Economics, an Uncertain Glory

Vikas Kumar ()
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Vikas Kumar: Azim Premji University

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, 2016, vol. 33, issue 4, No 4, 332 pages

Abstract: Abstract In What Is Wrong with the West’s Economies, Edmund Phelps adds to the growing self-criticism of economics. He argues that Western economies no longer support “good life” as they are neither inclusive, nor innovative. The “suppression of innovation by vested [corporate] interests” and “repression of potential innovators by families and schools” are responsible for the sorry state of Western economies. He adds that the “failing in the West’s economies is also a failing of [West’s] economics” and calls for “a modern economics that places imagination and creativity at the center of economic life”. I argue that Phelps misdiagnoses the problem. The lack of encouragement to innovation is not the main shortcoming of economics; rather it is a manifestation of deeper problems. Economics can be rejuvenated only when both teachers-cum-researchers and students alike drop their statistical-mathematical glasses and step back into real space and historical time.

Keywords: Econometrics; Game theory; Innovation; Labour; Language; Mathematical models; Statistics; Unemployment; Urbanisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 A2 B4 C18 C70 C83 J6 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1007/s41412-016-0018-z

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