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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Grillitsch, Markus (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The overall objective of this paper is to contribute conceptually to the questions why and how regions transform and it joins the debate on economic evolution and institutional change. The paper addresses the challenge of how to conceptualise the interdependencies of institutions of different types and spatial scales. It aims at developing a conceptual framework that i) appreciates the variety of institutional forms and the multi-scalar nature of institutional landscapes, ii) is tangible enough for operationalization in the context of empirical research, and iii) contributes to our understanding about institutional change and economic evolution in regions. The paper offers a review on how institutions have been conceptualised in the context of evolutionary economic geography, a proposal for understanding regional institutional frameworks and institutional change through a novel way of conceptualising institutional layering, a clear distinction between concepts such as agency, networks, social structures and institutional layers, and a discussion about how this can improve our understanding about regional transformation. |
| Keywords: | Evolutionary economic geography; institutional theory; regional change; institutional layering |
| JEL: | B52 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_001&r=hme |
| By: | Andrej Svorenčík |
| Abstract: | The core question of MIT Economics Department’s history – why has MIT economics risen to prominence so quickly – requires an approach to history of economics that focuses on the role of the networks within which economists operate, their ideas diffuse, and gain scientific credit. By reconstructing the network of MIT economics Ph.Ds. and their advisors, this paper furnishes not just evidence of how MIT rose to prominence as documented by the numerous ties of Nobel Laureates, Clark Medalists, elected officials of the AEA or the Council of Economic Advisors to the MIT network. The MIT Economics Department is also revealed as a community of self-replicating economists who are to a large extent trained by a few key advisers who were mostly trained at MIT as well. MIT exhibits a large share of graduates who remain in American academia that is disproportionate to the number of graduates it has produced. It is hypothesized that this has been an important factor in MIT’s rise to prominence. On a methodological level this paper introduces prosopography or collective biography, a well-established historiographic method, to the field of history of economics. |
| Keywords: | MIT, networks of economists, advisor-advisee relations, prosopography, collective biography |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2013-19&r=hme |
| By: | Marina Durano (School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman) |
| Abstract: | The Magna Carta of Women (R.A. 7910) is the Philippines comprehensive women’s human rights law. The Magna Carta of Women is found to be consistent with Rawlsian notions of justice, particularly when it undertakes inequality evaluation in primary goods. Identity-based inequality evaluation is also present in the Magna Carta of Women as implied in its definition of discrimination and marginalization. With the state as the primary duty bearer, the Magna Carta of Women gives prominence to an instrumental view of agency since participation is mediated through state mechanisms and institutions. The Magna Carta of Women fails to acknowledge the contributions of care work and the implications of the gendered division of labor. The capabilities approach highlights the challenges attached to these observations. Where human rights are viewed as ethical demands, the MCW succeeds in giving attention to aspects of women’s lives that require state support. |
| Keywords: | gender equality, law and economics, human rights, capabilities |
| JEL: | K3 J16 K00 D63 I31 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phs:dpaper:201404&r=hme |
| By: | Various authors |
| Keywords: | Social Enterprises |
| JEL: | J |
| Date: | 2014–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8079&r=hme |
| By: | Baggio Rodolfo (Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi University); Sheresheva Marina (Department of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University) |
| Abstract: | This article focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of the emerging network paradigm in economic and management sciences. The intersection of different approaches is unveiled, including those with roots in the natural sciences. The authors briefly describe the contribution of different disciplines in the development of research methodology applied to network forms widespread in contemporary economy. The second part presents an example of using techniques originally applied to solve the problems of theoretical physics to the study of tourism business networks. Conclusions are drawn about the prospects for an interdisciplinary approach in shaping the science of networks. |
| Keywords: | network, coordination mechanism, network approach |
| JEL: | A10 C00 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upa:wpaper:0011&r=hme |
| By: | Kevin D. Hoover |
| Abstract: | In many sciences – physical, but also biology, neuroscience, and other life sciences – one object of reductionism is to purge intentionality from the fundamental basis of both explanations and the explanatory target. The scientifically relevant level – ontologically and epistemologically – is thought to lie deeper than the level of ordinary human interactions. In the material and living world, the more familiar is the less fundamental. In contrast, the economic world of day-to-day life – the world of market interactions – appears to be the relevant level. Macroeconomics is thought to provide an account that is above, not below or behind, ordinary economic decisionmaking. An advantage of a macroeconomic account is that it is possible to employ causal analysis of the economy as a whole analogous to the causal analysis of physical systems. The fear of many economists is that such analyses are untethered to ordinary economic decisionmaking. The object of reductionism in economics – the so-called microfoundations of macroeconomics – is adequately to ground or replace higher level causal analysis with an analysis of the day-to-day interactions of people. The object is not to purge intentionality, but to reclaim it. The paper will attempt to understand the key issues surrounding the microfoundations of macroeconomics from a perspectival realist perspective that elucidates the relationship between economists’ methodological preference for microfoundations and need for macroeconomic analysis – that is, between economists’ respect for the intentional nature of economic life and the need for a causal analysis of the economy. The paper favors metaphysical humility and methodological pragmatism. |
| Keywords: | microfoundations of macroeconomics, reductionism, causation, intentionality, Lucas critique |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2014-3&r=hme |
| By: | L. Randall Wray |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the intellectual history of the state, or chartalist, approach to money, from the early developers (Georg Friedrich Knapp and A. Mitchell Innes) through Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, and Abba Lerner, and on to modern exponents Hyman Minsky, Charles Goodhart, and Geoffrey Ingham. This literature became the foundation for Modern Money Theory (MMT). In the MMT approach, the state (or any other authority able to impose an obligation) imposes a liability in the form of a generalized, social, legal unit of account--a money--used for measuring the obligation. This approach does not require the preexistence of markets; indeed, it almost certainly predates them. Once the authorities can levy such obligations, they can name what fulfills any obligation by denominating those things that can be delivered; in other words, by pricing them. MMT thus links obligatory payments like taxes to the money of account as well as the currency. This leads to a revised view of money and sovereign finance. The paper concludes with an analysis of the policy options available to a modern government that issues its own currency. |
| Keywords: | Modern Money Theory; Chartalism; State Money; Knapp; Innes; Schumpeter; Keynes; Minsky; Goodhart; Ingham; Sovereign Currency |
| JEL: | B1 B3 B15 B22 B25 B52 E40 E50 E62 H5 H60 N1 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_792&r=hme |
| By: | Judith Favereau (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | By trying to guarantee that the fight against poverty is based on evidence, randomized experiments, essentially developed by Esther Duflo within the J-PAL, offer a new way to fight poverty. The originality of such approach is to import the methodology of clinical trials in development economics. In order to stress the main epistemological issues of Esther Duflo's methodology, this paper aims to interrogate this new approach in development economics through the philosophical analysis of Georges Canguilhem in medicine. Afterwards, we show that such approach struggles to produce efficient remedies against poverty; instead, it offers a global view of poverty symptoms. |
| Keywords: | Randomization, medical clinical trials, epistemology of economics, poverty, development economics. |
| JEL: | A12 B40 O20 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:14026&r=hme |
| By: | Haucap, Justus; Müller, Andrea |
| Abstract: | We analyze the behavior of 577 economics and law students in a simple binary trust experiment. While economists are both significantly less trusting and less trustworthy than law students, this difference is largely due to differences between female law and economics students. While female law students are already different in nature (during the first term of study) from female economists, the gap between them also widens more drastically over the course of their study compared to their male counterparts. This finding is rather critical as the detailed composition of students is typically neglected in most experiments. -- |
| Keywords: | Gender Effects,Trust Game,Economists,Nature,Nurture |
| JEL: | A12 A22 C35 C91 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:136&r=hme |
| By: | Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont |
| Abstract: | Economists have the habit of solving the wrong problems. They speculate circumstantially about the behavior of agents and do not come to grips with the behavior of the monetary economy. This is the consequence of the methodological imperative that all explanations must run in terms of the actions and reactions of individuals. The critical point is that no way leads from the understanding of the interaction of the individuals to the understanding of the working of the economy as a whole. The solution consists in moving from subjective-behavioral axioms to objective-structural axioms, i.e. from past to future. |
| Keywords: | new framework of concepts; structure-centric; axiom set; methodology; complex adaptive system; profit |
| JEL: | B59 D01 D50 |
| Date: | 2014–04–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55031&r=hme |
| By: | Vasco Carvalho; Nico Voigtländer |
| Abstract: | What determines which inputs are initially considered and eventually adopted in the production of new or improved goods? Why are some inputs much more prominent than others? We model the evolution of input linkages as a process where new producers first search for potentially useful inputs and then decide which ones to adopt. A new product initially draws a set of ‘essential suppliers’. The search stage is then confined to the network neighborhood of the latter, i.e., to the inputs used by the essential suppliers. The adoption decision is driven by a tradeoff between the benefits accruing from input variety and the costs of input adoption. This has important implications for the number of forward linkages that a product (input variety) develops over time. Input diffusion is fostered by network centrality – an input that is initially represented in many network neighborhoods is subsequently more likely to be adopted. This mechanism also delivers a power law distribution of forward linkages. Our predictions continue to hold when varieties are aggregated into sectors. We can thus test them, using detailed sectoral US input-output tables. We show that initial network proximity of a sector in 1967 significantly increases the likelihood of adoption throughout the subsequent four decades. The same is true for rapid productivity growth in an input-producing sector. Our empirical results highlight two conditions for new products to become central nodes: initial network proximity to prospective adopters, and technological progress that reduces their relative price. Semiconductors met both conditions. |
| JEL: | C67 D57 E10 L23 O33 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20025&r=hme |
| By: | Bertazzi, Ilaria (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Due to contemporary economic situation, with systemic financial and real economy crisis, many studies started to investigate the nature of debt. Not that the subject (and its controversy) was ignored before, but one of the major limit of current theory is the uniformity of treatment and analysis as if there were no fundamental difference in the variety of debt, bankruptcy and possible bailout with no relevant distinctions in terms of causes, categories of agents involved and respective relationships, normative framework and uses of the loan money. Economic theory defines debt as a relationship between someone with surplus of money and somebody in “need”, with a temporal partition between one exchange and the other. Distinct models for different loan types are necessary, in particular when related to norms and social concept of justice, such as the issues raised by debt revolts, debt imprisonments and debt slavery. Debtors’ movements appeared in different situation, but generally have in common the type of debtors involved: household or small family-level businessmen that experience great pressure related to collaterals nature. Insolvency highly influences welfare, both in terms of reputation in their social network, and in terms of material life. This characteristic reveals itself to be crucial in the study, both for the birth and rise of movements, and for the comprehension of the moral and power mechanisms that withstand this kind debt, and should give economic theory a starting point to develop new types of models on debts. |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201405&r=hme |
| By: | Baulch, Bob; Tam, Le Vi An |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the distribution of total aid and aid to the social sectors between 2009 and 2011. Its key findings are four-fold. First, despite the stated objectives of donors, total aid disbursements are broadly neutral, favouring neither the most |
| Keywords: | aid, social sectors, concentration curves, progressivity |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2013-075&r=hme |
| By: | Valentino Larcinese |
| Abstract: | What are the political consequences of introducing de jure political equality? Does it change patterns of political representation and the identity of elected legislators? This paper uses an important electoral reform passed in 1912 in Italy to provide evidence on these questions. The reform trebled the electorate (from slightly less than three million to 8.650.000) leaving electoral rules and district boundaries unchanged. By exploiting differences in enfranchisement rates across electoral districts we identify the effect of franchise extension on various political outcomes. Enfranchisement increased the vote share of left-wing social reformers but had no impact on their parliamentary representation, no impact on parliamentary representation of aristocracy and traditional elites and no effect on political competition. We show that left-wing parties decreased their vote shares and were systematically defeated in key swing districts. We document elite's effort to minimize the political impact of the reform and, in particular, we show that the Vatican's secret involvement in the post-reform electoral campaign had a substantial impact on voting results, although formerly and newly enfranchised voters were equally affected. We relate our results to economic theories of democratization, which appear to be only partially compatible with our evidence. Keywords: democratization, voting, electoral competition, inequality, swing districts, political violence, Vatican, socialism. JEL code: D72 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:igi:igierp:512&r=hme |
| By: | Scott Scheall |
| Abstract: | From the early-1950s on, F.A. Hayek was concerned with the development of a methodology of sciences that study systems of complex phenomena. Hayek argued that the knowledge that can be acquired about such systems is, in virtue of their complexity (and the comparatively narrow boundaries of human cognitive faculties), relatively limited. The paper aims to elucidate the implications of Hayek’s methodology with respect to the specific dimensions along which the scientist’s knowledge of some complex phenomena may be limited. Hayek’s fallibilism was an essential (if not always explicit) aspect of his arguments against the defenders of both socialism ([1935] 1948, [1940] 1948) and countercyclical monetary policy ([1975] 1978); yet, despite the fact that his conceptions of both complex phenomena and the methodology appropriate to their investigation imply that ignorance might beset the scientist in multiple respects, he never explicated all of these consequences. The specificity of a scientific prediction depends on the extent of the scientist’s knowledge concerning the phenomena under investigation. The paper offers an account of the considerations that determine the extent to which a theory’s implications prohibit the occurrence of particular events in the relevant domain. This theory of “predictive degree” both expresses and – as the phenomena of scientific prediction are themselves complex in Hayek’s sense – exemplifies the intuition that the specificity of a scientific prediction depends on the relevant knowledge available. |
| Keywords: | Hayek, Economic Methodology, Fallibilism, Complexity, Explanation, Prediction, Underdetermination, Quine |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2013-21&r=hme |
| By: | Ronaldo Herrlein Júnior |
| Abstract: | Este texto investiga as características e as possibilidades históricas de um Estado desenvolvimentista construído a partir da democracia, em contraste com o modelo histórico do Estado desenvolvimentista no Leste Asiático. Após uma breve introdução, este modelo histórico e o desenvolvimento capitalista almejado pelas nações subdesenvolvidas são interpretados e submetidos a uma avaliação crítica. A resposta às críticas é formulada propositivamente em dois níveis: a ressignificação do desenvolvimento e a perspectiva de um novo modelo histórico de Estado democrático para o desenvolvimento. O desenvolvimento endógeno (Furtado, 1984) é explicitado como alternativa de transformação social em que a mobilização popular provoca a expansão das capacidades humanas (Sen, 2000, 2008), por meio da democratização dos mercados e do aprofundamento da democracia (Unger, 2008). O Estado democrático para o desenvolvimento (EDD) é definido por funções desenvolvimentistas reconcebidas e inovações institucionais que podem viabilizar o desenvolvimento endógeno. As bases sociais e os fundamentos ideológicos que podem sustentar o padrão histórico do EDD são identificados para apontar a possibilidade histórica de uma convergência construtiva de forças sociais populares e ideologias “humanistas” em alguns países da periferia. O texto conclui indicando caminhos para viabilizar um programa simultâneo de transformação do Estado e da sociedade, com vistas à superação do subdesenvolvimento e ao enfrentamento das contradições do capitalismo contemporâneo. This essay inquires into the characteristics and historical possibilities of a Developmental State built on democracy, in opposition to the East Asian Developmental State historical model. After a brief introduction, this model and the capitalism development the underdeveloped peoples crave are interpreted and subjected to a critical evaluation. The answer to the criticisms is made in two levels: the reframing of development and the perspective of a new historical model of a Democratic State for Development. The endogenous development (Celso Furtado) is explained as an alternative of social change in which popular mobilization provokes the expansion of human capabilities (Amartya Sen) through market democratization and deepening democracy (Mangabeira Unger). The Democratic State for Development (DSD) is defined by redesigned developmental functions and institutional innovations that can make endogenous development feasible. The social bases and ideological foundations that can endorse the DSD historical pattern are identified to point the historical possibility of a constructive convergence of popular social forces and “humanist” ideologies in some countries of the periphery. The essay concludes indicating ways to make feasible a simultaneous program of State and society transformation, envisioning the overcoming of underdevelopment and the confrontation of contemporary capitalism contradictions. |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipe:ipetds:1935&r=hme |
| By: | Martha G. Alatriste Contreras; Giorgio Fagiolo |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how economic shocks propagate and amplify through the input-output network connecting industrial sectors in developed economies. We study alternative models of diffusion on networks and we calibrate them using input-output data on real-world inter-sectoral dependencies for several European countries before the Great Depression. We show that the impact of economic shocks strongly depends on the nature of the shock and country size. Shocks that impact on final demand without changing production and the technological relationships between sectors have on average a large but very homogeneous impact on the economy. Conversely, when shocks change also the magnitudes of input-output across-sector interdependencies (and possibly sector production), the economy is subject to predominantly large but more heterogeneous avalanche sizes. In this case, we also find that: (i) the more a sector is globally central in the country network, the largest its impact; (ii) the largest European countries, such as those constituting the core of the European Union's economy, typically experience the largest avalanches, signaling their intrinsic higher vulnerability to economic shocks. |
| Keywords: | Complex networks, input-output networks, shock diusion, spreading mechanisms, avalances, economic crises |
| Date: | 2014–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2014/09&r=hme |
| By: | Kyu Sang Lee |
| Abstract: | Thanks to the recent studies of the history and philosophy of experimental economics, it is well known that around the early 1980s, experimental economists made a case for the legitimacy of their laboratory work by emphasizing that it was a nice and indispensable complement to mechanism design theorists’ mathematical study of institutions. The present paper examines what mechanism design theorists thought of laboratory experimentation, or whether they were willing to form a coalition with experimental economists circa the mid-1980s. By exploring several dimensions of the relationship between mechanism design theory and experimental economics, the present paper shows that a close rapport had been established by the early 1980s between the representative members of the two camps, and also that mechanism design theorists were among the strongest supporters of laboratory experimentation in the economics profession in the mid-1980s. |
| Keywords: | mechanism design theory, experimental economics, institutional design, Stanley Reiter, Vernon Smith, Charles Plott |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2013-18&r=hme |
| By: | Olivier N. Godart; Holger Görg; Aoife Hanley |
| Abstract: | We explore whether the introduction of trust based working hours is related to the subsequent innovation performance of firms. Employing a panel data set of over 5,000 German establishments, we implement a propensity score matching approach where we only consider firms that did not use trust based work contracts initially. Our results show that firms which adopt such contracts tend to be between 11 to 14 percent more likely to improve products. These results hold when we control for another form of flexible time work arrangements, namely working time accounts. Thus, the positive relationship between the adoption of trust based working hours and innovation seems to be driven by the degree of control and self-management over working days, rather than by merely allowing time flexibility |
| Keywords: | Trust based work time, innovation, firm performance |
| JEL: | M1 M5 L2 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1913&r=hme |
| By: | Kosfeld, Michael; Schüwer, Ulrich |
| Abstract: | This paper explores consequences of consumer education on prices and welfare in retail financial markets when some consumers are naive about shrouded add-on prices and firms try to exploit it. Allowing for different information and pricing strategies we show that education is unlikely to push firms to disclose prices towards all consumers, which would be socially effifficient. Instead, price discrimination emerges as a new equilibrium. Further, due to a feedback on prices, education that is good for consumers who become sophisticated may be bad for consumers who stay naive and even for the group of all consumers as a whole. -- |
| Keywords: | consumer education,financial literacy,bounded rationality,competition,regulation |
| JEL: | D40 D80 L50 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:47&r=hme |
| By: | Kévin André (ESSEC Business School - ESSEC Business School) |
| Abstract: | Si les relations de care émergent généralement de manière spontanée dans le contexte domestique (Noddings, 1984), certains auteurs plaident pour la reconnaissance de leur rôle en dehors de la sphère privée (Tronto, 2009), notamment dans le contexte de la prise en charge des personnes en situation de dépendance (Winnicott, 1970). Nous nous appuyons sur une recherche menée au sein de l'Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM) pour montrer en quoi les " référents de parcours de santé " de l'AFM peuvent être qualifiés de professionnels du care. Nous discutons des conditions qui ont permis cette professionnalisation du care et des implications pour une meilleure intégration des soins. |
| Keywords: | éthique du care; intégration des systèmes de soin; professionnalisation; dépendance; gestion de cas |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00967178&r=hme |
| By: | Noélie Delahaie (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales - IRES); Richard Duhautois (CEE - Centre d'études de l'emploi - Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et Recherche - Ministère du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Santé, TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - CNRS : FR3435 - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (UPEMLV)) |
| Abstract: | En France, les dispositifs collectifs de partage des bénéfices - intéressement et participation aux bénéfices - sont des mécanismes qui permettent la constitution d'une épargne salariale. D'après les résultats de l'enquête PIPA (Participation, Intéressement, Plan d'épargne entreprise et Actionnariat des salariés) menée par la Dares depuis 1999, l'épargne salariale connaît une diffusion croissante dans les entreprises. En 2010, plus de 57 % des salariés du secteur marchand non agricole étaient concernés par au moins un dispositif. En raison de l'obligation légale de mise en œuvre dans les entreprises de 50 salariés ou plus, la participation aux bénéfices demeure le dispositif le plus répandu et concerne 44,8 % des salariés en 2010, contre 38,1 % en 1999. Sur la même période, la part des salariés couverts par un accord d'intéressement passe de 27,4 % à 37,3 %. Dans la littérature économique, les enjeux de l'épargne salariale, et surtout de l'intéressement, en termes d'incitation à l'effort sont bien documentés : la majorité des travaux observe des effets positifs de ce dispositif sur la productivité du travail. En revanche, les effets sur les salaires font l'objet d'un nombre plus réduit d'études, notamment sur des données françaises et sur la période récente. Dans ce contexte, quel est l'impact des dispositifs collectifs de partage des bénéfices (intéressement et participation aux bénéfices) sur les salaires en France entre 1999 et 2007 ? Les dispositifs collectifs de partage des bénéfices et les primes auxquelles ils donnent lieu se substituent-ils aux augmentations de salaire ? Ou bien sont-ils complémentaires ? |
| Keywords: | partage du profit; intéressement; participation;salaires. |
| Date: | 2013–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00967479&r=hme |
| By: | Camille Hémet (Aix-Marseille School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | La diversité reflète le fait que les membres d’une communauté diffèrent selon certaines caractéristiques, liées à l'origine ethnique, au statut socio-économique ou à la culture. L’essor du commerce et l'intégration économique placent les sociétés modernes face à des niveaux de diversité croissants. Cette thèse évalue l’impact social et économique de la diversité locale. elle montre comment la diversité d’un quartier influe sur les conditions de vie et les perspectives d'emploi de ses habitants. Ce travail contribue à la littérature de trois façons: il examine des questions inexplorées à un niveau très local, révèle les mécanismes sous-jacents et fournit de nouvelles méthodes pour aborder la question de l'endogénéité. Le chapitre 1 montre que la diversité des origines a un effet négatif sur la qualité des biens publics locaux, du fait d’actes de vandalisme liés à un manque de pression des pairs, et du fait de l'échec de l'action collective qui permettrait une gestion efficace de la propriété. Aucun effet robuste sur la sécurité publique n’est à noter. Le chapitre 2 révèle que l'effet du chômage sur la criminalité a une dimension spatiale. Pour les crimes économiques, le taux de chômage des quartiers environnants a un effet plus fort que celui du voisinage immédiat, l'inverse étant vrai pour vandalisme. Le chapitre 3 montre que les personnes vivant dans un quartier plus diversifié ont des perspectives d'emploi inférieures, cet effet étant plus lié à la dimension culturelle qu’ethnique de la diversité. Le chapitre 4 développe un modèle rationalisant le recours des minorités ethniques à l'économie informelle en réponse à des conditions défavorables sur le marché du travail. |
| Keywords: | diversité ethnique et culturelle, conditions de vie, relations sociales, chômage; ethnic and cultural diversity, living conditions social, relationships, unemployment |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6o65lgig8d0qcro9oj5ak8gr4&r=hme |
| By: | Alain Bienaymé (LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris IX - Paris Dauphine) |
| Abstract: | After a few centuries of speeding up, the distribution of GNP's growth rates has widely changed all round the world. Growth is slowing down in advanced countries and has accelerated in emerging countries. Moreover growth is questioned as a matter of principle. Considering the vast array of issues at stake, mainly the depletion of natural resources and the enduring waste of human resources caused by mass unemployment, growth has reached a new stage. Economics needs to be provided food for thought from social sciences as well as from geography, natural sciences and philosophy : growth is a field of research open to co - disciplinarity. History shows how important the intellectuel climate, the zeit geist has been and still is for economic performances. As regards the future of growth, we explore two feasible scenarios able to conciliate at least two of the following goals : better protection and maintenance of natural resources, satisfaction of human aspirations to get better life conditions, alternative activities to paid jobs and idleness entailed by the labour saving technologies and significative efforts of households to temper their consumption. |
| Keywords: | Co - disciplinarity; sustainable development; emergent economies; employment; labour; natural resources; rationality; risk |
| Date: | 2014–02–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00946602&r=hme |
| By: | Jane Humphries; Jacob Weisdorf |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850 and compares it with existing evidence for men.� Our series cast light on long run trends in women's agency and wellbeing, revealing an intractable, indeed widening gap between women and men's remuneration in the centuries following the Black Death.� This informs several debates: first whether or not "the golden age of the English peasantry" included women; and second whether or not industrialization provided women with greater opportunities.� Our contributions to both debates have implications for analyses of growth and trends in wellbeing.� If the rise in wages that followed the Black Death enticed female servants to delay marriage, it contributed to the formation of the European Marriage Pattern, a demographic regime which positioned England on a path to modern economic growth.� If the industrial revolution provided women with improved economic options, their gains should be included in any overall assessment of trends in the standard of living distorts the overall evaluation of the gains from industrialization. |
| Keywords: | Black Death, England, gender wage gap, industrial revolution, gender segregation, wages, women |
| JEL: | J3 J4 J5 J6 J7 J8 N33 |
| Date: | 2014–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:number-127&r=hme |
| By: | Ambrosino, Angela (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The mediation procedure, as outlined by D.lg 28/2010 and subsequent amendments, introduced in our legal system a new tool for coordinating the decisions of economic agents. The new civil mediation is proposed, therefore, as an instrument characterized by a different procedure and objectives from those of ordinary judgment. The evaluation of its efficiency requires the introduction of new theoretical tools that allow to evaluate the different aspects of social interaction in mediation. The traditional cost-benefit analysis proposed by the economic analysis of law, or simple considerations on Pareto-efficiency proposed by standard economics seem not sufficient analytical tools in this perspective. This article shares Mitchell’s cognitive approach to the theory of law, and it is aimed at analyzing the new model of mediation introduced into Italian legislation through the lens offered by F.A. Hayek’s theory of law (1973, 1976, 1979), with particular reference to the distinction he made between law and legislation and its consequence on the analysis of the role of the judge in common law as the discoverer of law. Moreover, Hayek’s legal theory will be analyzed jointly to his concept of social order. In the light of the contribution of this author, in fact, the choice of our legislator seems to be close to the idea of developing regulatory structures that simply delineate the action of subjects without imposing specific behaviors or ex ante solutions to given situations |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201406&r=hme |
| By: | Jérôme Maucourant (TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - CNRS : UMR5206 - Université Lumière - Lyon II - Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Lyon - École Normale Supérieure (ENS) - Lyon - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne) |
| Abstract: | La crise que traverse le capitalisme occidental devrait avoir une conséquence théorique immédiate : contester les énoncés de la " science économique " dominante, qui se glorifie d'être une science, alors qu'elle est avant tout un outil performatif du capitalisme transnational dont la puissance ne réside pas dans la caractère " autorégulateur " des marchés concurrentiels, mais dans sa capacité à dévaluer le travail humain et nier les formes de vie. Ceci implique d'en revenir à la problématique de l' " économie politique ", qui part des fondements sociaux et institutionnels rendant possible la création de richesses. Mais, le passage au postcapitalisme, que peut précipiter la catastrophe dite " écologique ", devrait aussi impliquer de repenser à nouveaux frais le concept de capitalisme lui-même. Le propos de l'article est ainsi d'opposer le vieux principe capitaliste au système capitaliste, lequel est donc nouveau et contingent, ce qui est intéressant dans une perspective postcapitaliste. Certes, la puissance du " capitalisme rationnel ", inventé par l'Occident, est remarquable, mais sa dynamique même le conduit à une irrationalisation profonde de la vie sociale et, in fine, économique, du fait que le " fétichisme de la liquidité " est devenu son principe organisateur. Paradoxalement, l'émergence de formes alternatives de capitalisme, adaptant et actualisant, comme en Chine, les vieux principes du " capitalisme politique " à la Weber, a rendu possible la mondialisation. Sans les marchés créés par le capitalisme occidental, la mondialisation n'eût certes pas été possible, mais, sans la diversité des capitalismes, elle n'aurait pas pu se poursuivre. L'inquiétante convergence de ce processus capitaliste est liquidation de l'idée même de contrôle démocratique de l'économie. |
| Keywords: | Capitalisme politique, capitalisme rationnel, Marx, Weber, postcapitalisme |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00967678&r=hme |
| By: | Gianluigi Mongillo; Hanan Shteingart; Yonatan Loewenstein |
| Abstract: | Organisms modify their behavior in response to its consequences, a phenomenon referred to as operant learning. The computational principles and neural mechanisms underlying operant learning are a subject of extensive experimental and theoretical investigations. Theoretical approaches largely rely on concepts and algorithms from Reinforcement Learning. The dominant view is that organisms maintain a value function, that is a set of estimates of the cumulative future rewards associated with the different behavioral options. These values are then used to select actions. Learning in this framework results from the update of these values depending on experience of the consequences of past actions. An alternative view questions the applicability of such a computational scheme to many real-life situations. Instead, it posits that organisms exploit the intrinsic variability in their action selection mechanism(s) to modify their behavior, e.g., via stochastic gradient ascent, without the need of an explicit representation of values. In this review, we compare these two approaches in terms of their computational power and flexibility, their putative neural correlates and, finally, in terms of their ability to account for behavior as observed in repeated-choice experiments. We discuss the successes and failures of these alternative approaches in explaining the observed patterns of choice behavior. We conclude by identifying some of the important challenges to a comprehensive theory of operant learning. |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp661&r=hme |
| By: | Bruno Amable (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne & Institut Universitaire de France) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the French political crisis since the late 1970s by investigating the links between the social structure and the economic policy expectations of the electorate. To this end, data on post-electoral survey are used to estimate structural models of political support to political parties for 1978 and 2012, and the estimation results are used to propose an analysis of the French crisis. The enduring French political crisis is found to be the expression of contradictions between the economic policies implemented by the successive governments and the existence of a dominant social bloc, i.e. a coalition of social groups that would politically support the dominant political strategy. Since 1978, both the right and the left have failed to find a solution to the contradictions between the policies they implemented and the expectations of their social bases, which are themselves inhabited by tensions and contradictions that evolve with the structure of French capitalism. The failure of all governing coalitions so far is a new expression of that of the “modernists” to take into account the expectations of the popular classes. |
| Keywords: | France, political crisis, political economy, social base. |
| JEL: | P16 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:14023&r=hme |
| By: | Michael Assous; Roberto Lampa |
| Abstract: | Oskar Lange’s 1938 article “The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume”, is usually associated with the original IS-LM approach of the late 1930s. However, Lange’s article was not only an attempt to illuminate Keynes’s main innovations but the first part of a wide project that included the development of a theory of economic evolution. This paper aims at showing that Lange’s article can help illuminating critical aspects of this project: in particular, Lange’s idea that a synthesis between Kaldor’s and Kalecki’s theories and that of Schumpeter, might have been possible and that it represented (in intentions) a “modern” and consistent reconstruction of the Marxist theory of the business cycle. Section 1 clarifies Lange’s early reflection on dynamics. Section 2 centers on Lange’s 1938 static model and indicates the effects of a change of saving on investment. Section 3 suggests a dynamic reconstruction from which are addressed important arguments raised by Lange in a series of papers written between 1934 and 1942. |
| Keywords: | Lange; Kalecki; Marxian theory of the business cycle; marginal propensity to save; non-linearity |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hec:heccee:2014-2&r=hme |
| By: | Arden Finn (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town); Murray Leibbrandt (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town); Ingrid Woolard (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town) |
| Abstract: | Gauging levels of welfare using data on income and expenditure is informative yet limited and can be enhanced by including non-money-metric measures. Nationally representative data sets from 1993 and 2010-2011 which cover a broad set of domains are used to calculate a multidimensional poverty index (MPI) for each year. This paper calculates these indices and uses them to assess trends in multidimensional poverty in South Africa over the post-apartheid period. From 1993 to 2010 MPI poverty fell by 29 percentage points from 37% to 8%. During this time period, the level of severe MPI poverty also dropped substantially from 17% of the population in 1993 to just over 1% in 2010. Not only did the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty fall significantly, but the average distance from the multidimensional poverty line across all dimensions also decreased over the period. These declines in multidimensional poverty are notably stronger than the estimated declines in money-metric poverty, which are also estimated and compared for the post-apartheid period. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:099&r=hme |