Dis­co­ver the hid­den rhythms of hete­ro­dox economics—seasonal trends, rare oppor­tu­ni­ties, and cri­ti­cal takes on glo­bal policy shifts.

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As hete­ro­dox eco­no­mists, we are well aware that tem­po­ra­lity and timing are key aspects in eco­no­mic ana­ly­sis. Howe­ver, pro­ba­bly only a few of you are aware of the fact that the mate­rial covered in this news­let­ter occa­sio­nally shows spe­ci­fic and distinct tem­po­ral pat­terns. So let’s reveal a thing or two about the inner rhythm of our work ;-)

Hete­ro­dox Eco­no­mics Newsletter

Der Hete­ro­dox Eco­no­mics News­let­ter wird her­aus­ge­ge­ben von Jakob Kapel­ler und erscheint im drei­wö­chent­li­chen Rhyth­mus mit Neu­ig­kei­ten aus der wis­sen­schaft­li­chen Com­mu­nity mul­ti­pa­ra­dig­ma­ti­scher öko­no­mi­scher Ansätze. Der News­let­ter rich­tet sich an einen Kreis von mehr als 7.000 Empfänger*innen und zählt schon weit mehr als 250 Ausgaben.

For one, there are recur­ring sea­so­nal pat­terns: In April, there are typi­cally fewer con­fe­rence calls, while invi­ta­ti­ons for Sum­mer Schools show a steep rise. Doing jus­tice to this surge, this issue coll­ects seve­ral calls for highly inte­res­t­ing and topi­cally diverse Sum­mer Schools rele­vant for hete­ro­dox eco­no­mic rese­arch and con­cep­tua­li­zing alter­na­tive forms of eco­no­mic orga­niza­tion, which are all lis­ted in the sec­tion on calls for par­ti­ci­pants (moreo­ver, see here for an alter­na­tive edu­ca­tio­nal option).

For ano­ther, we some­ti­mes focus on tem­po­rally rest­ric­ted out­lier-obser­va­tions repre­sen­ting important win­dows of oppor­tu­nity: An exam­ple for such an item is the announce­ment on an expe­ri­men­tal edi­to­rial policy of Eco­no­me­trica, which now invi­tes and allows for comm­ents on recent artic­les with only mini­mal edi­to­rial scree­ning and sel­ec­tion (see here). This expe­ri­ment is dedi­ca­ted to fos­ter inten­si­fied exch­ange, debate, and con­tro­versy among eco­no­mists and ther­eby pro­vi­des an inte­res­t­ing oppor­tu­nity for hete­ro­dox eco­no­mists to engage with and chall­enge main­stream contributions.

Finally, we are – alt­hough gene­ral in out­look – not fully immune to com­ment on dis­cur­sive trends in eco­no­mics and eco­no­mic policy. One such trendy topic in the last months has been US tariff policy. This topic has been addres­sed in recent edi­to­ri­als (see here and here) writ­ten before any con­crete details on the imple­men­ta­tion of Trump’s tariff policy were known. While I surely did not (could not?) cor­rectly anti­ci­pate the degree of con­fu­sion inher­ent in this imple­men­ta­tion, I would assume that the erra­tic and arbi­trary cha­rac­ter of these tariff poli­cies will exa­cer­bate the poten­tial down­si­des men­tio­ned in my past rumblings – a dia­gno­sis also empha­si­zed by pro­ba­bly bet­ter qua­li­fied hete­ro­dox com­men­ta­tors on issues in inter­na­tio­nal trade (see, e.g., here or here).* Moreo­ver, this con­veyed unre­lia­bi­lity rein­forces con­cerns that attack­ing sci­ence, civil rights, and the rule of law could prove detri­men­tal to any eco­no­mic ambi­ti­ons the US might have in the future as it under­mi­nes key sources of the remai­ning com­pa­ra­tive or abso­lute advan­ta­ges of the US in inter­na­tio­nal trade…

All the best,

Jakob
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* To me, it is some­what of a pity that Trump’s demo­li­tion-man policy style could easily give addi­tio­nal cre­di­bi­lity to a (simi­larly naïve) main­stream view, which – fol­lo­wing cano­ni­cal models – empha­si­zes often-invo­ked doc­trine of uni­ver­sal gains from free trade. In a simi­lar vein, this policy curr­ently under­mi­nes Euro­pean efforts to ensure human rights and envi­ron­men­tal pre­ser­va­tion across glo­bal sup­ply chains. From a hete­ro­dox per­spec­tive, one might argue that per­sis­tent tech­no­lo­gi­cal asym­me­tries, the power of mul­ti­na­tio­nal cor­po­ra­ti­ons, the inter­na­tio­nal finan­cial archi­tec­ture of tax eva­sion, and the poten­tial dis­in­te­gra­tion of dome­stic mar­kets as eco­no­mies open to glo­bal com­pe­ti­tion all serve as good reason to dis­cuss how to sen­si­bly regu­late inter­na­tio­nal trade using tariffs as one tra­di­tio­nal tool. By tying tariffs to other intui­ti­ons asso­cia­ted with Trump, like tyranny, con­fu­sion, and incon­sis­tency, the for­mer are put in a much more shady light as is jus­ti­fied by his­to­ri­cally infor­med and dif­fe­ren­tia­ted analysis.
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