Anwar Shaikh (economist)
Encyclopedia
Anwar M. Shaikh is an American economist
, and currently Professor of Economics at the Graduate Faculty of The New School
in New York City
. His work in political economy
has focused on the economic theory and empirical patterns of developed capitalism
. He has written on international trade
, finance theory, political economy, U.S. macroeconomic policy, the welfare state
, growth theory, inflation theory
, crisis theory
, inequality on the world scale
, and past and current global economic crises
.
and attended schools and lived for various lengths of time in Ankara
, Washington, D.C.
, New York City
, Lagos
, Kuala Lumpur
, and Kuwait
.
He graduated from Stuyvesant High School
in New York City in 1961, received a B.S.E from Princeton University in 1965, worked for two years in Kuwait, and then returned to the United States
to study at Columbia University
, from which he received his Ph.D.
in Economics in 1973. In 1972 he joined the Economics Department at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.
He taught mathematics
, physics
and social sciences
at the Kuwait-American School
in Kuwait City
in 1966–67 and worked as a teacher of social science and mathematics at Harlem Prep in Harlem, NY, while in graduate school.
His major political influences stem from the civil rights and feminist movements
in the US and from progressive development movements abroad. He always found neoclassical economics
quite unpersuasive, and the quest for more solid foundations led him to the works of Roy Harrod
, Wassily Leontief
, Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson
, Piero Sraffa
and Luigi Pasinetti
, and subsequently to Adam Smith
, David Ricardo
and Karl Marx
. The quest for a modern political economy
of developed capitalism became a central theme of his subsequent work.
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, and currently Professor of Economics at the Graduate Faculty of The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His work in political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
has focused on the economic theory and empirical patterns of developed capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. He has written on international trade
International trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...
, finance theory, political economy, U.S. macroeconomic policy, the welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
, growth theory, inflation theory
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
, crisis theory
Crisis theory
Crisis theory is generally associated with Marxian economics. In this context crisis refers to what is called, even currently and outside Marxian theory in many European countries a "conjuncture" or especially sharp bust cycle of the regular boom and bust pattern of what Marxists term "chaotic"...
, inequality on the world scale
International inequality
International inequality is inequality between countries . Economic differences between rich and poor countries are considerable...
, and past and current global economic crises
Global recession
A global recession is a period of global economic slowdown. The International Monetary Fund takes many factors into account when defining a global recession, but it states that global economic growth of 3 percent or less is "equivalent to a global recession".By this measure, four periods since...
.
Biography
Shaikh was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1945. He traveled extensively at an early ageand attended schools and lived for various lengths of time in Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....
, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Lagos
Lagos
Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...
, Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, and Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
.
He graduated from Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in New York City in 1961, received a B.S.E from Princeton University in 1965, worked for two years in Kuwait, and then returned to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to study at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, from which he received his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Economics in 1973. In 1972 he joined the Economics Department at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.
He taught mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
at the Kuwait-American School
American School of Kuwait
Founded in 1961, the American School of Kuwait is a K-12 institution which also includes a pre-school . ASK operates with the approval of the Kuwaiti government and is associated with the United States Department of State through the Office of Overseas Schools...
in Kuwait City
Kuwait City
-Suburbs:Although the districts below are not usually recognized as suburbs, the following is a list of a few areas surrounding Kuwait city:Al-Salam ""السلام"" -Economy:...
in 1966–67 and worked as a teacher of social science and mathematics at Harlem Prep in Harlem, NY, while in graduate school.
His major political influences stem from the civil rights and feminist movements
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
in the US and from progressive development movements abroad. He always found neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is a term variously used for approaches to economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand, often mediated through a hypothesized maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits...
quite unpersuasive, and the quest for more solid foundations led him to the works of Roy Harrod
Roy Harrod
Sir Henry Roy Forbes Harrod was an English economist. He is best known for his biography of John Maynard Keynes and the development of the Harrod–Domar model, which he and Evsey Domar developed independently...
, Wassily Leontief
Wassily Leontief
Wassily Wassilyovich Leontief , was a Russian-American economist notable for his research on how changes in one economic sector may have an effect on other sectors. Leontief won the Nobel Committee's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1973, and three of his doctoral students have also...
, Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson
Joan Robinson
Joan Violet Robinson FBA was a post-Keynesian economist who was well known for her knowledge of monetary economics and wide-ranging contributions to economic theory...
, Piero Sraffa
Piero Sraffa
Piero Sraffa was an influential Italian economist whose book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is taken as founding the Neo-Ricardian school of Economics.- Early life :...
and Luigi Pasinetti
Luigi Pasinetti
Luigi L. Pasinetti is an Italian economist of the Post-Keynesians school. Pasinetti is considered the heir of the "Cambridge Keynesians" and a student of Piero Sraffa and Richard Kahn. Along with them, as well as Joan Robinson, he was one of the prominent members on the "Cambridge, UK" side of the...
, and subsequently to Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, David Ricardo
David Ricardo
David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...
and Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. The quest for a modern political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
of developed capitalism became a central theme of his subsequent work.
Selected publications
- "Globalization and the Myth of Free Trade" (2007), in Globalization and the Myths of Free Trade: History, theory, and empirical evidence, Anwar Shaikh (ed.) Routledge, New York, NY.
- "Nonlinear Dynamics and Pseudo-Production Functions" (2005) in The Eastern Economics Journal, Special Issue on Production Functions.
- "Explaining the Global Economic Crisis: A Critique of Brenner" (1999), Historical Materialism, No. 5.
- "Explaining Inflation and Unemployment: An Alternate to Neoliberal Economic Theory" (1999), in Contemporary Economic Theory, Andriana Vachlou (ed.), Macmillan, London.
- "The Stock Market and the Corporate Sector: A Profit-Based Approach" (1998), in Markets, Unemployment and Economic Policy: Essays in Honour of Geoff Harcourt', Volume Two, Malcolm Sawyer, Philip Arestis, and Gabriel Palma (eds.), Routledge, London.
- "The Empirical Strength of the Labor Theory of Value" (1998), in Conference Proceedings of Marxian Economics: A Centenary Appraisal, Riccardo Bellofiore (ed.), Macmillan, London.
- "The Falling Rate of Profit as the Cause of Long Waves: Theory and Empirical Evidence" (1992), in New Findings in Long Wave Research, Alfred Kleinknecht, Ernest Mandel, and Immanuel Wallerstein (eds.), Macmillan Press, London.
- "Wandering Around the Warranted Path: Dynamic Nonlinear Solutions to the Harrodian Knife-Edge" (1992), in Kaldor and Mainstream Economics: Confrontation or Convergence? (Festschrift for Nicolas Kaldor), Edward J. Nell and Willi Semmler, The Macmillan Press Ltd.
- "The Falling Rate of Profit and the Economic Crisis in the U.S." (1987), in The Imperiled Economy, Book I, Union for Radical Political Economy, Robert Cherry, et al. (eds.)
- "The Transformation from Marx to Sraffa" (1984), in Ricardo, Marx, Sraffa, The Langston Memorial Volume, Ernest Mandel, and Alan Freeman (eds.)
- "On the Laws of International Exchange" (1980), in Growth, Profits and Property, Edward J. Nell (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- "An Introduction to the History of Crisis Theories" (1978), in U.S. Capitalism in Crisis, U.R.P.E., New York.
- "Laws of Production and Laws of Algebra: The Humbug Production Function" (1974), The Review of Economics and Statistics, Volume 56(1), February 1974, p. 115-120.
External links
- Anwar Shaikh faculty home page (with full publication list)