Today, on 31 December 2020, at 23:00 local London time, the UK will formally leave the international socio-economic space created by European nation-states through a number of international treaties since the end of the second world war. It is a turning point in the sense that the UK deliberately diminishes its reach in the global…
Category: Economic institutions
Commodities: I―What are they?
Recently the world was confronted with the phenomenon that oil had a negative price due to the tremendous drop in demand for oil due to the worldwide Corona crisis lockdown, as widely reported in the media. From an economist’s perspective this should be quite shocking and worrying, since traditional market theory does not really allow…
Thoughts inspired by Rutger Bregman
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, who recently published some interesting and rather inspirational books in the Dutch language. Several of these have been translated now. The two main books I am referring to are: Bregman (2017), Utopia for Realists: and how we can get there, Bloomsbury, translated by Elizabeth Manton, originally published as Gratis…
Two volume book on the social division of labour is now published
Both volumes are now published with Palgrave-Macmillan.
How institutions undermine the economy
An interesting article was published today on The Conversation web site about the role of corporate law in the demise of BHS, a British retail corporation that was deliberated bankrupted by its main shareholder and director, Philip Green. All in all, it is a horrendous case of how corporate law facilitates the undermining of economic wealth generation…
Understanding the role of institutions in the economy: A mathematical approach
Over the past couple of decades it has become more and more recognised in economics that socio-economic institutions are essential for the functioning of the economy. This research has emanated from the seminal work of Douglas North in his study of various economic systems throughout economic history and of Ronald Coase in the understanding of…