We, The Post-Crash Economics Society, are a group of economics students at The University of Manchester. It is our belief that the content of the economics syllabus and teaching methods could and should be seriously rethought.
We have published a Report outlining what is wrong with economics education at the University of Manchester and in the UK. It includes a foreword by the director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, Andrew Haldane.
If you want to join our mailing list, if you have any questions about upcoming events and lectures, schools of thought, what we’re working on or, if you have any suggestions for speakers you would like to see at our events or anything else please get in touch and we will endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible.
PCES Lecture Series: Pluralism in Practice
Alex Cobham, Chief Executive of the Tax Justice Network, joined us on the 14th April 2021 to to discuss the effect inadequate tax legislation has on inequality for our new lecture series: Pluralism in Practice.
Enshrined is the label ‘developed’. Positioned as the ultimate goal, economic growth is traditionally seen as the means to achieve this label. Yet this restrictive definition leads to classifications of ‘developed’ to depend on quantitative economic tools that disregard the costs of economic growth on stakeholders (Tavernaro-Haidarian, 2019). ‘Developed’ as a term itself implies a contrast of concepts: developed versus undeveloped, civilised versus uncivilised, and economic progress versus stagnation. Inequality is thereby created from the existing value judgements implicitly present within this central term. When assigning countries varying degrees of development as a manner of categorisation, positive or negative connotations accompany it as a result. The Classical development view expands upon this implicit judgment through the modernisation theory, which calls for ‘poorer’ or ‘less developed’ countries to follow in the footsteps of the Global North (Baylis et al., 2019). Progress is thereby framed by the development agenda to be emulating the same structures and policies of Western ‘developed’ nations to achieve ‘good governance’ signalled by wealth and stability. But we cannot ignore the past origins of this current wealth. Imperialism and the societal structures enforced by colonisation onto racially minoritised people have impacts that are still felt today. Bruhn’s (2010) research found that areas where large-scale exploitation of slaves occurred currently have approximately 30% lower GDP per capita due to the institutions— like banking systems— created by the colonial elite reinforcing political and socioeconomic inequalities in their favour. Previously imperial powers have set the current development agenda, yet their past actions have hindered the progress of former colonies, reinforcing inequalities. These inequalities are also present in the mainstream narratives...
Over the last year, the United States government has used fiscal stimulus as a response to falling aggregate demand due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Last March Congress approved the $2 trillion “CARES” (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) act. This bill increased the U.S. government’s 2020 spending to $3.13 trillion more than it received in revenue, running its largest budget deficit ever. But the Coronavirus extraordinary spending has only accelerated a 20 year trend of deficits, as the U.S. government has not run a budget surplus since 2001. Consequently, the U.S. currently owes an accumulated $27.9 trillion, which could rise to $35.3 trillion by 2031. In an era when the world’s biggest economy’s national debt is growing to historic levels, should we be worried about the U.S. government becoming insolvent? And should we listen to the likes of Senator Mitch McConnell who oppose “borrowing from our grandkids” to fund more Covid relief programs? Firstly, I have to explain monetary policy in the context of snowballing of debt. Currently we have near 0% interest rates due to the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing (QE) program, meaning their massive purchasing of Treasury securities. Basically, the Fed has bought over $7 trillion of Treasuries, crowding out investors, increasing the money supply, and maintaining a very low borrowing rate. However, in the future a sudden increase in interest rates (perhaps prompted by negative expectations from unwinding of QE) could lead to an inability to roll-over debt. The U.S. Treasury could be unable to refinance its maturing bonds at cheaper rates if the interest rate shot up to, for example, 6%. The idea is that...
Gender inequality is ubiquitous in economics. The recent Women in Economics Index (2020) found that men still dominate the economics profession across the academic, private and public sectors. It highlighted academia as particularly bad; finding that men comprise 80% of the staff in the world’s top 25 economics departments, 95% of the world’s top 100 economics authors, and 75.4% of positions within the world’s top think tanks. Moveover, while gender inequality exists within academia across social sciences, it is far worse in economics, where women are ‘woefully underrepresented’ (Formella et al, 2020). The lack of gender diversity within the economics department at the University of Manchester (UoM) is synonymous with the findings of this report despite UoM striving to ‘employ a workforce and educate a student body that reflects the diverse community we serve’ (UoM, 2021). UoM offers two, single honours, undergraduate economics degrees: BScEcon and BAEcon. The Economics BSc programme has fifteen compulsory modules across first and second year and the Economics BA programme has four. All of the nineteen compulsory modules are taught by men. Furthermore, the majority of optional economics modules are also taught by men – making it very easy for students, through no fault of their own, to experience a three-year undergraduate course, with exclusively male lecturers. Very low or no gender parity within economics departments has major implications on the education of economics students; it limits diversity of thought, excludes the lived experience of half of the population and deters female students from pursuing academic careers. Research by May et al (2018) illustrates the differing views of male and female economists, finding significant...
