Find out about latest publications, news and current events.
Webinar: 3000 Years of Discrimination and Counting: How Caste Still Matters in the Indian Credit Sector
Speaker
Dr Navjot Sangwan
Abstract
The caste system has dominated the social, political and economic lives of Indian people for over three thousand years. Since independence, the Indian government has introduced a flood of quotas, schemes and affirmative action to tackle caste discrimination. Can seventy years of government policy reverse three thousand years of oppression? Taking a close look at the country's credit system reveals that a new, more subtle, and less overt form of discrimination appears to be emerging, and becoming more widespread. This paper examines whether caste-based differences influence the amount of credit sanctioned to borrowers in India utilising data from the India Human Development Survey collected in 2005 and 2011-12. Using the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method, along with the Heckman procedure and the instrumental variable approach to correct for selection and simultaneity bias, I find substantial credit differentials between the general caste and other lower castes. I also show evidence of caste discrimination against the lower castes. The results of this research have been complemented by qualitative data gathered from interviewing lower caste borrowers in North India to understand the nature of discrimination and obstacles faced by them in the credit sector.
Time: Tuesday 8th December, 3.30pm
Click here to join the meeting [no need to sign up]
Working paper: PDF
Further details: here
Webinar: COVID-19, ecological, economic, social and financial sustainability
The scale of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic impact is unprecedented. Yet, even before the public health crisis struck, there were serious questions about the ecological, financial and social sustainability of our economy.
As economists from the Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre and the Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA), we are hosting a series of webinars exploring the economic challenges of our time: from COVID-19 to the ecological, financial and social sustainability of modern capitalism.
Every Thursday at 3pm, a leading researcher from our research centre will run a free online seminar on their area of expertise, to help us make sense of these tumultuous times.
May 21: Fighting the COVID-19 emergency and relaunching the European economy: debt monetization and recovery bonds. Presentation slides | Video
May 28: Investing in social infrastructure and equality: lessons for macroeconomic policy from the pandemic Presentation slides | Video
June 4: COVID-19 and the public finances: Another ten years of austerity? Presentation slides | Video
June 11: Class in the time of COVID-19: how the crisis has exposed class divides Presentation slides | Video
June 18: Greening the Bank of England COVID-19 QE programme Presentation slides | Video
June 22: Cooperatives: democracy, equality, and efficiency
July 2: Reflections on innovation policy after Covid-19: What does the microeconometric evidence tell us? Presentation slides
July 9: The political economy of income distribution – why is income inequality increasing and what can we do about it? Presentation slides | Video
July 14: Is the European Green Deal ambitious enough? Presentation slides | Video
In relation to the European Green Deal, please find two recent papers connected to European energy policy from GPERC academic Dr Yuliya Yurchenko Paper 1 | Paper 2
To see a more information on each event and to register please follow the link here.
Postponed: Rethinking Economics 2020: salvage the future
The future is uncertain. From ecological breakdown to precarious work, many people feel that business as usual is leading us towards a dead end. However, despite all the pessimism and fear, young people across the globe are demanding change - on the streets and in the classroom.
While dissenting students in economics have raised an unlimited number of questions about the future, answers from the mainstream remain scarce. Is our economics education fit to meet the challenges of the coming decade? What economic issues are behind this sense of decline? And do we need systemic change to salvage the future? On March 28 2020, Rethinking Economics Greenwich (REG) will host a festival of ideas to tackle these questions.
- Time: Saturday 28 March 10am to 6pm
- Location: Room QA080, Queen Anne Court, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich
- Tickets: Tickets are free but please sign up here, where you will find more information about speakers, location and details.
European Green Deal: From ambitions to reality
PEGFA researcher Dr Rafael Wildauer is presenting a policy paper on the European Green Deal. This is the first output from a larger project together with the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, the Karl Renner Institute and the Chamber of Labour Vienna. The policy paper analyses the current proposals around the European Green Deal and compares them with the current scientific evidence coming out of climate science. Julia Herr, member of the Austrian Parliament and Niels Fuglsang, member of the European Parliament will provide a political assessment.
Please find the full programme here and register here.
International Cooperative Webinar
The Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA), in association with the African Cooperative union, is hosting an International Cooperative Webinar on Saturday 20th June.
The conference will take the form of four plenaries: The first will feature presentations from leading academics on cooperative economics and African peoples' empowerment. In the second, practitioner organisations involved in promoting African peoples' economic empowerment in the UK will speak about what they do. The third plenary will be devoted to institutions that provide technical of financial support to cooperatives. In the final plenary, which will be a 'meeting of the whole' those present will be invited to explore strategies to raise the level of cooperation among African people's cooperatives in the UK.
Speakers
Keynote: Professor Jessica Gordon-Nembhard | "The African American Cooperative Empowerment Experience"
Professor Esther Gicheru | Cooperative University of Keyna | "The Keynan Cooperative Experience"
Professor Gibril Faal | LSE | "The African Diaspora Experience in the UK and Continental Connections"
Professor Kehinde Andrews | Birmingham City University and author of Black to Black: Retelling Black radicalism for the 21st Century | "The Social and Economic Circumstances of People of African Descent"
- Saturday 20th June | 15:00 BST to 18:30 BST
- For tickets and more information please see here
9th PKES Summer School – Introduction to Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy
This event will now be hosted online.
This four-day summer school introduces Post Keynesian Economics as an alternative to mainstream neoclassical economic theory and neo-liberal economic policy. Key assumptions in Post Keynesian Economics are that individuals face fundamental uncertainty about the future; there is a central role for 'animal spirits' in the determination of investment decisions; inflation is the result of unresolved distributional conflicts; money is an endogenous creation of the private banking system; unemployment is determined by effective demand on the goods markets; financial markets are prone to periodic boom-bust cycles.
The summer school is aimed at students of economics and social sciences. As the aim of Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy ultimately is to provide the foundation for progressive economic policies, it may be of interest for a broader audience.
- Tuesday 23 June to Friday 26 June Video 1
- For tickets and more information please see here
Open Day: MSc Economics
The scale of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic impact is unprecedented. Yet even before the public health crisis struck, there were serious questions about the ecological, financial and social sustainability of our economy.
There has never been a more pressing time to learn economics. Policies are now being implemented across the world to deal with the health crisis which just a few months ago were considered radical. This shows more clearly than ever that economics is a broad discipline, with a wide range of perspectives and policies. The MSc economics at the University of Greenwich is situated within this pluralist tradition, providing a real world understanding of the economy from different theoretical perspectives, including post-keynesian, ecological, feminist, neoclassical and marxist.
On Monday 11 May, four leading academics who teach on the MSc programme will host a free, online open day to talk you through the programme and how it relates to their research. The open day is aimed at anyone who is potentially interested in learning about the economy and you do not need a formal background in economics to attend.
*Dr Alberto Botta, senior lecturer in economics
*Professor Özlem Onaran, professor of economics
*Professor Mehmet Ugur, professor of economics
*Dr. Maria Nikolaidi, senior lecturer in economics
Moderated by two current Greenwich Rethinking Economics students, Thomas Rabensteiner and Ben Tippet, the event is an opportunity to ask any questions you might have about undertaking an MSc degree: Why economics? Why Greenwich? And why pluralism?
- Time: Monday 11 May 28 2pm to 4pm
- Online: webinar link will be sent via link below
- Tickets: Tickets are free but please sign up here, where you will find more information about speakers, location and details.
CANCELLED: Innovation Symposium
This event is now cancelled.
Despite considerable interest, and with heart-felt regret, we have decided to cancel the symposium.
Morbid Symptoms: The Global Rise of the Far-Right
We would like to invite you to an exciting book event at the University of Greenwich with author and academic Dr Owen Worth. Dr Yuliya Yurchenko will introduce and host the discussion.
As established centrist parties across the Western world continue to decline, commentators continue to fail to account for the far-right's growth, for its strategies and its overall objectives.
Morbid Symptoms examines the far-right's ascendancy, uniquely tracing its history from the end of the Cold War, revealing how its different dimensions have led to a series of contradictory strategies and positions that often leave their overall significance unclear. From the United States to Russia and from Britain across Europe to Greece, Owen Worth's analysis reveals that the left's failure to mount a radical alternative to the prevailing order has allowed the far-right to move in and provide an avenue for discontent and for change. Crucially though this avenue hasn't necessarily offered a definite alternative to the status quo as yet, meaning there is still a chance to change its significance in the wider global order. This is an essential primer to the future of international politics and international relations.
- Time: Thursday 30 January 2020 5pm to 7pm
- Authors: Dr Owen Worth
- Location: Room QA175, Queen Anne Building, Greenwich Campus, University of Greenwich
- Tickets: while the event if free we ask you to sign up via this link