Economic Rockstar

Connecting Brilliant Minds in Economics and Finance

157: François Allisson on Value and Prices in Russian Economic Thought

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157: François Allisson on Value and Prices in Russian Economic Thought

François Allisson is a scholar in history of economic thought and a senior lecturer at the Centre Walras-Pareto at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

His research interests encompass the whole history of Russian economic thought, with a special emphasis on the theories of value and prices at the end of the imperial period and the beginning of the Soviet era ( which covers the years from the 1870s to the 1920s).

Francois’s interests int the theories of value, distribution, money, crises, accumulation of capital and planning lead him to study various schools of economic thought and classical political economy as well as Marxism, and marginalism.

His book Value and Prices in Russian Economic Thought was awarded the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) Best Book Award in 2016.

Francois is now engaged in a collective project intending towards an intellectual biography of Nikolay Ivanovich Sieber (1844–1888), a Swiss and Russian economist

His teaching activities include a course on the history of contemporary economic thought, which covers the history of macroeconomics since Keynes’s General Theory, in both mainstream and heterodox traditions.

Francois was recently elected Vice-President of the International Walras Association. Among other activities, he is General Secretary of the Association Charles Gide (the French association for history of economic thought) and a Managing Editor of Œconomia.

Talk about economic thought during the 1890s to 1920s and the Russian economists of the time.

About the classical theory of pricing based on the value of labour and how that has changed since the preferred neoclassical marginal revolution in pricing theory that we know of today.

Links:

Books:

Patreon

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119: Best of 2016 Part 1

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119: Best of 2016 Part 1

During the year I had the absolute honor to converse with some of the brightest minds in economics. They shared their thinking, research and teaching methods with me and I personally learned a lot from them. I hope that you benefited from these conversations too.

It was difficult to choose who to include, or more accurately who to leave out. I decided on a number of common themes for this ‘Best of 2016’ episode. So I hope you enjoy these sound bites and if you’re new to the show, I hope that this episode will give you a taste of the content in the catalogue of episodes that lie await for you on the Economic Rockstar podcast. Enjoy!

The following are the episodes that I have chosen to include this year:

068: Daron Acemoglu Inequality, Philanthropy, Inclusive Institutions and Creative Destruction.

108 Steve Horwitz on the Micro Foundations of Macroeconomics and What Caused the Great Recession.

088 Denise Cummins Reciprocity and Fairness.

069 Diane Coyle GDP, the Happiness Index, the Human Development Index, The Soulful Science and How Very Human a Science Good Economics is by Being Concerned About Improving the Well-Being of People.

104 Russ Roberts Definition of Economics, Adam Smith and Happiness.

082 Peter Boettke Hayek and Keynes.

085 Michael Roberts Capitalism, Marxism, Protecting Resources and Ecology.

081 Julie Nelson Ecology and Gender.

114 Deirdre McCloskey The change that brought about the equality of liberalism and her gender transformation.

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111: Greg Mankiw on Writing, Carbon Tax, Health Care and Education at the Economics Teaching Conference in Florida 2016

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111: Greg Mankiw on Writing, Carbon Tax, Health Care and Education at the Economics Teaching Conference in Florida 2016

greg-mankiw-and-frank-conway-economic-rockstar-01

Greg Mankiw is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. His research includes work on price adjustment, consumer behavior, financial markets, monetary and fiscal policy, and economic growth.

He has written two popular textbooks—the intermediate-level textbook Macroeconomics and the introductory textbook Principles of Economics. Principles of Economics has sold over two million copies and has been translated into twenty languages.

In addition to his teaching, research, and writing, Professor Mankiw has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an adviser to the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York, and a member of the ETS test development committee for the advanced placement exam in economics. From 2003 to 2005 he served as Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

I sometimes describe myself as a libertarian at the margin. When I take the libertarian party, they seem a little to extreme for me. But given where we’re starting today, I think a little bit more reliance on free markets, individual responsibility and personal liberty will be a good thing – Greg Mankiw.

Economics:

In this episode, Greg discusses and mentions: New Keynesian economics, micrcofoundations to macroeconomics, rational expectations, real business cycles, stochastic DSG models, Pigou Tax, carbon tax, externalities, refundable tax credits, subsidies, healthcare, inequality, unintended consequences, student debt and the Baumol disease.

Economists:

In this episode, Greg discusses and mentions: Richard Lispey, Peter Steiner, Harvey Rosen (Princeton), John Maynard Keynes, James Tobin, Stanley Fischer, Tom Sargeant, Robert Lucas, Alan Blinder, David Romer, Olivier Blanchard, Janet Yellen, Arthur Pigou, Karl Marx, Adam Smith and John Kenneth Galbraith

On Writing Books:

  • It does require a fair amount of discipline. That’s the hardest part. I have friends who try to write who have said ‘I’m behind schedule and I’m going to spend the weekend writing three chapters’. That’s a recipe for failure.
  • I try to be extremely disciplined about my writing. When I’m writing the books, I wake up and, after I send my kids off to school, it’s the first thing I do everyday.
  • I force myself to basically write two pages every day. Two pages is not that much. But if you write literally two pages every single day for a year – 365 days – that’d be a good-sized book at the end of the year. So that’s the hardest part – staying disciplined and keeping at it everyday.

On Pedagogy and Technology:

The technology has changed radically [since the first edition of Mankiw’s Intermediate Macro book]. The pedagogy is electronic where increasingly the number of people using online books has been rising. I’m actually kind of old-fashioned – a bit of a Luddite when it comes to these things but actually for the first time this year at Harvard we’re using the online book with the MindTap product.

Links:

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085: Michael Roberts on Understanding Karl Marx and His Thinking on Capitalism

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085: Michael Roberts on Understanding Karl Marx and His Thinking on Capitalism

Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts has worked as an economist for over 30 years in the City of London. He is author of The Great Recession: Profit cycles, economic crisis A Marxist View and The Long Depression: Marxism and the Global Crisis of Capitalism.

Economics:

In this episode, Michael mentions: Marxism, capitalism, Austrian economics, GDP, multinationals, inflation, printing of money, booms, busts, profitability, recession, depression, inequality, wealth, means of production, private property, competition, externalities, unintended consequences, bailout, austerity and unemployment.

Economists:

In this episode, Michael mentions: Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Brad DeLong and Paul Mattick.

Links:

Books:

 

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084: Mises v Marx: A Discussion with Peter Boettke

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084: Mises v Marx: A Discussion with Peter Boettke

Mises V Marx

In this episode, Professor Peter Boettke, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, discusses the thinking of Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx. Peter highlights the underlying theses behind both economists arguments – liberalism and socialism.

Read the first chapter to Living Economics by Peter Boettke here.

Economics:

In this episode, Peter mentions: Austrian economics, Marxism, liberalism, socialism, the Diamond-Water Paradox, instability of capitalism, private ownership, communal ownership, monopoly, financial crisis, leverage, 

Economists:

In this episode, Peter mentions: Ludwig von Mises, Karl Marx, Milton Friedman, Joan Robinson, Rosa Luxemburg, Elinor Ostrom, Adam Smith, F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, John Cochrane, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and J. K. Galbraith.

Books:

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