The following question was mailed to me. I leave it to others to answer:
I love discussing economics/political economy but I don't have any qualifications in this area. I have a PhD in English Literature but I almost wish I hadn't bothered. Were I to go back to uni to do an economics masters where would I go? I know you might want to advocate for your new university (City issn't it?) but London is a no-go for many people including myself.
So which university offers enough of a rounded economics education - neo-classical to understand modern discourse, alternatives such as Keynesian, institutional, Austrian etc., some economic history, and some history of political economy ( for instance Physiocrats Smith, Ricardo,Marx, Marshall and so on) - to produce a graduate with enough flexibility of thought to make doing it worthwhile for a mature student who doesn't intend to join the economics rat race?
The questioner is someone I know is serious.
Please feel free to comment.
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LSE? A lot of different economists there.
I know people with LSE degrees-none would say it was a ’rounded’ course unless things have changed recently.
Kingston Surrey Stephen Keen
tho’ it may be too near London
If you’ve already done a Ph.D then you can probably just read up on it and educate yourself to that level unless you need the structure to motivate.
A lot of economics courses are largely about econometrics rather than the historical/comparative side you are looking for.
best book I’ve come across so far which does some comparative analysis is: Macroeconomics, Galbraith.J/W. Darity
Does one need “qualifications”? Could be useful if your are looking for a teaching post-depends on what you want it for.
Warwick is pretty good. Also not too mathematical. If you want economic history then Cambridge. Hard to get much about heterodox schools anywhere, Steve Keen is at Kingston for Post-Keynesianism but hard to find anything about Austrians. NMT is also hard over here.
Warwick PE is good
So is Shffield for PE
I’m biased, because I live in Norwich, but I’m pretty sure the University of East Anglia would be a good choice.
Outrageous bias Andrew!
Lovely campus
I don’t think you will get any useful information about economics from schools, unis., etc. as I haver found that they (and I have asked many MPs and economists) do not know the, literally. first thing about it, namely, the answer to ‘what is the fundamental/primary source of economic wealth.’
This should be the first subject in Economics 101 which would take about 30 seconds to deal with.
Good luck.
I’d second the Kingston uni with Steve Keen but if that’s too close to London perhaps Southhampton Uni and Professor Richard Werner at Centre of Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development
Why does s/he want to do a Masters? Someone who has been used to self motivation/organising in doing a PhD would be unlikely to find teaching themself difficult… or failing that do a few courses at the OU. Unless there is a specific requirement for a masters in economics, why spend the astronomical fees on a piece of paper?
You may be asking for too much in a single masters degree if you want to cover everything from classical political economy through to contemporary neoclassical economics but perhaps Kingston’s MA Political Economy would be of interest. Otherwise I’d suggest looking beyond economics if you want to explore political economy and heterodox schools, e.g. politics and international relations, geography, or possibly sociology departments.
I am inclined to agree with your conclusions
Pure economics rarely addresses enough economic thought and offers too much maths for an interested person of the type who asked
If you can’t get to MIssouri or Darwin I would check out Stephen Kinsella in Ireland (either Limerick or Dublin I think)
An interesting question.
I have been interested in economics since before doing my BA in Housing Management & Development in London between 1994 – 2000 as a mature student (this also involved doing an access course in the built environment, hence nearly 6 years at Uni).
I have also just completed a part-time MBA at the University of Derby that I started in 2007.
So, I have spent a lot of time in libraries since 1994 not only reading up on my subject matter but also sneaking into the economics sections of the university libraries I have had access to as and plumbing the depths of Emerald and EBSCO online periodicals on the subject. Economics has always been my intellectual ‘bit on the side’ (please pardon the terminology Richard).
I was motivated to get into economics when I read a lecture by J K Galbraith for Cardiff Law School (or society – I still have it somewhere). I was in the throes of being made redundant for the second time of my (then) young life and had been beating myself up about making the wrong life choices, not working hard enough at school, being ginger etc. At the time I felt rather hopeless. What he said resonated with me then and still does.
What I realised was that it wasn’t actually my fault – I’d always worked hard and was reliable. The forces causing my personal economic woes were beyond my control and not always rational. So my journey into economics began with Galbraith. Two years later I took the plunge and went back to Uni. And I kept reading as well as fulfilling my studies (a First in my BA(Hons) and a Distinction in my MBA later).
I would say this to the person who has made this enquiry: Be warned – a lot of orthodox neo-liberal economics is taught in universities and it is still dominant. I also hear the more aware and less orthodox, real-world economists being very down on their own profession. One of them once called economics ‘the dismal science’. Forget the science – a lot of it has proven to be just dismal.
Remember that very few so-called economists saw the last crash coming. Even the Queen asked them about why this was so – allegedly. They could not answer. The profession has never been so low and must bear the blame for much of today’s economic woes.
In my opinion this failure is because economists deluded themselves into thinking that economics is a predictive science based on mathematical formulae (logic) when in fact all it really does is offer an explanation of observable human behaviour around money or even greed (a form of sociology involving finance). And the explanation comes after the fact – not before. Real economists (Stiglitz, Keen, Krugman, Chang and many others) always look back and explain. They may ruminate about the future but will not offer as much certainty going forward as those from the Chicago school.
A player at my rugby club is a student at a well known Uni’ in Manchester – he tells me that all he does is maths! There is very little debate or philosophy. No wonder economics students have been asking searching questions of their economic faculties.
Perhaps the greatest economist ever – John Maynard Keynes – realised that when economic conditions change, the economists must adjust their theories and policies. Similarly, in the study of management, we talk of ‘situational leadership’ – adopting the right style and approach in a given situation. Modern neo-liberal dominated economics does not work like this, unfortunately. All you get is something called TINA.
So my advice is not to study economics at all within a formal academic setting. Save yourself some money and time and just get some books and start reading. Or visit the blogs of these people and this one here of course! This way you will make up your own mind – you may end up being heterodox rather than binding yourself to ONE orthodoxy. By studying it yourself you will be free, broad minded and keeping it real . In short you’ll be a mensch – a much nicer, effective person.
If you are still hell-bent on studying, see if Richard’s course is available as a distance learning course on line from his University.
The only other person I can think of is Ha-Joon Chang but I think he teaches at Cambridge. That’s a tough one. Mind you his recent book ‘Economics: A Users Guide’ is a great place to start your journey.
Good luck.
Thanks
Just to say I enjoyed reading your contribution.Good to know that “situational leadership” exists somewhere!
I’d be interested to know if this “Pilgrim” is still involved with housing projects in the Derby area, and how he feels that these new ideas of Richards’ could affect housing positively.
I have invited John Christensen, co-founder of Tax Research UK to speak at Brety Rotary Club meeting (Burton-on-Trent)at the beginning of October. I have a guest from Mears Housing group coming along.
On the matter of education in this new philosophy, I would love to have a simple course, without the detailed history, but enough to illustrate to some extent what the positive and negative outcomes may be from previous civilisations.
I feel that we need to concentrate on the essential points, to remember them with accuracy, and to be able to convey them to as many other people as possible
University of Leeds offers such courses: may be difficult to enter directly onto masters without some background in economics.
Malcolm Sawyer
(Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Leeds)
Thanks Malcolm
And greetings
He or she needs to be able to integrate a consumption function and understand some statistical tools like the chi-squared test.
If he doesn’t have an A-level in mathematics he will find economics as a student really hard, but as the ahem workers under the railway arches I frequent say ‘hard is good’.
And Stock Flow Consistent economic modelling.
That’s the sort of junk that defines a failed technocracy – and I know ‘coz I’ve done it.
How about getting a job? Don’t we have enough Economists to change a light bulb?
Where in the post above does it say the person doesn’t have a job? He also stated he doesn’t want to be part of the economics profession. So what is the point of your comment?
He doesn’t have a point. He can’t even articulate a cliche.
Apparently, the university of kansas missouri has some good economists that have been advocating and improving MMT for a while. One of the professors, stephanie kelton, is on the economic advisory of a recent US presidential candidate,Bernie Sanders.
You can also check out andrew graham’s work in oxford university. He seems to be fairly open minded. For example watch the last video on here – http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/gallery/2015/mar/29/whats-wrong-with-the-economy/
You can also ask lars syll if you are interested in going Europe.
And for the history of economic thought, Robert Heilbroner and Philip Mirowski’s(university of Notre Dame) work is great. Not sure if their university courses are though.
The fool’s gold blog has professors and academics from warwick which is fairly inexpensive to live in.
Is anyone at Cardif University open to heterodox economics ideas?
I guess Patrick Minford is out!
Here is the faculty….
http://business.cardiff.ac.uk/research/economics/faculty
Put simply, your friend wants Political Economy, not Economics. Economics will include a lot of largely unnecessary maths, modelling & econometrics rubbish that will kill his appreciation and enthusiasm. If they don’t crush your soul in the undergraduate phase they’ll get you good and hard in the post-grad.
That’s part of the reason they include that stuff – to eliminate the classical scholars and encourage the mindless technocrats.
Then again, I may be in a slightly irritable mood today, but there is still a large amount of truth in this statement.
There is a large amount of truth in your statement
Well said.
The suggestion of studying political economics is a sound one. My advice is to not go to any university. You have been there and done that. Instead read up equally and selectively on macroeconomics and microeconomics. Then choose which you would find most useful and interesting, i.e. microeconomics, especially the study of how organisations really work, economically. But this is only my very biased (but correct) viewpoint.
At the same time stay with the blogs: Richard for the macro stuff and Gordon Pearson’s blog for the micro in the first place.
Then apply phenomenology and decide your methodology – inductive or deductive. Inductive will allow you to form your own theory (s), which is fun. Deductive will give you the opportunity to test/challenge the theories of others.
Recommended authors are: Polanyi, Joan Woodward, Gordon Pearson and, of course, Richard Murphy. But, to get a firm underpinning, I recommend Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics, which is available free as a pdf. Although it came out in the late 1800’s it is a great primer, even today. (Keynes was a student.) He writes clearly and wryly, which should appeal to your first discipline.
I like that
If I wew to start studying again, given what I know now, I agree with not going to Uni and would start with Wynne Godley and Mac Lavoie’s Monetary Economics. 2007. (Also available as a pdf) Why ?
Because it adopts a fully integrated accounting approach to economic modelling that provides a coherent macro monetary framework.
You can still choose your own behavioural and subjective functions for consumption, production, inflation etc but they are all subject to the real constraints of the various sectors of Govt, private banking, Businesses and households. Every financial asset comes from somewhere and goes to somewhere subject to those constraints. Full double entry consistency.
Something mainstream economics has totally missed.
Wynne Godley created the idea of sectoral balancing
Vital stuff