated economic debate since the financial crisis of 2008. Governments have implemented austerity policies by reducing their spending on goods and services, increasing taxation and cutting welfare budgets. John Fender explains how austerity (or 'fiscal consolidation') works in theory and how it has played out in practice especially in the UK and the eurozone. He provides a clear and rigorous guide to the principles and mechanisms of austerity economics and offers a balanced account of the economic thinking behind contentious policy decisions.

    Boris Johnson has said that the UK government 'has absolutely no intention of returning to the 'A-word'', but with the Covid-19 crisis likely to result in much more government debt, it will be difficult to avoid more austerity. Understanding the impact of austerity policies is more important than ever and this book offers a first step on that path. For anyone seeking answers to such questions as: 'What can we learn from the UK's economic history that is relevant to current policy?', 'Is austerity ever necessary or desirable?' and 'Can the harmful effects of austerity programmes be mitigated?' then this book will be welcome reading.

Financial Inclusion
  • Samuel Kirwan
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    21 December 2023
    Print publication:
    25 February 2021
  • Without access to mainstream financial services, people pay more for goods and services and have less choice. The impacts of exclusion are not just financial but also affect education, employment, health, housing, and overall well-being.

    Limited access to financial services also impedes economic development in impoverished communities, which has prompted policy-makers, private institutions and NGOs to develop strategies to address financial inclusion. Drawing on a series of illustrative case studies - from India's micro-credit industry to mobile banking in South Africa - Samuel Kirwan examines the various types of policy implementation in developed and developing countries, and considers the social impact and efficacy of such economic intervention. While acknowledging the risks and pitfalls of government-backed and private financial inclusion practices, the book makes a strong case for the value of financial inclusion both as a conceptual term for clarifying the stakes of material poverty and as a policy tool that creates a space for meaningful changes in economic practices.

    The book provides valuable insight into the role of government policy in combatting inequality and is a welcome resource for researchers examining the socio-economic dimensions of poverty and attempts to address it.

Productivity
  • Michael Haynes
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    20 December 2023
    Print publication:
    19 March 2020
  • Productivity looms large in public policy discussions yet many find themselves hard-pressed to explain exactly what the term means. Even within economics, its nature and significance is contested and the focus of complex debate. Michael Haynes cuts through the jargon and political sloganeering to provide a detailed examination of the concept, how it is used and why it is held by economists to be so important in evaluating the health of economies.

    The book explores why productivity grows or fails to grow in certain contexts, in particular how real world variables can interact with measurements of efficiency and output. The difficulties of measuring its scope are examined alongside the larger question of whether growth in productivity is sustainable, both at the level of national economies and globally. Whether productivity remains the motor of economic growth that it once was and continues to be the most appropriate economic indicator for modern economies is shown to be a key consideration.

    For anyone searching for a clear, engaging and level-headed guide to one of the most important metrics for understanding economic growth, this book will be warmly welcomed.

Cultural Economics
  • Christiane Hellmanzik
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    20 December 2023
    Print publication:
    30 July 2020
  • The cultural industries and their products and services make a significant contribution to the global economy and are seen as strategic sectors for sustainable economic growth. However, industries such as art, design, film, music, performing arts, publishing, television and radio, present particular challenges for economic analysis. They can be goods or services that are both public and private, protected by copyright and freely available, consumed and created, as well as susceptible to fashion and technological development.

    In this fascinating introduction to the cultural economy, Christiane Hellmanzik examines the market for creative work and reveals the economic relationships between human creativity, intellectual property and technology. Through the careful use of case studies, the book explores the core economic considerations such as supply and demand, competition and pricing, alongside macro trends such as globalization, digitalization and the internet, which are changing the industry's business models.

Economic Anthropology
  • James G. Carrier
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    20 December 2023
    Print publication:
    25 February 2021
  • Conventional economic thought sees the economy as the sum of market transactions carried out by rational individuals deciding how to allocate their resources among the various things on offer that would satisfy their desires. Economic anthropologists see things differently. For them, the focus is the activities, relationships and systems through which objects are produced, circulate among people and ultimately are consumed, which take different forms in different societies and even in different parts of the same society. In this way, economic anthropology takes the rational market actors of conventional economic thought and places them in the world of people, relationships, systems, beliefs and values that begins with production and ends with consumption. This accessible and authoritative introduction to the field of economic anthropology offers students a fresh and fascinating way of looking at the economic world.

Bounded Rationality
  • Graham Mallard
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    20 December 2023
    Print publication:
    30 June 2020
  • Understanding how we take economic decisions and how we depart from rational choice theory has become increasingly important to understanding the workings of the economy at all levels. The concept of bounded rationality has been central to that endeavour and is used in economic models to shed light on real-life behaviour, which has led to specific policy implications that would otherwise have gone unappreciated.

    This introduction presents the key concepts and approaches adopted in the field of bounded rationality. The exposition is non-technical and free from any mathematical expressions and workings. The focus throughout is primarily on the behaviour of individuals or organizations within given situations rather than on macroeconomic concerns. The book examines how the field has evolved since its beginnings and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of its current research programme, including its relationship with behavioural economics.

    The book is excellent preparatory reading for degree-level courses in economics as well as specific courses in behavioural economics and philosophy of economics.

    This introduction presents the key concepts and approaches adopted in the field of bounded rationality. The exposition is non-technical and free from any mathematical expressions and workings. The focus throughout is primarily on the behaviour of individuals or organizations within given situations rather than on macroeconomic concerns. The book examines how the field has evolved since its beginnings and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of its current research programme, including its relationship with behavioural economics.

Behavioural Economics
  • Graham Mallard
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    30 July 2017
  • The rise of behavioural approaches in economics has been one of most significant developments in the study of economic decision-making in recent years. The increasingly acknowledged failings of standard models of choice to explain economic decisions has prompted economists to incorporate into their analysis psychological insights into individual behaviour, such as social cognitive and emotional biases. This book introduces the topic of behavioural economics to a beginning readership, explaining its approach and methodology and assessing its successes and weaknesses.

    The book begins by tracing the evolution of the field from its origins in Adam Smith's moral sentiments through the work of Herbert Simon to Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler today. The book explores how behavioural economics has advanced our understanding of human preferences including notions of fairness, reciprocity and inequality aversion, and the mental processes involved in decision making, which vary with the complexity of the decision and the ability of the decision-maker to process the information. The decision-making of individuals within social and economic groups is explored, including financial practitioners and what this can mean for financial markets. Finally, the book looks at the ways in which findings from behavioural economics have been used to alter the decisions people make, such as the nudge approach, and the ethics of such persuasion.

The Resource Curse
  • Syed Mansoob Murshed
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    30 September 2018
  • The resource curse, or paradox of plenty, refers to the long-established notion central in development economics that countries rich in natural resources, particularly minerals and fuels, perform less well economically than countries with fewer natural resources. In other words, resources are an economic curse rather than a blessing.

    This short primer explores the complexities of this idea and the debates that surround it, in particular under what conditions the resource curse might operate, if not universal. Discussion ranges over the nature of resource booms, the benefits and costs of export-led growth, the problems of deindustrialization and manufacturing base erosion, rent-seeking behaviour and corruption and the empirical evidence of the effects of natural resource dependence on growth. The book also considers the links between resource rents and the risk of conflict and civil war.

    The treatment draws throughout on a range of illustrative examples from across the developed and developing world and offers an authoritative introduction to one of the most perplexing issues for economic growth.

The Living Wage
  • Donald Hirsch , Laura Valadez-Martinez
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    27 April 2017
  • The 'living wage' is an old idea that has experienced a dramatic resurgence of political popularity in recent years. The underlying logic of the concept is quite clear: it is a wage that provides workers with enough income to live on at some level considered adequate. However, in practice the term has become blurred with that of the 'minimum wage' and in its implementation it has lacked a consistent meaning despite being widely used as a campaigning slogan.

    This short primer traces the origins of the concept of the living wage and seeks to explain the current rise in its fortunes as an economic instrument with a social objective. It examines its impact on labour markets and wage levels, explores how it has been applied, and assesses whether it is an effective measure for raising living standards.

    It offers a broad-ranging analysis of the debates, policy developments and limitations of wage floors in developed economies and will appeal to a wide readership in economics, public policy and sociology, as well as those working in non-profit and non-governmental organizations.

Marginalism
  • Bert Mosselmans
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    30 September 2018
  • The notion of marginalism is central to modern economic theory. Its emergence, in the 1870s, underpinned the change from classical economics to modern (micro)economics, described by Schumpeter as a 'revolution'. This book explores the origins of the concept, its development and role in modern economics and shows why the marginalist approach is much more than a set of mathematical rules.

    The book examines how marginalism and its development of calculus came about in a variety of different arenas, including as a reaction to Ricardo's dominant theory of rents, in von Thunen's location model, in the writings of German and French authors, both within the mainstream and outside it, before going on to look in detail at the work of Jevons, Walras and Menger, the economists most closely associated with the marginal revolution.

    By exploring the origins and development of the marginalist approach within the history of economic thought, rather than seeking to explain it in forbidding formal terms, the book is better able to show students the wider importance of the marginalist approach in economic theory and its far-reaching societal implications in terms of the distribution of wages and capital. For anyone who has struggled with the technicalities of microeconomic theory, this approach will be warmly welcomed.

The Gig Economy
  • Alex De Ruyter, Martyn Brown
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    30 June 2019
  • The 'gig economy' is a relatively recent term coined to describe a range of working arrangements that have previously been denoted as precarious, flexible and contingent. These may include casual workers, temporary agency workers, those on zero-hours contracts and dependent contractors.

    This books seeks to get behind the contemporary buzz surrounding the term and provide some theoretical and empirical analysis of the gig work phenomenon. The book seeks to assess more critically some of the rhetorical claims made about gig work and to provide a balanced appraisal of the ramifications for individuals, employers and the economy and society in general of an increasingly insecure workforce. The regulatory framework, in particular, is examined and is shown to have lagged behind crucial developments in the gig economy, with many labour laws still historically rooted to the notion that a worker has to be an employee to be covered by employment rights.

    The authors show that in many respects there is nothing new about the gig economy and that its growth in recent years was in some sense predictable. Perhaps its real significance, they argue, is its potential as a business model to 'gig-ize' other business operations far beyond relatively low-skilled work. When combined with automation and digitalization, the gig economy presents us with an opportunity to re-evaluate our understanding of the nature of work.

Degrowth
  • Giorgos Kallis
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    30 June 2018
  • The term 'degrowth' has emerged within ecological and other heterodox schools of economics as a critique of the idea (and ideology) of economic growth. Degrowth argues that economic growth is no longer desirable - its costs exceed its benefits - and advocates a transformation of economies so that they produce and consume less, differently and better.

    Giorgos Kallis provides a clear and succinct guide to the central ideas of degrowth theory and explores what it would take for an economy to transition to a position that enables it to prosper without growth. The book examines how mainstream conceptualizations of the economy are challenged by degrowth theory and how degrowth draws on a multifaceted network of ideas across disciplines to shed new light on the economic process. The central claims of the degrowth literature are discussed alongside some key criticisms of them. Whether one agrees or disagrees with degrowth's critique of economic growth, Kallis shows how it raises fundamental questions about the workings of capitalism that we can no longer afford to ignore.

The Informal Economy
  • Colin C. Williams
  • Published by:
    Agenda Publishing
    Published online:
    09 August 2023
    Print publication:
    28 February 2019
  • The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non-agricultural employment. Whatever the exact figures, it is clear that the informal economy plays a significant role in national incomes and affects a large share of the global workforce.

    Colin C. Williams provides an authoritative introduction to the topic, explaining what the informal economy is and how it can best be measured. Taking a global perspective, he examines its characteristics in developed, developing and transitional economies, and looks at its role as a driver of economic growth. The theoretical underpinnings are explored, from conceptual origins in the development models of the 1950s, through to present-day discussions, which question whether a formalised economy is always the ideal.

    The book considers the economic motivations of the informal economy workforce, which may include tax evasion, circumventing regulations and maintaining state benefits, and assesses the different policy options available to governments to combat them, whether a punitive policy of deterrence, or one of accommodation that recognises the value of the sector in generating income and in meeting the needs of poor consumers.

    The book provides a masterly summation of the published research on the informal economy and an expert assessment of the key areas for research going forward.