Heterodox Economics Newsletter

Issue 269 September 28, 2020 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory

Notwithstanding the fact that we live in a time of crisis, I have to admit that I have a lot to cheer about these days.

For one, the long-time home-base of this Newsletter – the Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy (ICAE) at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria) – celebrated it's 10th anniversary last week. Since its foundation in response to the global financial crisis a decade ago, the ICAE has grown to be one of the main hubs for research in heterodox economics and political economy in the german-speaking area. In case you are interested in who we are and what we do, simply check out our website, where you can find information on our team, recent research projects and take a peek into our working paper series.

For another, it is a great pleasure for me to report that the 2020 Kurt Rothschild Prize has been awarded to my friend and colleague Achim Truger from the Institute for Socioeconomics at University Duisburg-Essen for his work on dysfunctional constraints in fiscal policy in general and the German "debt brake" in particular. In his capacity as a member of the German council of economic experts, Achim shows a strong commitment to bring some sanity to the German policy debate and always goes the extra-mile to make alternatives in economic policy and theory visible to as many people as possible (you can follow him on Twitter here).

Finally, I am personally super-happy about the development of our new MA program in Socio-Economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Actually we had more than 200 applicants within the first year – which not only indicates the attractiveness of our program, but also subtly points to the fact that there are too few places and institutions trying to develop alternative approaches towards educating future economists. However, as in most academic settings, this strong demand is not necessarily met by a corresponding increase in supply; rather the surge in students will force us to increase the entry-barriers for our program. To me this is a pity and the (legally enforced) downside of all this, simply because I would love to see even more students in our lectures. Unsurprisingly, I would much prefer a scenario, in which we were allowed to increase supply to actually meet demand...

All the best,
Jakob

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