|
on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Cavalieri, Duccio |
| Abstract: | This essay provides a critical Marxist reformulation, internal to the cultural tradition of Western Marxism, of Marx’s theoretical treatment of value and capital. It implies the abandonment of the ‘pure’ labour theory of value of the young Marx in favour of a ‘mixed’ labour-and capital theory of value reflecting the different theoretical perspective shown by the mature Marx, after his epistemological break described by Althusser. The accounting practice of defining and measuring income and capital is criticized, for its disregard of the financial cost of invested capital. Foley’s ‘New Interpretation’ of Marx’s theoretical system and its main variants are refused for their acritical endorsement of Marx’s assumption of a ‘new-value equality’ between the net product of the economy and the living labour employed in the production of gross output. A different method for converting quantities of labour-time in terms of money, which accounts for explicit and implicit costs, is proposed. |
| Keywords: | value; labour; capital; money; income; capital theory; Marx; critical Marxism; scientific Marxism; surplus approach; net value equality; new interpretation; single-system interpretations; MEV; MELT. |
| JEL: | B12 B22 B51 D24 D4 D46 E11 E22 E41 G00 G31 |
| Date: | 2013–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50527&r=hme |
| By: | Yann Giraud (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS : UMR8184 - Université de Cergy Pontoise); Loïc Charles (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - Université Paris VIII - Vincennes Saint-Denis : EA3391) |
| Abstract: | The rise of visual representation in economics textbooks after WWII is one of the main features of contemporary economics. In this paper, we argue that this development has been preceded by a no less significant rise of visual representation in the larger literature devoted to social and scientific issues, including economic textbooks for non-economists as well as newspapers and magazines. During the interwar era, editors, propagandists and social scientists altogether encouraged the use of visual language as the main vehicle to spread information and opinions about the economy to a larger audience. These new ways of visualizing social facts, which most notably helped shape the understanding of economic issues by various audiences during the years of the Great Depression, were also conceived by their inventors as alternative ways of practicing economics: in opposition to the abstraction of "neoclassical" economics, these authors wanted to use visual representation as a way to emphasize the human character of the discipline and did not accept the strict distinction between the creation and the diffusion of economic knowledge. We explore different yet related aspects of these developments by studying the use of visual language in economics textbooks intended for non-specialists, in periodicals such as the Survey, a monthly magazine intended for an audience of social workers, the Americanization of Otto Neurath's pictorial statistics and finally the use of those visual representations by various state departments and administrations under Roosevelt's legislature (including the much-commented Historical Section of the Farm Security Administration). We show how visualizations that have been created in opposition to neoclassical economics have lost most of their theoretical content when used widely for policy purposes while being simultaneously integrated into the larger American culture. It is our claim that those issues, which are familiar to those involved in cultural and visual studies, are also of crucial importance to apprehend the later developments of modern economics. |
| Date: | 2013–10–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00870490&r=hme |
| By: | Sandmo, Agnar (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | The paper considers the history of theories of income distribution, from the time of Adam Smith until the 1970s. It is divided into two main parts. Part I considers the positive theory of income distribution, beginning with the classical economists’ analysis of the functional distribution of income between wages, profits and rent. It goes on to present the new theories that emerged with the marginalist revolution and which were based on maximizing behaviour and market equilibrium. The main focus during the early stages of the new developments was on the markets for consumer goods and the role of marginal utility in price determination. The later neoclassical economists, including Alfred Marshall and Knut Wicksell, paid more attention to the special features that characterized the labour market and the role of marginal productivity in wage formation. In the 20th century the neoclassical theory was extended to include analysis of the role of imperfect competition, human capital and risk-taking. Also included in this part of the paper is a discussion of statistical and institutional approaches. Part II covers normative theories of income distribution and their implications for redistributive policy. It begins with a consideration of the value judgements implicit in the policy recommendations of the classical economists and continues with the attempts to establish an analytical foundation for welfare economics. The rise of Paretian welfare theory with its emphasis on the impossibility of interpersonal comparisons of utility made it difficult to draw conclusions regarding income redistribution, but the older utilitarian approach, including equal sacrifice theories, continued to live on in the modern analysis of optimal redistribution. A short Part III contains some concluding reflections on the position of income distribution theory within economics as a whole. |
| Keywords: | Functional and personal income distribution; distributive justice; redistribution policy. |
| JEL: | B10 B20 D30 D63 |
| Date: | 2013–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2013_015&r=hme |
| By: | Christian, Michel |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes and empirically implements a framework for analyzing industry competition and the degree of joint profit maximization of merging firms in differentiated product industries. Using pre- and post-merger industry data, I am able to separate merging firms' intra-organizational pricing considerations from industry pricing considerations. The insights of the paper shed light on a long-standing debate in the theoretical literature about the consequences of organizational integration. Moreover, I propose a novel approach to directly estimate industry conduct that relies on ownership changes and input price variation. I apply my framework using data from the ready-to-eat cereal industry, covering the 1993 Post-Nabisco merger. My results show an increasing degree of joint profit maximization of the merged entities over the first two years after the merger, eventually leading to almost full maximization of joint profits. I find that between 14.3 and 25.6 percent of industry markups can be attributed to cooperative industry behavior, while the remaining markup is due to product differentiation of multi-product firms. |
| Keywords: | Identification of Market Structure; Post-merger Internalization of Profits; Conduct Estimation; Ex-post Merger Evaluation; Estimation of Synergies |
| Date: | 2013–05–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trf:wpaper:409&r=hme |
| By: | Giacomo Degli Antoni (University of Parma, Department of Law) |
| Abstract: | Experimental evidence shows that people tend to be more cooperative with persons belonging to their own group than with others. Strangely enough, this literature largely fails to consider a type of group pervasive in modern societies: colleagues belonging to the same productive organization. This is particularly curious if one considers the importance of cooperation among colleagues for the economic performance of organizations. This paper carries out an original experimental analysis which compares the level of cooperation of social cooperative workers when they are paired with colleagues and with people from the general population. In contrast with the literature on in-group favoritism, we find that workers trust their colleagues less and cooperate less with them than they do with people from the general public, even though, in absolute terms, the level of cooperation is quite high also among colleagues. By analyzing first- and second-order beliefs, we show that the difference in cooperation is partly mediated by expectations concerning the counterpart's behavior, since workers expect their colleagues to be less cooperative than members of the general public. However, the analysis reveals that also other motivations count, such as other-regarding preferences and warm glow. |
| Keywords: | social cooperatives, field experiment, social dilemmas, in-group favoritism, trust, beliefs |
| JEL: | C72 C93 L31 P13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ent:wpaper:wp50&r=hme |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Rocco Ciciretti (University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Pierluigi Conzo (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The legal origin literature documents that civil and common law traditions have different impact on rules and economic outcomes. We contribute to this literature by investigating the relationship between corporate social responsibility and legal origins. Consistently with the main differences in historical and legal backgrounds and net of industry specific effects, the common law origin has a significant and positive impact on the Corporate Governance and Community Involvement domains, while the French legal tradition of civil law on the Human Resources domain. We also document that the lack of observable differences in the environmental domain can be explained by firms' progressive convergence to industry sustainability standards. |
| Keywords: | legal origins, corporate social responsibility, environmental standards, corporate governance, civil law, common law |
| JEL: | K10 K20 K31 K32 D60 |
| Date: | 2013–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:291&r=hme |
| By: | Scherer, F. M. (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers two paradoxes concerning the relationship between capital investment decisions and competition. First, conventional capital budgeting methods imply that substantial infra-marginal surpluses are attained above the cost of capital, but this is inconsistent with the premise that returns on capital equal the cost of capital in competitive markets. Second, contrasts in the pharmaceutical industry between high reported returns on capital invested, the accounting treatment of research and development outlays, and inter-firm competition in research and development are explored. |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp13-030&r=hme |
| By: | Salvadori, Neri; Signorino, Rodolfo |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes a rational reconstruction of the arguments developed by Malthus and Ricardo in their 1815 essays, Grounds of an Opinion and An Essay on Profits, to repudiate and endorse a policy of free corn trade, respectively. Malthus envisaged defence and opulence as two mutually alternative options and, if required to make a choice, he had no doubt in choosing the former. By contrast, Ricardo excluded any alternative between defence and opulence: trade does note give a sustainable weapon to potential enemies of Great Britain whereas trade-driven opulence may give Great Britain greater means to wage a war. |
| Keywords: | Malthus, Ricardo, Corn Laws, Coordination Games |
| JEL: | B12 B31 |
| Date: | 2013–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50534&r=hme |
| By: | Mariagrazia Squicciarini; Hélène Dernis |
| Abstract: | This work proposes a characterisation of the patenting behaviours of firms. It relies on patent data linked to firm data from a commercial dataset, regards firms of 20 or more employees located in 15 countries, and refers to the period 1999-2010. The way in which patent assignees’ names are linked to firm names is explained, and the coverage and representativeness of the firm database used is discussed using information from structural business statistics. The profile of patenting and non-patenting firms is delineated on the basis of characteristics such as firm size, ownership, firm age and industry, and of combinations thereof. Statistics related to the sector-specific patterns of patent renewals are also shown. |
| Date: | 2013–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2013/5-en&r=hme |
| By: | Scherer, F. M. (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the theory and historical developments that made it possible for the world's least affluent citizens to obtain the benefits of modern pharmaceutical therapy at affordable prices. Considered in turn are the theory of differential prices, the reasons why differential pricing was not widely practiced by pharmaceutical companies selling patented medicines; how low prices eventually became available, with emphasis on AIDS anti-retrovirals; and the consequences of low prices in the least developed nations for the creation of new and more effective medicines. |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp13-029&r=hme |