World Economic Review paper review forum

Papers submitted to the World Economic Review (WER) that meet minimum standards of professional quality are posted on the journal’s Discussion Forum in order to solicit comments and discussions.  The Forum’s home page says:

You are invited to comment on these papers.

Comments can range from short remarks to full reviews. We encourage you to be frank, but polite. As a rule, commentators should give their name. If they fear hurting their relationship with authors, they can use an alias, which has to be clearly recognizable as such. Editors will vet comments before publication to make sure appropriate and comprehensible language is used and that they are substantive comments relating to the content of the paper at hand. Standards of fairness will be particularly high if an alias is used.

Preciously there was a navigation problem (now corrected) from the WEA homepage that may have prevented you from taking part.  Below is a linked list of some papers recently posted for open review that you might wish to consider.  

Deconstructing the Theory of Comparative Advantage

Reinhard Schumacher

This article critically examines the theory of comparative advantage, which underlies the wide-spread support of free international trade by economists and the world-wide trade liberalisations. After a short presentation of the classical and neoclassical formulations of this theory, the assumptions on which this theory rests and which are essential to it are discussed and scrutinised. […]

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Rethinking economics: Downs with traction

Stuart Birks

Economics is involved with policy, but economic theory has relatively little to say about the policy making process. Governments’ economic objectives are assumed to be given. One exception to this is the work of Anthony Downs in An Economic Theory of Democracy. He considered possible objectives for participants in the political process, these forming a […]

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Re-Opening the Debates on Economic Calculation and Motivation under Socialism

David McMullen

According to the orthodox view, a properly functioning price system would be logically impossible under socialism because there are no markets for intermediate goods. This is referred to as the calculation problem. The article takes the contrary view and contends that the absence of these markets creates no logical barrier to such a price system […]

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About Simple Economic Reproduction and Macroeconomic Indicators

Paata Leiashvily

Reproduction is infinitely renewable, continuous production process. This means that as a result of production its premises, conditions for continuing production are also reproduced. Without the understanding of this process, cannot be explained the functioning of economy, as an integrity, as a living organism. Neoclassical theory considers the production of goods as a unidirectional process […]

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Poverty Trap in Nigeria; A Multidimensional Perspective

Chukwuma Dim, C.

This paper explores the scenario of poverty trap in Nigeria, identifying rural poverty as the source of the scourge and also the most basic and severe dimension of deprivation in the country. Certain factors which the study considers as traps respectively are explicated to react amidst rural poverty to deepen the poverty trap in the […]

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General Formal Foundations of the Virtuous Deficit–Profit Symmetry and the Vicious Debt Deflation

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

A comprehensive dynamic model of the monetary economy that produces the key characteristics of a debt deflation has been presented recently by Steve Keen as an alternative to conventional approaches. His model is based on a double-entry bookkeeping methodology but lacks an acceptable profit theory. In this respect it is not different from familiar approaches. […]

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Institutional Support and Technological Upgrading: Evidence from Dynamic Clusters in Latin America and Asia

Rajah Rasiah and Jebamalai Vinanchiarachi

In light of wide differences in outcomes in the world, this paper uses an evolutionary set of lenses to examine the clusters of Buenos Aires’ automotive, Los Lagos’ salmon, Penang electronics and Qiaotou buttons with a view towards shedding light on the significance of institutional support in driving technological upgrading in firms. The purpose is […]

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