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Issue 286 October 04, 2021 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory
Some months ago, I used these lines to put out a call for volunteers willing to support this Newsletter. It was quite incredible (and also a little unexpected) to receive some enthusiastic replies. After some correspondences and inetrviews we selected two additional persons to complement an already astonishing group so that, together, we might become something truly awesome – an editorial team.
As the formal purpose of this editorial is to introduce this new team to you, let me just add that I myself will, of course, stay true to the task at hand and act as the main editor of our new team. Hence, in what follows the focus is on the other team members – formerly dubbed “editorial assistants” –, who are the hidden soul of this Newsletter.
As Bertrand Russell once said there are only two types of work: to move things around or to order others to move things around. In this context, it should be emphasized that in what follows we introduce the people, who do the real work and translate hundreds of pieces of information out of an overwhelming number of emails into a digestible Newsletter – every three weeks. These are the heroes that bring order into chaos (with just a little supervision ;-) and as main editor I am nothing but happy and relieved to have met these great colleagues on the way.
First hero to introduce is Niklas Klann, a BA student in Political Science at the University Duisburg-Essen. Niklas got into economics by means of one of his electives, which I happened to teach. Since then, he has developed some fascination for economic topics and has a deep interest for the underlying mechanisms governing growth, resource-use and distributional tendencies in modern capitalism with a special focus on the advent of AI. At the same Niklas is a highly concerned and active citizen and contributes to environmental and social movements. He is soon to enroll in Duisburg-Essen’s MA program in Socio-Economics and will hence remain attached to the field.
Next is Johanna Rath, who is a PhD student in Economics and research fellow at the Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy (ICAE) at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria). There she contributes to the project “Spatial Competition and Economic Policies” (SPACE) funded by the Austrian science fund. She holds a BA in Economics and MSc in Political Economy from Karl-Franzens-University Graz (Austria) and is currently enrolled in an MA program entitled “Political, Economic and Legal Philosophy”. She was co-founder of the Students Network of Plural Economics at the University Graz and has been co-organizing events for the Network for almost 5 years. Her main research interests include institutions, especially the role of social norms in transitional processes as well as competition as a prime mode of social organization and processes of capital accumulation and (market) concentration.
Thirdly, our first newcomer is Alexander Cruz Maldonado, who received his baccalaureate and his master’s degree in Economics from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras where he also worked as a research assistant focused on topics of local economic development and inequality. From his research at the University of Puerto Rico, Alexander co-authored a paper on the increasing poverty trend in Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2012 and produced an award-winning research poster on the effects of the CAFTA-DR trade agreement on Puerto Rico’s economy. His most recent work, presented as the thesis project for his master’s degree, focuses on the major trends of economic thought which had developed in the US from the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s and leading up to the 2008 Financial Crisis. Currently, Alexander works as a Senior Quantitative Analyst at a local bank in San Juan Puerto Rico.
Finally, and also new to the team, Alam G. Galicia-Robles (Mexico) studied Economics (undergraduate and master's degrees) from the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP). Since the beginning of his professional studies, he was attracted to the classical and Keynesian visions of economics. He also has a passion for urban and regional government fostered by entering working life in the governments of the city and state where he lives. For him a plural and open stance on the discipline is more appropriate than having a single dominant theory, as he was taught in his early years: "a heterodox economist has a longer and more burdensome path to take than those who decide to admit the dominant paradigm without any criticism: on the one hand he has to study and understand the mainstream and on the other, learn, reflect and propose something new from the heterodox trench". He joined the HEN team in 2021 as he really enjoys reading, editing, and collaborating for a bigger cause: the unorthodox community. For him, every person deserves dignity, respect and to be heard. From Latin America, he tells us: here we also do economics, here we also exist and resist.
The main aim of these changes in our organizational setup is to try to envisage the Newsletter more as a global collaborative effort, which is open for different perspectives and ideas. These people, so remote and close at the same time, make it possible for me to regularly read, explore, share, and learn more about issues in heterodox economics. Of course, there are also many core duties related to the Newsletter, which always require an additional hand ;-) In case you also want to support our work with your time, you can always send us an email and we can explore together how this might work out. In case you would prefer to support our efforts financially you can do so by donating here.
Many thanks and all the best,
Jakob
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