There’s a story economics textbooks have been telling for over two centuries. It goes like this: once upon a time, people bartered. A farmer traded wheat for shoes. A cobbler swapped boots for bread. But bartering was awkward — what if the shoemaker didn’t want wheat that day? So clever humans invented money. Gold coins….
Economic Mythology: What Money Is Not
A response to Paul Krugman’s column “The Dollar’s Special Status: Sources and Threats” April 2026 Paul Krugman’s recent column on the international role of the US dollar is an accomplished piece of applied economics. He marshals a great deal of evidence efficiently, his empirical command is not in question, and his conclusion — that dollar…
When Everyone Follows the Same Compass
The second chapter of Potential Game Theory: Theories and Applications is now complete, and I am rather pleased with how it came together. Let me share what lies at its heart. The central question of Chapter 2 is deceptively simple: what does it mean for a group of self-interested decision-makers to all be, in some…
The Productivity Mirage: Why Your Balance Sheet is Lying About Economic Growth
This text was generated with Google’s NotebookLM, based on 37 sources from the academic literature on Pasinetti’s theory of economic development, originally published in 1993. 1. The Hook: Why Efficiency Feels Like a Ghost in the Machine In the sleek boardrooms of modern industry, efficiency is the reigning deity. CEOs point to soaring “output per…
Beyond “Man the Hunter”: The Surprising Evolutionary Secrets of the Division of Labour
In 1776, Adam Smith famously described the “very trifling manufacture” of a pin factory. By dividing the production of a single pin into eighteen distinct operations—one worker drawing the wire, another straightening it, a third cutting it—a small team could produce thousands of units daily. Smith noted that a lone, unspecialised worker could scarcely make…
Understanding Economic Viability in Structured Production Systems
The Core Insight: Two Types of Goods, Two Ways of Trading At the heart of our research lies a deceptively simple but profound observation about modern economies: not all goods are traded the same way. When you buy coffee at a café, you participate in a competitive market—the price reflects supply and demand from countless…