Archive for the ‘Economic theory’ Category
2010 comes to an end and with it, arrives the ritual of establishing a top-ten list of books of the year. Many newspapers and some blogs have already contributed, and I’ll follow the tradition too -all the more so as I have read a lot this year, during my 2-hour daily commuting time in the […]
Filed under: Economic sociology, Economic theory, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, History of economics, social theory
Interface 4
Just come back from the 4th edition of the “Interface between economic theory and history of theories” workshop. It all started with an initiative by Michel De Vroey in Louvain in 2007, I then contributed to making it a regular event by organising the 2nd edition in Paris two years ago. This year, the event […]
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Tags: Economic analysis, economic methodology, History of economics
I used to interpret the growing field of research in the economics of food choice and obesity as mirroring a tension between two opposite perspectives. Traditional economics explains the current obesity “epidemics”, as some would have it, based on changing trends in food prices; the blame is put on the lower costs and greater availability […]
Filed under: Consumer behaviour, Economic theory, Socioeconomic studies of health | 3 Comments
Tags: Behavioral economics, Eating behaviors, Eating disorders, Economic analysis, Food choices, Obesity
A new blog post by Martin Ravallion of the World Bank proposes a new way in which research done there may support developing countries. Instead of a traditional “retailing model” under which researchers investigate a specific issue in a given setting and period of time, and produce findings for use in that context, he promotes […]
Filed under: Economic sociology, Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic development, economic methodology, Open access to scientific publications, Public policy analysis, Social science data, social theory
My colleague Ana Marr and I gave a paper on “Global Partnerships in Microfinance: India, Peru and Tanzania” last Monday at the conference we organised at the University of Greenwich. We used a networks approach (below) to illustrate the lending relationships between microfinance institutions in these three countries, and their funders worldwide. The slides are […]
Filed under: Business networks, Economic sociology, Economic theory, Philanthropy and microfinance | Leave a Comment
Tags: economic development, Inter-organisational Networks, Microfinance, Models of markets, Networks and Markets, Philanthropy, poverty alleviation
Networks & microfinance (cont.)
As part of an upcoming conference on “Global Partnerships in Microfinance“, to be held at the University of Greenwich on 6-7 September 2010, we have set up a session to present an ongoing project in which we use network analysis tools. We do so to understand how inter-organisational partnerships may support microfinance in its dual […]
Filed under: Business networks, Economic sociology, Economic theory, Philanthropy and microfinance | 1 Comment
Tags: economic development, Inter-organisational Networks, Microfinance, Network Analysis, Networks and Markets, Philanthropy, poverty alleviation
I have just discovered an article written by George Loewenstein and Peter Ubel -two founding fathers of behavioral economics- in the NY Times on 15 July. I know, I am late (summer, holidays…) and the article has already been commented by many (see for instance 1, 2). Still, it’s worth mentioning -the authors make the […]
Filed under: Consumer behaviour, Economic theory, Socioeconomic studies of health | Leave a Comment
Tags: Behavioral economics, Eating behaviors, Food choices, Obesity, Public policy analysis
Back from the Spanish sea and sun, I have had a pleasant surprise in the copy of last week’s The Economist which was waiting for me at home: an enthusiastic article about agent-based models (ABMs) and their potential to predict economic fluctuations, mouvements and crises much better than traditional economic models. Such claims are far […]
Filed under: Agent-based models, Economic theory | Leave a Comment
Tags: Agent-based computational economics, Agent-based models, Economic analysis, economic methodology
In a recent discussion about the English translation of the (originally, French) title of the journal Cahiers d’Economie Politique –Histoire de la pensée et théories, the term “political economy” emerged as the obvious choice. The concern, however, was that if the French “économie politique” (and its Italian equivalent “economia politica”, for that matter) are still […]
Filed under: Economic theory, Philosophy of economics | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic methodology, History of economics, Public policy analysis
A laudable, recent initiative of the American Economic Association: one of its top publications, the Journal of Economic Perspectives (JEP), is now available online complimentary to the public. This policy change aims to increase access to the journal by economists, students, colleagues from other disciplines, and the general public. This is all the more valuable […]
Filed under: Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, History of economics, Open access to scientific publications, Public policy analysis
