Mats Lundahl

Gustav Cassel once declared that his production was so extensive and widespread that no one would be able to write his complete biography. Much the same could be said about his favourite student and successor as professor at Stockholm University, Gunnar Myrdal—1051 publications up to 1976 (Bohrn, 1976)—with the addition that this task is perhaps even harder in view of everything that has been written about Myrdal. Nonetheless, a Myrdal biography is now available, written by Claes Berg, former chief economist at the Swedish Riksbank.

We explore the challenges facing the current academic training of economists in small European countries such as Sweden. The monolithic focus on publishing in the top-ve journals, which prioritizes methodological rigor over problem-driven research, is often a threat to social relevance and policy applicability. This limits pluralism, excludes many talented economists, and fails to prepare graduates for nonacademic positions. We propose a two-track model for PhD training and academic evaluation, emphasizing both traditional research and applied economic policy, tailored to the diverse needs of academia, public administration, and business. We also argue for broader evaluation criteria, enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration, and institutional reforms, including trial lectures and specialized research institutes. By diversifying incentives, we recommend a shift towards socially relevant and more inclusive education and practice in the discipline of economics.

Recently, the incentive structure facing doctoral students and researchers in economics has changed significantly in many European countries as a result of the adoption of the US approach to evaluating research output. This poses a threat to the development and position of the subject of economics in Europe since evaluation for promotion is characterised by an excessive focus on publishing in the five most highly ranked journals, all but one located in the United States. However, the probability of getting an article into the top five is low and the social cost of the promotion system is consequently high. Promotion criteria other than just top-five publications should be used as a guide.

We explore the challenges facing the current academic training of economists in small European countries like Sweden. The monolithic focus on publishing in the top-five journals, which prioritizes methodological rigor over problem-driven research, is often a threat to social relevance and policy applicability. This limits pluralism, excludes many talented economists, and fails to prepare graduates for non-academic positions. We propose a two-track model for PhD training and academic evaluation, emphasizing both traditional research and applied economic policy, tailored to the diverse needs of academia, public administration and business sectors. We also argue for broader evaluation criteria, enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration, and institutional reforms, including trial lectures and specialized research institutes. By diversifying incentives, we recommend a shift towards socially relevant and more inclusive education and practice in the discipline of economics.

Under senare tid har incitamentsstrukturen för doktorander och forskare i nationalekonomi kraftigt förändrats. Förändringen utgör ett hot mot ämnets framtida utveckling och ställning i vårt land. Inom dagens svenska nationalekonomiforskning präglas meritvärderingen av ett alltför stort fokus på att publicera i de fem högst rankade tidskrifterna. Sannolikheten att få in en artikel i topp fem är dock låg och den samhällsekonomiska kostnaden för befordringssystemet, i termer av utslagning, är följaktligen hög. Andra befordringskriterier än enbart topp fem-publiceringar bör vara vägledande. En ökad bredd bland forskande ekonomer gynnar svensk nationalekonomi på sikt.

Gustav Cassel förklarade en gång att hans produktion var så omfattande och spridd över världen att ingen skulle kunna skriva hans kompletta biografi. Detsamma kan sägas om hans favoritelev och efterträdare som professor vid Stockholms högskola Gunnar Myrdal – 1 051 alster fram till 1976 (Bohrn 1976) – med tillägg att den uppgiften torde vara än svårare med tanke på allt som skrivits om Myrdal. Inte desto mindre föreligger nu en välkommen svenskspråkig Myrdalbiografi, författad av Claes Berg, tidigare chefsekonom på Riksbanken.

The present book collects four essays around the common theme of Caribbean radicalism. It deals with three modern Marxists and a religious visionary who was active during the early twentieth century. The first essay is about the classic chronicle of the Haitian revolution by C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins, specifically about the role and ideology of Toussaint Louverture. The second chapter outlines the views of Clive Thomas about the economic problems of the West Indies and his idea for change from what he perceived as a position of dependence. The third essay examines the analysis by Gérard Pierre-Charles of the predatory regimes of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti: the rise, characteristics and effects of 'Papadocracy', and presents his own solution of the crisis in Haiti which had gradually built up during the 1960s. Finally, the chapter on Olivorio Mateo relates how he founded a religious movement in the Dominican republic, how this was suppressed by the U.S. Marines in 1922, how the movement resurfaced at the beginning of the 1960s and how it was massacred by the Dominican military. It stresses the importance of economic factors for the success of the movement.

Inequality is ubiquitous in time and space. It is often measured simply as differences in incomes between various groups, but the phenomenon is more complex than so. Inequality is a many-faceted phenomenon that manifests itself in a number of ways. It shows up in a variety of contexts, for example gender, age, origin, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, class, religion and place. The present book is mainly about how the economy is shaped in such a way as to generate differences in economic and social welfare between individuals, regions and nations. However, we feel that the attention cannot be limited simply to economics. Thus, our chapters cover a broad spectrum. The book begins with a section that highlights some of the 'traditional' features of inequality: class and gender. The second section deals with the manifestation of inequality in terms of incomes and wealth differences. Thereafter, we turn to the causes of inequality. The third section explores the effects of discrimination and plunder (by those in power). The final section serves to drive home the point that geographic and institutional factors have an important place as well when it comes to shedding light on what equality is, how it manifests itself, and which its consequences are.

In ‘Discrimination as a Determinant of Economic Inequality’, Ali Ahmed, Mats Lundahl, and Eskil Wadensjö examine how economic theory can be used to unearth the mechanisms to produce discrimination and inequality, to identify the winners and losers from it, and to construct recipes for the eradication of discrimination. They stress the fact that economics is far from a unified social science and hence the need to apply different theories as different situations call for it. Two notorious cases are examined: the South African apartheid system and the American discrimination of blacks by whites. The chapter ends with an examination of a number of contemporary cases of ethnic discrimination of minorities.