The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts is a 2017 book by Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins that argues that the United Kingdom has become an econocracy, a society in which improving the economy has become the main purpose of politics. They demonstrate how this undermines democracy, in turn increasing the power and authority of economists. The authors see this as societally damaging because of the problematic state of the discipline of economics. [1]
The book includes interviews with student organisers and a curriculum review of university economics education at seven universities across the UK. The authors are part of the globally active International Student Initiative for Pluralist Economics, which became Rethinking Economics in the UK. The movement campaigns for pluralism in economics and seeks to democratise economics.
Aditya Chakrabortty reviewed the book positively in the Guardian calling the book ‘a case study for the question we should all be asking since the crash: how have the elites - in Westminster, in the City, in economics - stayed in charge?'. [2] Diane Coyle, economist and former vice-Chair of the BBC Trust, reviewed the book on her blog giving a mixed response. [3] Ha-Joon Chang, author of Economics: The user’s guide, called the book 'Utterly compelling and sobering.'. [4] Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, put the book on his ‘Summer books of 2017: Economics’ list. [5] The historian David Kynaston named the book as one of his ‘Best Books of 2016’ in the Guardian calling it ‘a remarkable, perhaps game-changing contribution by three young Manchester graduates.’. [6]
William Woodard Self is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written eleven novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas, and five collections of non-fiction writing.
Bryan Douglas Caplan is an American economist and author. Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and former contributor to the Freakonomics blog; he also publishes his own blog, EconLog. He is a self-described "economic libertarian". The bulk of Caplan's academic work is in behavioral economics and public economics, especially public choice theory.
Jeanette Winterson is an English writer, who became famous with her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against conventional values. Other novels of hers have explored gender polarities and sexual identity, and later novels the relations between humans and technology. She is also a broadcaster and a professor of creative writing. She won a Whitbread Prize for a First Novel, a BAFTA Award for Best Drama, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the E. M. Forster Award and the St. Louis Literary Award, and the Lambda Literary Award twice. She holds an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Robert Jacob Alexander, Baron Skidelsky, is a British economic historian. He is the author of a three-volume award-winning biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946). Skidelsky read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, England.
Miranda Caroline Sawyer is an English author, journalist and broadcaster.
David Walter Runciman, 4th Viscount Runciman of Doxford is an English academic who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, where he is Professor of Politics. From October 2014 to October 2018, he was also Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies.
Liam James Halligan is a British economist, journalist, author and broadcaster. He is currently economics and business editor at GB News, where he co-presents a daily show.
Simon Frank Garfield is a British journalist and non-fiction author.
The pluralism in economics movement is a campaign to change the teaching and research in economics towards more openness in its approaches, topics and standpoints it considers. The goal of the movement is to "...reinvigorate the discipline ... [and bring] economics back into the service of society". Some have argued that economics had greater scientific pluralism in the past compared to the monist approach that is prevalent today. Pluralism encourages the inclusion of a wide variety of neoclassical and heterodox economic theories—including classical, Post-Keynesian, institutional, ecological, evolutionary, feminist, Marxist, and Austrian economics, stating that "each tradition of thought adds something unique and valuable to economic scholarship".
Thomas Lucien Harding is a non-fiction author, journalist, and documentary maker. He holds joint British, American and German citizenship.
Robin Elizabeth Wells is an American economist. She is the co-author of several economics texts.
The Economics Anti-Textbook is both an introduction to, and critique of the typical approaches to economics teaching, written by Roderick Hill and Tony Myatt in 2010. The main thrust of the authors' argument is that basic economics courses, being centered on models of perfect competition, are biased towards the support of free market or laissez-faire ideologies, and neglect to mention conflicting evidence or give sufficient coverage of alternative descriptive models.
Ailsa McKay was a Scottish economist, government policy adviser, a leading feminist economist and Professor of Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Paul Dolan, is Professor of Behavioural Science in the Department in Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is Director of the Executive MSc in Behavioural Science which began in September 2014. Dolan conducts research on the measurement of happiness, its causes and consequences, and the implications for public policy, publishing in both scholarly and popular outlets. He has previously held academic posts at York, Newcastle, Sheffield and Imperial and he has been a visiting scholar at Princeton University. He is the author of two popular press books: Happiness by Design and Happy Ever After and the creator and presenter of the Duck-Rabbit podcast.
Economyths is a book by the mathematician David Orrell about the problems with mainstream economics, written for the general reader. The book was initially published in 2010 by Icon Books in the UK with the subtitle Ten Ways That Economics Gets it Wrong, and by John Wiley & Sons in North America. Icon published a revised version in 2012, with the subtitle How the Science of Complex Systems Is Transforming Economic Thought. Translated versions were also published in Brazil, China, Japan and Korea. In 2017, Icon published a revised and expanded version with the subtitle 11 Ways Economics Gets it Wrong.
Econocracy defines a society in which improving the economy has become the main purpose of politics and economic policymaking has become a technocratic process.
Rethinking Economics is a network of students and academic scholars in several countries that promotes pluralism in economics. It is part of the broader International Student Initiative for Pluralist Economics and has groups in the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, India, Bangladesh, the US and many more countries. The goal of the movement is to open up the discipline to different schools of thought in economics other than neoclassical economics and to other disciplines in the social sciences. Another aim is to make economics more accessible to the broader public.
Kate Raworth is an English economist working for the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. She is known for her work on 'doughnut economics', which she understands as an economic model that balances between essential human needs and planetary boundaries.
Kieran Maguire is a British academic, author, and broadcaster. He specialises in the accountancy of association football and authored the book The Price of Football. His expertise is frequently sought within English football media. Alongside comedian Kevin Day Maguire presents a twice weekly podcast entitled The Price of Football in which football finances are discussed.
Alexander John Millmow is an Australian economic historian, journalist, and author. Formerly an associate professor at Federation University Australia, he is an honorary research fellow at Federation University and at Australian National University, and is president of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia.
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