Microeconomics

In this initial blog post we wish to situate microeconomics as a field of social enquiry.

The blog is intended for any student taking an advanced microeconomics course, any faculty member teaching such material, or indeed anyone interested in microeconomics and its role in the discipline.

A country that produces goods of high quality at a competitive price is likely to be rewarded for its ingenuity with a trade surplus. Small countries often achieve great development success through export-led growth. At the same time, the entire economic system must be balanced.

What has been learned now that the Euro zone’s fault lines have been revealed? Where are Europe and the Euro zone today?

The Institute joined the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in hosting its third-annual plenary conference in Berlin from April 12-15, 2012.

With my remarks today on financial markets and the financial crisis, I do not make any claims to originality. Rather, they are intended as a reminder of certain circumstances that are already familiar to us, in one form or another.

The global economy is in turmoil. Societies are unstable and not anchored by faith in the system or social order.

The human brain relies on three devices for its decisions: emotion controls; addictive learning; and intellectual processing. Understanding the conditions under which the three devices are engaged is essential for conscious decision-making.

The crisis has exposed the failure of economic models to deal sensibly with endogenously generated crises propagating from the financial sectors to the real economy, and back again.

The theme of this session is very timely and controversial, on the ability of sovereign governments to supervise Large Complex Financial Institutions (LCFIs), now officially described as G-SIFIs, global systemically important financial institutions.

Many companies around the world have discovered they can benefit financially from integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets in their daily operations and strategy.