Earth Economics

Earth Economics offers a completely new angle to policy analyses by its focus on the truly global level and its empirical orientation on very recent data. Each week offers "Reflections on the economic impact of the Corona virus" (COVID-19) allowing you to apply what you have learned. But we have to look beyond the pandamic. Sustainability (environmental and related to the UN's SDGs), equality and hetrodox (non mainstream) views on the economy are important for an Earth Economist. Taking stock of emerging planet data and analyzing policies during and following the Global Crisis, Earth economics provides both a topical introduction into basic macroeconomic tools and concepts and insights in highly relevant problems and recent developments in planet production, growth and governance. You will also better understand the behavior and advice of economists, become a better economist and know where to find Earth's data and how to analyse these world observations. Our planet is too important: we need you to get engaged!

This set of three lectures provides you with a good introduction to the most often used data sources for the Earth Economy and their strengths and weaknesses. We study which activities generate value added and discuss both the merits and the drawbacks of the concept of Gross Planet Product (GPP). We will get a good idea about changes in the economic condition of our planet, both from business cycles and from changes in the world's unemployment rate. You will discover that economists are too optimistic about the reliability of their data but also that economist in the past have been too pessimistic about the development of the world economy.

We start with a discussion of the equilibrium concept and relate (in)stability to policy relevant questions such as (over)population, global warming and hyperinflation. We encounter comparative statics and scenario analysis. We discuss investment, saving and consumption and relate these concepts to the development of the Earth economy. At the end of these three lectures you will be able to build a model of the Earth economy and use that model to analyze the Great Recession of 2008/0. That is pretty cool.

In this Module we take a closer look at government. We study government spending and taxation and will discover any instances where government expenditures and receipts move in the same direction. An important issue is the development of public debt that has reached unprecedented levels for our planet. Finally we study money and its functions in the Earth Economy.