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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Smith, Jennifer C (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Theories of wage rigidity often rely on a positive relationship between pay changes and utility, arising from concern for fairness or gift exchange. Supportive evidence has emerged from laboratory experiments, but the link has not yet been established with ?eld data. This paper contributes a ?rst step, using representative British data. Workers care about the level and the growth of earnings. Below-median wage increases lead to an insult e¤ect except when similar workers have real wage reductions or ?rm production is falling. Nominal pay cuts appear insulting even when the ?rm is doing badly. |
| Keywords: | Pay cuts, Social comparisons, Gift exchange |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:130&r=hme |
| By: | Eckhard Hein (Berlin School of Economics and Law, and Institute for International Political Economy Berlin (IPE)); Nina Dodig (Berlin School of Economics and Law, and Institute for International Political Economy Berlin (IPE)); Natalia Budyldina (Berlin School of Economics and Law, and Institute for International Political Economy Berlin (IPE)) |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys some of the important literatures on financial, economic and social systems with an eye towards explaining the tendencies towards ‘financialisation’. We focus on important strands of this literature: the French Regulation School, the US-based Social Structures of Accumulation approach, the contributions by several Post-Keynesian authors, with a focus on the long-run views contained in Hyman Minsky’s work, in particular. In our comparative assessment of these approaches, we adopt the following four steps procedure: First, we sketch the basic structure of the approaches in order to single out how each of them views the interaction between social institutions and the economy and the related dynamics regarding the development of the institutional structure and the associated stages or regimes of economic development. Second, we describe how these approaches view the structural breaks or the regime shifts in the long-run development of modern capitalism, which has triggered or at least has contributed to the emergence of a type of capitalism dominated by finance (financialisation). Third, we outline how these different approaches view the main characteristics and features of financialisation. Fourth, we deal with the respective views on the consequences of financialisation for long-run economic and social development including the crisis of this stage of development. |
| Keywords: | French Regulation School, Social Structures of Accumulation, Post-Keynesian approach, Minsky, financialisation, stages of capitalist development, finance-led growth regime, global neoliberal SSA, finance-dominated capitalism, money manager capitalism, financial, economic and social systems. |
| JEL: | E02 E11 E12 G01 P10 P16 P51 |
| Date: | 2014–02–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:wpaper:wpaper22&r=hme |
| By: | Gabriel Burdin |
| Abstract: | Are high-ability individuals more likely to quit egalitarian regimes? Does the threat of exit by talented individuals restrict the redistributive capacity of democratic organizations? This paper revisits that long-standing debate by analyzing the interplay between compensation structure and quit behavior in the distinct yet underexplored institutional setting of workermanaged firms. The study exploits two novel administrative data sources: a panel of Uruguayan workers employed in both worker-managed and conventional firms; and a linked employer–employee panel data set covering the population of Uruguayan workermanaged firms and their workers from January 1997 to April 2010. A key advantage of the data is that it enables one to exploit within-firm variation on wages to construct an ordinal measure of the worker ability type. The paper's four main findings are that (1) workermanaged firms redistribute in favor of low-wage workers; (2) in worker-managed firms, high-ability members are more likely than other members to exit; (3) the hazard ratio of high-ability members is lower for founding members and for those employed by workermanaged firms in which there is less pay compression; and (4) high-ability members are less likely to quit when labor market conditions in the capitalist sector are less attractive. This paper contributes to the study of the interplay between equality and incentives that permeates many debates in public finance, comparative economic systems, personnel and organizational economics |
| Keywords: | Labor managed firms, redistribution, compensation structure, job mobility |
| JEL: | H00 J54 J62 M52 P0 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:694&r=hme |
| By: | Daniel Detzer (Berlin School of Economics and Law, and Institute for International Political Economy Berlin (IPE)); Hansjorg Herr (Berlin School of Economics and Law, and Institute for International Political Economy Berlin (IPE)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses financial crises from a theoretical point of view. For this it reviews what different schools of economic thought have to say about financial crises. It examines first the approaches that regard financial crises as a disturbing factor of a generally stable real economy (Wicksell, Hayek, Schumpeter, Fisher, and the early Keynes). Thereafter, approaches, where the dichotomy between the monetary and the real sphere is lifted are reviewed. Here in particular the later works of Keynes and the contributions of Minsky are of importance. Lastly, it is looked at the behavioural finance approaches. After having reviewed the different approaches it is examined, where those approaches have similarities and where they fruitfully can be combined. Based on this, we develop an own theoretical framework methodologically based on a Wicksellian cumulative process, however, overcoming the neoclassical dichotomy. The paper ends with some policy recommendations based on the developed theoretical framework. |
| Keywords: | Financial crisis, crisis theory, behavioral finance, Hayek, Keynes, Minsky, Schumpeter, Wicksell |
| JEL: | E12 E13 G01 |
| Date: | 2014–02–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fes:wpaper:wpaper25&r=hme |
| By: | Corradi, A.A. |
| Abstract: | Firm dynamics are commonly explained through learning processes by evolutionary economics and resource-based theories of the firm. The literature, however, also highlights the methodological difficulty to unpack learning. With the support of cognitive-behavioural theories of learning and the use of a multi-method approach, this study investigates the evolution of business start- ups and interactions between markets, institutions and learning strategies. In retrospective interviews, entrepreneurs-founders of 43 Brazilian start-ups reconstructed the storyline of the first three to five years of their firms, focussing on critical learning episodes. Analyses of the narratives resulted in 207 critical learning episodes, based on the analytical framework, empirical content, expert evaluation and the literature. These episodes were clustered in five categories. Quantitative descriptive analysis showed the cross-cutting dynamics of these episodes. Then, relationships between episodes were investigated through grounded theory principles. Results showed that the key linking factor between episodes is the resource-base of each episode, which generated five typical pathways. The final step identified the properties of these pathways. It is argued that the iteration between qualitative and quantitative methods was crucial to unpack the relationships described. This study provides a viable methodology and a comprehensive framework to investigate the evolution of business start-ups, contributing to the literature on organizational learning, entrepreneurship, and theory of the firm. |
| Keywords: | mixed methods, resource-based theory of the firm, evolution of business start-ups, theory building |
| Date: | 2014–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:51040&r=hme |
| By: | Marcella Corsi; Giulia Zacchia |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to offer a contribution to the analysis of the under-representation of women economists in academic positions in Italy, focusing on publications. In Italy women’s proportion of PhDs in Economics and Statistics has increased from 39 to 52 per cent in the last decade. Despite this progressive feminization of doctoral degrees in economics, the share of women working as academic staff in departments of Economics at Italian universities is still low: women constitute 28.1% of academic economists in Italy; in particular, women account for 16% of full professors and 27% of associate professors (data for 2010). The much-debated reform of the Italian university system (so called ‘Gelmini’ reform) is stressing the importance of ‘merit evaluation’ for academics and consequently it is supporting the use of bibliometric indicators for the purposes of selection. In this context, we aim to assess whether the systematic differences between Italian men and women in terms of academic career in economics, can be explained by their productivity in the last ten years. In order to do so, we first study, from a gender perspective, how the profile of economists who have become full professors in the last decade has changed in terms of individual characteristics and scientific productivity. Then, we study gender differences in the scientific output of academic economists since 2001, in order to find out about differences between men and women and completethe picture of the gender gap in career for economists in the Italian University. |
| JEL: | J16 J70 D72 |
| Date: | 2014–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/159748&r=hme |
| By: | Berrier-Lucas, Céline; Rambaud, Alexandre |
| Abstract: | To achieve sustainability, corporations need to shift their ontology: leave the classic, static and predetermined view of the firm to a dynamic, relational and deliberative one. This paper explores the historical content of a proto-sustainable situation and proposes a theoretical framework to fulfil this ontological re-conceptualization. |
| Keywords: | Ontologie des entreprises; Soutenabilité d'entreprise; Développement durable; firm ontology; Sustainability; dynamic, deliberative and processual methodology; historical approach; |
| JEL: | M0 Q56 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dau:papers:123456789/13043&r=hme |
| By: | Luc Avonds |
| Abstract: | The input-output table of 2005 has been, together with new versions of the tables for 1995 and 2005, subjected to a traditional input-output analysis by means of the cumulated costs : the analysis of value added and intermediate imports directly and indirectly caused in the whole economy by the deliveries of one industry to final demand. Two tendencies are observed: an increase of intermediate imports in the cost structures (1995-2000) and a de-industrialization (2000-2005). But a few particularities are also discovered. |
| Keywords: | Belgium, Input-output analysis, Input-output tables |
| JEL: | D57 |
| Date: | 2013–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpb:wpaper:1309&r=hme |
| By: | Jean Cartelier |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the paper is to offer a logical genesis of the differenciation of agents in two classes: capitalist entrepreneurs and wage-earners. The model presented here does not follow the Classical (or Marxian) tradition (where the two opposed classes are the straight consequence of the concentration of the means of production in the hands of a limited fraction of people). It does not follow mainstream economists either (no difference according to general competitive equilibrium or a difference taken as given in labour economics in general). Models belonging to those traditions fail to reproduce a major stylised fact: wage-earners cannot be distinguished from entrepreneurs when they are in the market for commodities but they radically differ in the'market for labour'or in production (wage-earners do not produce for their own account but for that of entrepreneurs who get pro ts, not wages). Modern tentatives to deal with the differenciation of agents (Matsuyama for instance) explain it by a progrssive differenciation of the level of wealth up to a threshold which makes some agents able to accumulate and others not. We propose a different view based on the process of issuance of money. If a fraction of agents have not a direct access to that process they cannot act in the market for their own account. The alternatives they have are limited to autarky or to work for the account of those who have additional alternatives due to their direct access to money (to be independent producers or entrepreneurs hiring wage-earners). The model makes explicit the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an E-equilibrium in which co-exist heterogeneous agents (entrepreneurs and wage-earners) starting from a population homogeneous except for bank rationing. These reasonable conditions are: an efficient monetary system, a sufficient gap between productivity of production in mass compared to other types and a possibility to induce wage-earners to work signifi cantly more than they would as free producers. A non-Marxian notion of exploitation is suggested to conclude. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurs, wage-earners. |
| JEL: | A10 B50 J01 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2014-19&r=hme |
| By: | de Vaujany, François-Xavier; Carton, Sabine; Mitev, Nathalie; Romeyer, Cécile |
| Abstract: | This article investigates how Information Systems researchers apply institutional theoretical frameworks. Our aim is to explore the operationalization of meta-theoretical frameworks for empirical research which can often present difficulties in IS research. We include theoretical, methodological and empirical aspects to explore modalities of use. After an overview of institutional concepts, we carry out a thematic analysis of empirical journal papers on IS and institutional theory indexed in databases from 1999 to 2009. This consists of descriptive, thematic coding and cluster analysis of this textual database; this combined qualitative and quantitative method offers a unique way of analyzing how operationalization is carried out. On the basis of thematic coding and cluster analysis, our findings suggest three groups of publications which represent different methodological approaches and empirical foci: ‘descriptive exploratory approaches’, ‘generalizing approaches’, and ‘sociological approaches’. We suggest that these three groups represent possible patterns of the use of ‘meta’ social theories in IS research, reflecting a search for disciplinary legitimacy. This helps us analyze papers according to how they use and apply theories. We identify the “organizing vision” and the regulatory approach as two institutionalist ‘intermediary’ concepts developed by IS researchers. Furthermore, we find that institutional theoretical frameworks have been used in ‘direct’, ‘intermediary’ or ‘combined’ conceptualizations. We also confirm the dynamism of the IS institutional research stream, as evidenced by the increase in number of articles between 1999 and 2009, and identify a maturation process of the IS field in investigating a social theory. As a conclusion, we make suggestions to blend different conceptualizations, methodologies and empirical foci to enrich the use of institutionalist theories in IS empirical research. |
| Keywords: | IS research; information systems; neo-institutionalism; institutions; Institutional theory; Literature review; Longitudinal data; IS Journals; |
| JEL: | M10 M15 B52 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dau:papers:123456789/13044&r=hme |
| By: | Bruno Amable (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne, CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications, IUF - Institut Universitaire de France - Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| 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 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00973926&r=hme |
| By: | de la Fonteijne, Marcel |
| Abstract: | Main goal of this paper is to clarify the paradox of monetary profit. The definitions and formulas introduced will make it simple and straight forward to understand the paradox. In order to understand from where the profits or monetary profits of capitalists and firms emerge I examined the phrase of Marx, ‘Die Gesamtklasse der Kapitalisten kann nichts aus der Zirkulation herausziehen, was nicht vorher hineingeworfen war.’ and classified it as very confusing. I will show where this confusion comes from and show how to cope with problems alike in a systematic way by using definitions and formulas. As a bonus these formulas give us insight under which conditions the economy can be sustainable and that the relation between monetary profit for firms and savings for household defines a very limited solution space in which the economy can operate in a sustainable way and yet only considering the boundary condition for firm profit and household savings. It will also give us a clue where the motivation for participating in the economy comes from. |
| Keywords: | monetary profit, paradox, Marx, Keynes, Capitalists |
| JEL: | E11 E12 E20 E25 |
| Date: | 2013–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55235&r=hme |
| By: | Bertrand Lemennicier |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to challenge the conventional theory of moral hazard and adverse selection. Moral hazard and adverse selection problems in contemporary economic theory are plagued with four major aws: 1) the alleged asymmetrical information between buyer and seller as a problem in the coordination process of the market; 2) the confusion between different concepts or denitions of probability: case or class probabilities, pure subjective beliefs on the occurrence of an event or relative prices on betting markets; 3) the presupposed inability of actors (sellers and buyers) to solve by themselves the problems they face, 4) the pretense of economists to be able to correct these so-called market failures with compulsory insurance without creating new moral hazard and/or adverse selection problems worse than the ones they want to cure. We center our paper mainly on the internal and theoretical inconsistency of the canonical model developed by Akerlof and Rothschild and Stiglitz's theory and their followers based on additive or non additive expected utility associated with the subjective versus frequency tradition in statistics. As an alternative, we propose to approach these phenomena through the eye glasses of betting markets an securitization of insurance contracts. |
| Keywords: | Moral hazard, adverse selection, uncertainty, risk, subjective probability, entrepreneurial judgment, asymmetrical information, contract incentives, compulsory insurance, betting market, free market competition as a discovery process |
| JEL: | B53 D23 D86 G22 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:04-2014&r=hme |
| By: | Ali Fakih; Pascal L. Ghazalian |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the implications of firm-related and national factors for Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP) rates in manufacturing firms located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The empirical investigation uses data derived from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys database and applies fractional logit models to carry out the estimations. The results reveal positive implications of many firm-related factors, mainly private foreign ownership and exporting activities, for FLFP rates. National factors, such as economic development and gender equality, are also found to promote FLFP rates. These effects are generally found to be more important for women’s overall labour participation rates than for women’s non-production labour participation rates. |
| Keywords: | Female labour force participation, fractional logit model, manufacturing firms, MENA region, |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J23 J82 |
| Date: | 2013–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2013s-46&r=hme |
| By: | Blomkvist, Pär (Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm); Emanuel, Martin (Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) |
| Abstract: | The first of July 1952, the moped was legislatively excluded from existing restrictions for heavier two-wheeled motorized vehicles. A driver/owner of a “bicycle with auxiliary engine” – this was the original denomination of the vehicle – thus needed no registration, driver’s license or insurance, nor pay any vehicle tax. The legislators did, however, postulate some technical requirements. Besides regulation of the engine, the vehicle should be “bicycle-like” and have pedals. It should thus be driven primarily by means of human, not mechanical, power (i.e., it was not supposed to be a lighter version of a motorcycle). In terms of social and economic goals, the state assumed workers to be the primary users, and a utilitarian use rather than one connected to pleasure and spare time. Very quickly, however, the moped lost all resemblance with the ordinary bicycle (except for the pedals). In a new legislation in 1961, the state yielded to the technical development. The moped no longer needed to resemble a bicycle or have pedals. Meanwhile, the moped also became more of a toy for boys – a vehicle for freedom – rather than the useful tool the state had wished for. In fact, we argue that the demands from user groups not foreseen played a crucial role in changing the legal technical requirements of the moped.This paper deals with the co-evolution, technically and institutionally, of the moped during the period 1952–75. Using a method inspired by evolutionary theory, the moped models released in Sweden in these years are grouped in “families” with distinctive technical features and accompanying presumed uses. We analyze this development using concepts from the theoretical fields of innovation studies and the history of technology (STS/SCOT). |
| Keywords: | bicycle; co-evolution of technology and institutions; demand specification; dominant design; evolutionary theory; history of technology; industrial dynamics; moped; motorcycle; road traffic legislation; technology studies; transport history |
| JEL: | B25 B52 L51 L61 N74 O31 O33 Z18 |
| Date: | 2014–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:kthind:2014_005&r=hme |
| By: | Caroline Hambye |
| Abstract: | This Working paper presents the output, income and employment multipliers of the final demand in Belgium over the period 1995-2005. It exploits a consistent time series of input-output tables at constant prices for the years 1995, 2000 and 2005, which allows, for the first time in Belgium, to study the evolution of final demand multipliers without methodological break and without price effects. |
| Keywords: | Input-output tables |
| JEL: | C6 D57 |
| Date: | 2013–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpb:wpaper:1308&r=hme |
| By: | Andy Stirling (SPRU, University of Sussex, UK) |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:2014-06&r=hme |
| By: | Coral del Rio (Universidade de Vigo and EQUALITAS); Olga Alonso-Villar (Universidade de Vigo, Facultade de CC. Economicas, Departamento de Economia Aplicada) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is twofold: a) To explore the evolution of occupational segregation of women and men of different racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. during the period 1940-2010; and b) to assess the consequences of segregation for each of them. For that purpose, this paper proposes a simple index that measures the monetary loss or gain of a group derived from its overrepresentation in some occupations and underrepresentation in others. This index has a clear economic interpretation. It represents the per capita advantage (if the index is positive) or disadvantage (if the index is negative) of the group, derived from its segregation, as a proportion of the average wage of the economy. Our index seems a helpful tool not only for academics but also for institutions concerned with inequalities related to gender, race, ethnicity, and migration status, among others, since it makes it possible to rank different groups in an economy or a target group across time according to its segregation nature. |
| Keywords: | Occupational segregation; local segregation; race; ethnicity; gender; wages; U.S. |
| JEL: | J15 J16 J71 D63 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2014-323&r=hme |
| By: | Paul, Sohini |
| Abstract: | Domestic violence is recognised as a serious violation of women’s basic rights. Conventional economic models of domestic violence suggest that higher participation by women in the labour force leads to a decrease in domestic violence. In this paper, we study the relationship between women employment and domestic violence in India. We used a nationally representative database, National Family Health Survey Data III (2005–06), for our analysis. We found that employed women are more exposed to intimate partner violence. We argue that the higher emotional cost of men through the violation of traditional gender norm leads to increased domestic violence. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Domestic Violence; Labour force participation; India |
| JEL: | J16 J21 K14 |
| Date: | 2014–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55311&r=hme |