A very detailed walkthrough of the big new left economic idea. Modern Monetary Theory is having a moment. The theory, in brief, argues that countries that issue their own currencies can never “run out of money” the way people or businesses can. But what was once an obscure “heterodox” branch of economics has now become a major topic […]
Putting the ‘I’ in science
Chris Lintott’s chronicle of the booming citizen-science project Zooniverse is inspirational, finds Michael West. The Crowd and the Cosmos: Adventures in the Zooniverse Chris Lintott Oxford University Press (2019) Citizen science is booming. Today, anyone with a computer or a smartphone can participate in research in astronomy, oceanography, medicine, zoology and beyond. With such studies no longer […]
The real Adam Smith
He might be the poster boy for free-market economics, but that distorts what Adam Smith really thought The invisible hand was invoked not to draw attention to the problem of state intervention, but of state capture Smith argued, ordinary people were forced to accept inflated prices for shoddy goods, and their employment was at the mercy of […]
An economist explains how to value the internet
digital goods have three characteristics that are very different from previous goods. They’re virtually free, perfect and instant. What that means is the cost of making an additional copy of a digital good is basically zero; each copy is an identical, perfect replica of the original; and they can be distributed anywhere in the world […]
How Much – What is Value?
Minutes of Minimum-Wage-Work to buy a Big Mac How many minutes a minimum-wage-worker would have to work to earn enough money to buy a Big Mac? How do we relate the value of work, food etc.? Why do Indians or Indonesians look to other fast or street food. Country Big Mac price Monthly minimum wage […]