The New Economics Foundation are offering a series of 10 briefings to equip readers with the ability to identify weak rationale and challenge it, the first two are below and you can sign up to receive the rest as they are produced:
Briefing 1 – An overview of economics
Briefing 2 – How economics is used in government decision-making
“KEY FINDINGS
- As a discipline economics is in flux, partly because of the on-going financial crisis.
- Economists are increasingly forced to confront environmental limits as a real challenge.
There are some serious problems with the economic approaches used in decision making, both in theory and practice. This isn’t improved by inaccessible language and the methodology tucked away in technical appendices. For this reason it is often difficult for non-economists and the public to engage in debates and to identify misguided economic arguments.”