{
  "title": "Rethinking Economics",
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  "summary": "The pandemic tests a new policymaking benchmark that includes civil society and social norms, writes Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Pandemic as a test of economic paradigms",
      "content": "- The pandemic adds health risk to low pay for many \"essential\" workers (eldercare, supermarkets, distribution warehouses, meat-packing plants, restaurants), forcing wrenching choices between livelihood and health.\n- The crisis makes ethical concerns unavoidable for economics and highlights that \"market failure is now the norm not the exception,\" rendering the standard economic model anachronistic.\n- The pandemic and the climate emergency have increased disenchantment with laissez-faire individualism and neoliberal assumptions."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Evidence from students and emerging pedagogy",
      "content": "- Between 2016 and 2020, authors surveyed 9,032 students in 18 countries at the start of their introductory economics course about the most pressing problems economists should address.\n- Students most frequently cited inequality, climate change, and unemployment as top issues of concern.\n- A \"new benchmark model\" is increasingly taught and is encouraging young people concerned about these issues to remain in economics."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Components of a new benchmark economic model",
      "content": "- The new model must take positions on:\n  - the economy as part of the social system and biosphere;\n  - representations of people as economic actors and decision makers;\n  - the key institutions governing interactions; and\n  - the characteristics of underlying technologies.\n- The behavioral revolution contributes key insights:\n  - People are neither omniscient nor entirely self-interested; they are influenced by \"moral sentiments\" (dignity, ethical convictions, concern for others, altruism, reciprocity, parochial intolerance, tribal hostility).\n- Contract incompleteness is central:\n  - Most contracts are incomplete; effects on others not covered by contracts are the rule.\n  - Incomplete contracts lead to consequences such as persistent excess supply or demand in competitive markets.\n  - Employers may pay wages above the worker's next best alternative, creating a rent that disciplines worker effort by threat of job loss.\n  - Interactions are governed by a combination of contract, social norms, and exercise of power (employer power, lender power)."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Normative frameworks and historical paradigms",
      "content": "- Successful economic paradigms paired economic models with moral frameworks and emblematic policies that entered everyday discourse:\n  - Classical liberalism combined commitments to order, equal dignity, anti-paternalistic liberty, utilitarianism with competitive markets, division of labor, specialization; hallmark policies included free trade and antitrust.\n  - Keynesianism paired egalitarian commitments (reducing insecurity, raising incomes of the less well-off) with propositions about saving behavior, automatic stabilizers, and aggregate demand; emblematic policies included government programs and trade union bargaining.\n  - Neoliberalism advanced \"freedom from\" government coercion and a procedural view of justice, tied to a model of individualistic, amoral agents interacting via exchange in competitive markets under complete contracts; emblematic policies included school vouchers and negative income tax."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy space expanded by social motivations and institutions",
      "content": "- Conventional one-dimensional policy continua (e.g., carbon tax and dividend versus cap and trade) are too narrow because they assume sufficient information and efficacy of solely market or government mechanisms.\n- A three-pole policy framework integrates government, markets, and civil society; policies can lie inside the triangle and combine:\n  - state capacity,\n  - market mechanisms,\n  - social norms and civil society action.\n- Examples:\n  - Vaccine response: research, production, distribution, and population coverage can be coordinated by mixes of government, market, and civil society mechanisms.\n  - Worker protections during pandemics: expanding workers' individual rights on the job and providing support for those who stay home to minimize epidemic spread."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Analytical and policy implications",
      "content": "- Incorporating motivations such as commitment to justice, dignity, and voice opens a broader set of policy options that include reshaping rules via market instruments, government action, private power restrictions, and strengthening social norms.\n- Recognizing power transfers in employment contracts (transfer of power from worker to employer) gives policymakers a framework to address the plight of low-paid essential workers forced to choose between livelihood and health.\n- Ethical considerations—fairness and solidarity—even among strangers are central to policy debates (e.g., vaccine priority, definitions of \"essential\" work).\n- The new benchmark model integrates ethical concerns with an economic model suited to a world connected by markets, contracts, private power, infection spread, biosphere effects, in-group ties, and concern for the common good.\n\nSource: Rethinking Economics — IMF F&D (SAMUEL BOWLES, WENDY CARLIN, March 2021).\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- إعادة النظر في النظام الاقتصادي\n  - إعادة النظر في النظام الاقتصادي (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - إعادة النظر في النظام الاقتصادي (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 经济学反思 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷\n  - 经济学反思 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 经济学反思 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Rethinking Economics – IMF F&D\n  - Rethinking Economics – IMF F&D (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Rethinking Economics – IMF F&D (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Replanteamiento económico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021\n  - Replanteamiento económico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Replanteamiento económico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Переосмысление постковидной экономики – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года\n  - Переосмысление постковидной экономики – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Переосмысление постковидной экономики – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2021/03/rethinking-economics-by-samuel-bowles-and-wendy-carlin"
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    "Authors: SAMUEL BOWLES, WENDY CARLIN",
    "Published: March 1, 2021",
    "The pandemic adds health risk to low pay for many \"essential\" workers (eldercare, supermarkets, distribution warehouses, meat-packing plants, restaurants), forcing wrenching choices between livelihood and health.",
    "The crisis makes ethical concerns unavoidable for economics and highlights that \"market failure is now the norm not the exception,\" rendering the standard economic model anachronistic.",
    "The pandemic and the climate emergency have increased disenchantment with laissez-faire individualism and neoliberal assumptions.",
    "Between 2016 and 2020, authors surveyed 9,032 students in 18 countries at the start of their introductory economics course about the most pressing problems economists should address.",
    "Students most frequently cited inequality, climate change, and unemployment as top issues of concern.",
    "A \"new benchmark model\" is increasingly taught and is encouraging young people concerned about these issues to remain in economics.",
    "The new model must take positions on:",
    "The behavioral revolution contributes key insights:",
    "Contract incompleteness is central:",
    "Successful economic paradigms paired economic models with moral frameworks and emblematic policies that entered everyday discourse:",
    "Conventional one-dimensional policy continua (e.g., carbon tax and dividend versus cap and trade) are too narrow because they assume sufficient information and efficacy of solely market or government mechanisms.",
    "A three-pole policy framework integrates government, markets, and civil society; policies can lie inside the triangle and combine:",
    "Examples:",
    "Incorporating motivations such as commitment to justice, dignity, and voice opens a broader set of policy options that include reshaping rules via market instruments, government action, private power restrictions, and strengthening social norms.",
    "Recognizing power transfers in employment contracts (transfer of power from worker to employer) gives policymakers a framework to address the plight of low-paid essential workers forced to choose between livelihood and health.",
    "Ethical considerations—fairness and solidarity—even among strangers are central to policy debates (e.g., vaccine priority, definitions of \"essential\" work).",
    "The new benchmark model integrates ethical concerns with an economic model suited to a world connected by markets, contracts, private power, infection spread, biosphere effects, in-group ties, and concern for the common good.",
    "**إعادة النظر في النظام الاقتصادي**",
    "**经济学反思 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷**",
    "**Rethinking Economics – IMF F&D**",
    "**Replanteamiento económico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021**",
    "**Переосмысление постковидной экономики – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года**"
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