The European Fiscal Compact (FC) entered into force by 1 January, 2013 in 25 EU Member States. With the ratification the signatory countries commit significant parts of their budget to the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, which indicates a shift of power from legislative to...

The paper compares neoliberal market-fundamentalism and right-wing populism on the basis of its core patterns of thinking and reasoning. Hence we offer an analysis of the work of important founders of market-fundamental economic thinking (particularly von Mises) and an established definition of...

Legal philosophers like Montesquieu, Hegel and Tocqueville have argued that lay participation in judicial decision-making would have benefits reaching far beyond the realm of the legal system narrowly understood. From an economic point of view, lay participation in judicial decision-making can...

This paper begins by defining, and distinguishing between, money and finance, and addresses alternative ways of financing spending. We next examine the role played by financial institutions (e.g., banks) in the provision of finance. The role of government as both regulator of private...

The Queen of England famously asked her economic advisers why none of them had seen it (the global financial crisis) coming. Obviously, the answer is complex, but it must include reference to the evolution of macroeconomic theory over the postwar period - from the Age of Keynes through the...

Elinor Ostrom: Die Verfassung der Allmende. Jenseits von Staat und Markt. - Die englische Originalausgabe dieses vieldiskutierten Buches ist schon vor 20 Jahren unter dem Titel 'Governing the commons. The evolution of institutions for collective action' bei Cambridge University Press erschienen....

This paper advances three fundamental propositions regarding money: (1) As R. W. Clower (1965) famously put it, money buys goods and goods buy money, but goods do not buy goods. (2) Money is always debt; it cannot be a commodity from the first proposition because, if it were, that would mean...

In this paper I first provide an overview of alternative approaches to money, contrasting the orthodox approach, in which money is neutral, at least in the long run; and the Marx-Veblen-Keynes approach, or the monetary theory of production. I then focus in more detail on two main categories: the...

This paper examines the causes and consequences of the current global financial crisis. It largely relies on the work of Hyman Minsky, although analyses by John Kenneth Galbraith and Thorstein Veblen of the causes of the 1930s collapse are used to show similarities between the two crises. K.W....

The term 'Institutional Economics' has been applied to some of capitalism's strongest critics as well as its most ardent apologists. This paradox in terms has bred contradictory literature in development economics, some declaring the death of this line of thought while others herald its...