Robots and us: towards an economics of the ‘Good Life’

(Expected) adverse effects of the ‘ICT Revolution’ on work and opportunities for individuals to use and develop their capacities give a new impetus to the debate on the societal implications of technology and raise questions regarding the ‘responsibility’ of research and innovation (RRI) and the possibility of achieving ‘inclusive and sustainable society’. However, missing in this debate is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘inclusive and sustainable society’ and conventional economic principles guiding capital allocation (including the funding of research and innovation). We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining the nature and purpose of capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundations as an unduly restrictive subset of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice

Beckert, Sen and Finance: A response to marginalisation mindful of today’s prevailing monetary and financial environment

Chapter 4 of: Deliverable D1.1: Report on Institutions, Social Innovation & System Dynamics from the Perspective of the Marginalised

Theoretical Foundations of Social Innovation in Finance

Deliverable D5.2 of the E.U. FP-7 project CrESSI (613261

From Common Framework to measurement and analysis

Chapter 11 of: Deliverable D1.1: Report on Institutions, Social Innovation & System Dynamics from the Perspective of the Marginalised

Report Contrasting CRESSI’s Approach of Social Innovation with that of Neoclassical Economics

Deliverable 1.

Financial and monetary innovations for overcoming social exclusion. The financing of generalised education (as instanced in the Netherlands and England). (= Case 2 of: Evidence base of three comprehensive case studies following a common template. A deliverable of the project: “Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation” (CRESSI).

Case 2 of: Evidence base of three comprehensive case studies following a common template. Part of Deliverable D2.1 of the FP-7 Project: CRESSI (613261)

The state and class discipline: European labour market policy after the financial crisis

This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated across Europe both before and after the financial crisis: wage restraint, and punitive workfare programmes. It asks why these policies, despite their weak empirical records, have been so durable. Moving beyond comparative-institutionalist explanations which emphasise institutional stickiness, it draws on Marxist and Kaleckian ideas around the concept of ‘class discipline’. It argues that under financialisation, the need for states to implement policies that discipline the working class is intensified, even if these policies do little to enable (and may even counteract) future stability. Wage restraint and punitive active labour market policies are two examples of such measures. Moreover, this disciplinary impetus has subverted and marginalised regulatory labour market institutions, rather than being embedded within them