In the last twenty-five years – from 1996 to 2021 – a series of actions have marked the evolution of the economy: from transformations linked to new information and communication technologies to the Covid-19 pandemic, among other things, through to the financial and economic crisis of the second half of the first decade of the 21st century. In this article, we look at the impact of events in the last twenty-five years on economics teaching, whether this is evolving alongside the economic reality or not, what has given rise to a mismatch between economics and the social and economic reality. To analyze this, in the first section, we will tackle the social mission of the “economist” in the sense of being teachers of highly diverse collectives, and in the second section, we will reflect on the evolution of economics teaching at University. The analysis leads us to conclude that, although economics teaching has varied over time, it has not undergone substantial change in recent decades. The lack of diversity of thinking in economics curricula joins forces with a lack of diversity among prominent thinkers and professionals to often translate into an incomplete view explaining the complex economic reality and an interaction with other disciplines, particularly social sciences.
This article analyses the connection that scientific economics has made between economic development and social sustainability. Starting from the classical idea of value in capitalism, the article reviews the main contributions that classical, neoclassical, heterodox and modern economic syntheses have made on the possibility of a socially sustainable economic development. From this review, the need to build a new sustainable value economy is identified and its main dimensions are analysed, especially the role that firms, markets and government should play. In our research on the fit between new sustainable ways of generating value and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the results obtained are unfavourable. The SDGs must substantially modify their approach and methodology to move towards a more socially sustainable economic value.
Oikonomics, the UOC’s journal of economics, business and society, publishes in its 16th edition a dossier under the title: “Sustainability vectors: visions from economy”. Previously, on 14 April 2021, a webinar dedicated to the analysis of sustainable development and the SDGs had been organised within the framework of the UOC’s Economics and Business Studies, with the participation as speaker of the coordinator of the Oikonomics dossier, Professor Albert Puig, and the author of the first of the articles in the monograph, Professor Joan Torrent. The session was moderated by August Corrons, also a UOC professor and member of the Oikonomics editorial board, and it complements the contents of the dossier of the 16th edition of the journal.
Oikonomics, the UOC journal on economics, business and society, has published two special issues, 14th and 15th, dedicated to the collaborative economy. The two issues analyze from different points of view the analysis of a concept that is receiving increasing attention as a new economic agent that, through digital platforms, has shown its capacity for transformation. In the two issues of Oikonomics, this phenomenon is analyzed from a theoretical perspective, but also a practical one based on the empirical analysis of the trends that are taking place in this field. In this webinar video, the two coordinators of these two issues, the lecturers of the Economics and Business Studies Department, Joan Torrent and Lluís Garay, talk about the evolution of the collaborative economy concept and the different visions and realities related around it, as well as its capacity to transform society. The moderator of the webinar is the Dean of the Economics and Business Department of the UOC, M.ª Jesús Martínez.
Oikonomics, the UOC journal on economics, business and society, has published two special issues, 14th and 15th, dedicated to the collaborative economy. The two issues analyze from different points of view the analysis of a concept that is receiving increasing attention as a new economic agent that, through digital platforms, has shown its capacity for transformation. In the two issues of Oikonomics, this phenomenon is analyzed from a theoretical perspective, but also a practical one based on the empirical analysis of the trends that are taking place in this field. In this webinar video, the two coordinators of these two issues, the lecturers of the Economics and Business Studies Department, Joan Torrent and Lluís Garay, talk about the evolution of the collaborative economy concept and the different visions and realities related around it, as well as its capacity to transform society. The moderator of the webinar is the Dean of the Economics and Business Department of the UOC, M.ª Jesús Martínez.
This article analyses the relationship between the uses of Industry 4.0 technologies (I4.0), the value generation and firm results. Based on a sample of 1,525 Spanish industrial firms for 2014, the uses of four basic I4.0 technologies are identified: 1) computer-aided industrial design (CAD); 2) robotics; 3) flexible production systems; and 4) the activity’s numerical control machinery and software, an additional indicator is constructed and the statistical association with the value generation and firm results are studied. The research has obtained three main results. First of all, it is worth noting its incipience. 72.5% of Spanish industrial firms either do not use or use very moderately the I4.0 technologies. Despite of this and secondly, it should be noted that the uses of these technologies are associated with a value generating process in industrial firms which is more intensive in R&D and human capital, more innovative, more digital and more sustainable. And, thirdly, the research also concludes that firms with more intensive uses of I4.0 technologies have better results in terms of sales, value added, exports and gross operating margin. Productivity and employment results are especially relevant. I4.0 intensive industrial firms are 30% more efficient than firms that do not use these technologies. They are also able to take on a much larger number of employees (twice the industrial average) and to pay them much better (12.4% above the industrial average). Finally, the article also discusses the role that I4.0 could play as a new general purpose technology.
Concern for the future of employment is a recurring theme whenever a process of disruptive change in technology takes place. Economic analysis has shown that technology does not destroy work, but it skews skills and abilities, and displaces tasks, jobs, occupations and people. Generally, in the long term, the consequences of these technological waves on work tend to be positive because they are linked to increases in productivity, new economic activity, higher employment and salary improvements for people working in firms or sectors related to technological innovation. In addition, the effects of job substitution can be offset in the long term if firms’ strategies and policies, especially in terms of human resource management, take the form of active employment policies that train and reskill displaced people. This general form of interaction of technology with work has been questioned with the recent digital wave characterized, among other factors, by the explosion of intelligent robotics. According to some authors, the rate of substitution of human labour by robots will be so fast that they can hardly be compensated by the usual route of increases in demand and productivity. Other authors argue just the opposite, and frame the current dynamics within the context of the traditional interactions between technology and work. However, robotics is non-human work, has very particular and dynamic characteristics, offers a wide range of possibilities of use and, at the same time, generates fears too. In this article, we will analyse the employment implications of new robotics, paying special attention to the human resources management.
This article examines how the advent of the third industrial revolution (the knowledge economy) transforms the scientific paradigm of the economy and, therefore, purposes new challenges for the economic analysis and teaching. Linking to the history of economic thought, the paper obtains two main conclusions. First, there is a need to articulate new behavior and new performance metrics of the economy. In particular, it suggests the need to move from individual behavior towards the collective behavior, from the monetary transaction towards the knowledge exchange, from oligopolistic competition to the business networks, from the economic firm towards the social firm, and from the national, international and world economy to the global economy. Secondly, it also suggests new approaches for teaching economics. In particular, recover all branches of economic thought (beyond neoclassical economics), and reconfigure the organization of teaching towards an interdisciplinary and transversal knowledge network to solve economic and social problems.
The paper analyzes the role of e-vocational training in the achievement of new employability conditions that require the emergence of networking, knowledge economy and knowledge society. Under the analytical framework of skill biased technological change (e-SBTC) and from the results of three empirical analysis, four main conclusions have been obtained. First, e-vocational training is not yet strong enough to break the training gap. That is, e-vocational training of workers occurs mainly in more educated and digital skilled-based workers. Second, e-vocational training is revealed as a qualified instrument to improve employability, particularly on the dimensions of acquired skills and satisfaction with the educational design, but less with the training labour applicability. Third, the vast majority of firms, with no structural change, has a problem of relative over-education. That is, they don’t meet the association between a higher educational level and a higher wage. And fourth, although e-vocational training has made considerable progress as a tool to improve workers employability, it actually shows two major weaknesses: 1) the need to enlist more collectives of workers; and, 2) the need to promote e-vocational training as a lever on structural change in firms (complementary with organizational change and ICT uses).