Review: The Magical Thinking of Degrowth

This is a review of the blog post Degrowth: Solving the Impasse by Magical Thinking by Branko Milanovic. An exciting new activity—my first blog post about another blog post. Am I a degrowther? Maybe. I don’t think I’m well-versed enough yet on these matters to label myself with a position. But from what I’ve written… Continue reading Review: The Magical Thinking of Degrowth

Review: Beyond Accumulation and Technical Progress: Negative Externalities as an Engine of Economic Growth

It’s a long title for an elegant idea. This paper asks: “why does the economy grow?” It argues that the existing reasons of 1) accumulation and 2) technical progress fail to explain why a) people work so much for money and b) why they’re still so unhappy. Bartolini argues that the missing piece of the puzzle is negative externalities, which are in fact an engine of economic growth.