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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2016‒05‒14
nineteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Lance Taylor (New School for Social Research); Özlem Ömer (New School for Social Research); Armon Rezai (Vienna University of Economics) |
| Abstract: | US household wealth concentration is not likely to decline in response to fiscal interventions alone. Creation of an independent public wealth fund could lead to greater equality. Similarly, once-off tax/transfer packages or wage increases will not reduce income inequality significantly; on-going wage increases in excess of productivity growth would be needed. These results come from the accounting in a simulation model based on national income and financial data. The theory behind the model borrows from ideas that originated in Cambridge UK (especially from Luigi Pasinetti and Richard Goodwin). |
| Keywords: | Wealth distribution, income distribution, Cambridge theory. |
| JEL: | D31 D33 D58 B50 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:thk:wpaper:17&r=hme |
| By: | Vasco M. Carvalho; ; ; |
| Abstract: | A modern economy is an intricately linked web of specialized production units, each relying on the flow of inputs from their suppliers to produce their own output which, in turn, is routed towards other downstream units. In this essay, I argue that this network perpective on production linkages can offer novel insights on the sources of aggregate fluctuations. To do this, I show (i) how production networks can be mapped to a standard general equilibrium setup; (ii) how to approach input-output from this networked perspective and (iii) how theory and data on production networks can be usefully combined to shed light on comovement and aggregate fluctuations. |
| Keywords: | Production Networks; Comovement; Business Cycles; Input-Output Linkages. |
| Date: | 2014–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1467&r=hme |
| By: | Anuja Pathak |
| Abstract: | Women empowerment, referring to the empowerment of women in our present society, has become a significant topic of discussion in regards to development and economics. It can also point to approaches regarding other marginal genders in a particular political or social context. While often interchangeably used, the more comprehensive concept of Gender empowerment refers to people of any gender, stressing the distinction between biological sex and gender as a role. It thereby also refers to other marginalized genders in a particular political or social context. In India, there are still illiterate and poor village women financially dependent on their family members, even though they are hard working and have their own abilities to be financially self-dependent. Still, they won't get any good job and no financial support to start their own household businesses. The subject of empowerment of women has becoming a burning issue all over the world including India since last few decades. Many agencies of United Nations in their reports have emphasized that gender issue is to be given utmost priority. It is held that women now cannot be asked to wait for any more for equality. Inequalities between men and women and discrimination against women have also been age-old issues all over the world. Thus, women’s quest for equality with man is a universal phenomenon. “Men’s jobs and Women’s jobs”, How can the areas of employment found throughout the world be divided into female and male occupations when certain types of work always done by men in some countries are just as regularly done by women in others? With increasing literacy among women in India, their entry into many types of work, formerly the preserve of men, women can now look upon the bearing and raising of their children not as a life’s work in itself but as an episode. It women have started taking men’s work, it could be said that men have taken over women’s. Key words: Education, Empowerment, India, Men, Women |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vor:issues:2016-03-06&r=hme |
| By: | Ahmad, Nuzhat; Khan, Huma |
| Abstract: | Pakistan performs poorly withrespect to gender equality, women’s empowerment, and other gender-related indicators. Few studies in Pakistan measure the multiple dimensions of empowerment along which women are marginalized or disenfranchised, particularly in the country’s rural areas. Even fewer studies address the gender gaps in empowerment levels of men and women. This paper calculates a Women’s Disempowerment Index to examine women’s control over production, resources, income, household decisions, and time burden. The index is based on a slightly modified methodology than that used for WEAI calculation by Alkire et al. (2012). The analysis is based on a sample of 2,090 households in the rural areas of Pakistan. Data used for the study werecollected in three rounds of the Pakistan Rural Household Panel Survey from 2012–2014 by International Food Policy Research Institute/ Innovative Development Strategies for its Pakistan Strategy Support Program. The results show low empowerment levels of only 17 percent for women in the rural areas of Pakistan. The results also show very low empowerment of women in all indicators and domains except the time burden/workload indicator. We then analyze women’s disempowerment by subsamples based on individual and household characteristics. We also calculate disempowerment levels among men and compare it to disempowerment levels among women. Comparison within the household reveals large disparities in empowerment levels among men and women. In a comparative analysis, men are found to be more empowered in domains of production, income,and autonomy. Both men and women were found to be most disempowered in access to and control over resources. The paper provides a baseline for tracking women’s empowerment over time and identifies areas that need to be strengthened through policy interventions |
| Keywords: | gender, women, rural areas, agriculture, empowerment, households, Women's empowerment, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1512&r=hme |
| By: | Mazzanti, Giovanni (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit); Ecchia, Giulio (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit); Komatsu, Tamami (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit) |
| Abstract: | Purpose The third sector is a producer of trust and positive social interactions, the mafias destroy trust and social norms. To confiscate assets and the reuse of confiscated assets are important tools from an economic and symbolic point of view for contrasting mafias and promoting sustainable and fair economy. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of the third sector in the reuse of confiscated assets. Design/methodology/&approach The paper is based on a theoretical analysis of the reasons for a third sector role in the reuse of confiscated assets, focusing on the economic, social and cultural dimensions. Italian legislation and data are presented for the relevant and innovative role of third sector in the reuse of the confiscated assets. A case study is presented about the city of Forlì, of particular interest because based in Northern Italy, a part of the country of non historical presence of mafias and also because the University of Bologna is now a partner of the project through the Observatory of the Legality. Five hectares of confiscated, urban land have been given to two social cooperatives for organic agriculture and social gardening, managed by the disadvantaged people working in the cooperatives. Findings The case study offers useful implications for other national and international situations. The results support that third sector can be an effective partner in managing and restoring the goods to their community. Original/values Scaling up form a pioneering activity to a large scale network of social enterprises and partnerships could make the difference. |
| Keywords: | third sector; confiscated assets; mafia; partnership; social enterprise |
| JEL: | K42 L31 |
| Date: | 2015–10–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:aiccon:2015_144&r=hme |
| By: | Angelica Sbardella; Emanuele Pugliese; Luciano Pietronero |
| Abstract: | By borrowing methods from complex system analysis, in this paper we analyze the features of the complex relationship that links the development and the industrialization of a country to economic inequality. In order to do this, we identify industrialization as a combination of a monetary index, the GDP per capita, and a recently introduced measure of the complexity of an economy, the Fitness. At first we explore these relations on a global scale over the time period 1990--2008 focusing on two different dimensions of inequality: the capital share of income and a Theil measure of wage inequality. In both cases, the movement of inequality follows a pattern similar to the one theorized by Kuznets in the fifties. We then narrow down the object of study ad we concentrate on wage inequality within the United States. By employing data on wages and employment on the approximately 3100 US counties for the time interval 1990--2014, we generalize the Fitness-Complexity algorithm for counties and NAICS sectors, and we investigate wage inequality between industrial sectors within counties. At this scale, in the early nineties we recover a behavior similar to the global one. While, in more recent years, we uncover a trend reversal: wage inequality monotonically increases as industrialization levels grow. Hence at a county level, at net of the social and institutional factors that differ among countries, we not only observe an upturn in inequality but also a change in the structure of the relation between wage inequality and development. |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1605.03133&r=hme |
| By: | Orr, Alastair; Tsusaka, Taku; Kee-Tui, Sabine; Msere, Harry |
| Abstract: | We explore the relationship between commercialisation and gender for groundnuts in Eastern Province, Zambia, using a mixed methods approach. Women saw themselves as having greater control over groundnuts than other crops, and both sexes saw groundnuts as controlled by women. Focus Group Discussions reported higher levels of control than found in a household survey. Propensity Score Matching showed that the machine shelling and higher sales did not reduce women’s perceived level of control over groundnuts. Women welcomed greater male participation in machine shelling because it reduced the drudgery of shelling by hand. This suggests that commercialisation did not disempower women. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae15:212600&r=hme |
| By: | Loos, Tim; Zeller, Manfred |
| Abstract: | Gendered division of responsibilities and activities is traditionally anchored in Maasai culture. With the changing socio-economic and natural environment, a diversification of livelihood strategies is observe by researchers. This found to induce intra-household changes. It is yet unclear how women and men contribute to household income and who benefits from milk sales as women's main income activity. Based on theoretic considerations, we use data of Maasai households living in Morogoro region, Tanzania, to address these questions by assessing respective income shares and milk commercialization. Our findings suggest that with increasing access to milk markets women contribute 39%, 52% and up to 57% of total income. Further, our results indicate that most women control the direct use of milk income. COnsidering indirect effects, this income benefits one fifth of women respondents. Supplementary housekeeping money is mostly spent on diversifying and increasing food purchases. |
| Keywords: | Gender, household income, milk sale, Maasai, Tanzania, Consumer/Household Economics, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae15:212154&r=hme |
| By: | Kazuhiro Kurose; Naoki Yoshihara |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the validity of the factor price equalisation theorem (FPET) in relation to capital theory. Additionally, it presents a survey of the literature on Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) models that treat capital as a primary factor, beginning with Samuelson (1953). Furthermore, this paper discusses the Cambridge capital controversy, which contends that marginal productivity theory does not hold when capital is assumed to be as a bundle of reproducible commodities instead of as a primary factor. Consequently, it is shown that under this assumption, the FPET does not hold, even when there is no reversal of capital intensity. This paper also demonstrates that the recent studies on the dynamic HOS trade theory generally ignore the difficulties posed by the capital controversies and are thereby able to conclude that the FPET holds even when capital is modelled as a reproducible factor. Our analysis suggests that there is a need for a basic theory of international trade that does not rely on factor price equalisation and a model that formulates capital as a bundle of reproducible commodities. |
| Date: | 2016–03–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:toh:tergaa:346&r=hme |
| By: | Edith Archambault (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Jean-Michel Bloch-Lainé (sans affiliation) |
| Abstract: | Ce chapitre, après avoir situé la loi du 31 juillet 2014 sur l'Economie sociale et solidaire dans son contexte reprend les définitions de l'ESS et de l'utilité sociale et s'interroge sur le périmètre ouvert de l'ESS; il montre la sancturisation des organisations faîtières de l'ESS et insiste sur les dispositions spécifiques aux associations. Dans un second temps le chapitre s'attache aux ambiguités de la loi et aux défis qu'elle pose pour les associations sanitaires et sociales: Où s'arrête l'ESS et quel est le risque d'entrisme d'entreprises lucratives pour bénéficier de ses privilèges? Quelle concurrence est attendre pour les associations médico-sociales de la part des nouvelles entreprises sociales? Quelles alliances sont possibles avec coopératives, mutuelles et fondations? |
| Keywords: | périmètre ESS,associations de santé et d'action sociale,Loi Economie sociale et solidaire,concurrence |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01217937&r=hme |
| By: | De Rosa, Dalila (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit); Semplici, Lorenzo (Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit) |
| Abstract: | The paper is aimed at proposing a different perspective over the traditional CSR approach. In particular the idea is to analyze the corporate social and environmental value production, beyond the economic one, through the lens of the Italian BES (Equitable and Sustainable Well-being). The idea finds its roots in the need of integration between two sides of the same coin: on one hand the well-being measurement and the beyond GDP debate, and on the other the CSR measurement frameworks. As a matter of fact, in order to think a business no longer based on the sole economic dimension but on the multidimensionality of well-being, firms supply and consumers demand would be organized according to the same multidensional paradigm: in this way a new shared language can be drawn. To this purpose we have remapped the standard ISAR, GRI and ISTAT-CSR ManagerNetwork indicators over the common denominator of the BES dimensions. The investigation allowed us to shed a light over possible RSI weaknesses in order to build up a theoretical basis for the well-being measurement on both the demand (individual well-being) and supply side (corporate well-being production). |
| Keywords: | Multidimensional Well-being; Corporate Social Responsibility; BES; Sustainability |
| JEL: | I31 P13 |
| Date: | 2016–04–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:aiccon:2016_147&r=hme |
| By: | Merz, Joachim (Leuphana University Lüneburg); Rathjen, Tim (Leuphana University Lüneburg) |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurs and freelancers, the self-employed, commonly are characterized as not only to be relatively rich in income but also as to be rich in time because of their time-sovereignty in principle. Our introducing study scrutinises these results and notions about the well-being situation of self-employed persons not only by asking about traditional single income poverty but also by considering time poverty within the framework of a new interdependent multidimensional (IMD) poverty concept. The German Socio-economic panel with satisfaction data serves as the data base for the population wide evaluation of the substitution/ compensation between genuine, personal leisure time and income. The available detailed Time Use Surveys of 1991/92 and 2001/2 of the Federal Statistics Office provide the data to quantify the multidimensional poverty in all the IMD poverty regimes. Important result: self-employed with regard to single income poverty, single time poverty and interdependent multidimensional time and income poverty in both years are much more affected by time and income poverty than all other active persons defining the working poor. A significant proportion of non-income-poor but time poor of the active population are not able to compensate their time deficit even by an above poverty income. These people are neglected so far within the poverty and well-being discussion, the discussion about the "working poor" and in the discussion about time squeeze and time pressure in general and in particular for the self-employed as entrepreneurs and freelancers. |
| Keywords: | liberal professions (Freie Berufe), entrepreneurs, self-employed, interdependent multidimensional time and income poverty, time and income substitution, extended economic well-being, satisfaction/happiness, CES welfare function estimation, working poor, German Socio-Economic Panel, German Time Use Surveys 1991/02 and 2001/02 |
| JEL: | D31 D13 J22 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9912&r=hme |
| By: | Bruce M. Boghosian; Adrian Devitt-Lee; Jie Li; Jeremy A. Marcq; Hongyan Wang |
| Abstract: | The Extended Yard-Sale Model of asset exchange is an agent-based economic model with binary transactions, and simple models of redistribution and Wealth-Attained Advantage. As recently shown, the model exhibits a second-order phase transition to a coexistence regime with partial wealth condensation. The evolution of its wealth distribution is described by a nonlinear, nonlocal Fokker-Planck equation. In this work, we demonstrate that solutions to this equation fit remarkably well to the actual wealth distribution of the U.S. in 2013. The two fit parameters provide evidence that the U.S. wealth distribution is partially wealth condensed. |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1604.02370&r=hme |
| By: | Virginie Comblon (Universite Paris-Dauphine, PSL Research University, IRD, LEDa, DIAL, 75016 PARIS, FRANCE); Anne-Sophie Robilliard (IRD, LEDa, DIAL UMR 225, 75010 Paris, France) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of several survey questionnaire characteristics on employment statistics. It also assess the differences in sensitivity to survey design across gender and living area. Indeed, as suggested in the literature, women, especially those living in rural areas, are expected to be more sensitive than men to survey design, due to both the nature of the work (seasonal, occasional, temporary, informal, unpaid family work) and social norms. In many African countries, labor force surveys are not available on a regular basis and the way existing household surveys and census measure employment differs greatly, both over time and between countries. This makes it difficult to properly study labor market dynamics and to draw meaningful policy recommendations. Using about fifty surveys and censuses collected in Cameroon, Mali and Senegal between 1976 and 2012, we first review the diversity of survey instruments used and highlight the key questionnaire characteristics that are likely to affect employment statistics. Exploiting within-survey variations of the wording of questions, the detail of the labor module and the length of the reference period, we then assess the effect of these features on labor statistics. Empirical results shows significant effects of each questionnaire feature and suggest that women are not systematically more sensitive than men to survey design, nor is it the case for rural individuals compared to urban ones. |
| Keywords: | Employment statistics, Survey design, Gender, Data comparability, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | C81 C83 J21 J71 O55 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt201522&r=hme |
| By: | Arnab Chatterjee |
| Abstract: | We are in the middle of a complex debate as to whether Economics is really a proper natural science. The 'Discussion & Debate' issue of this Euro. Phys. J. Special Topic volume is: 'Can economics be a Physical Science?' I discuss some aspects here. |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1605.01920&r=hme |
| By: | Carlo Vercellone (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | E' possibile usare il capitale contro il capitale stesso? Per tentare di rispondere a questa domanda, il mio intervento si articolerà in due parti. La prima riguarderà unarapida rassegna di alcune proposte che sono state sviluppate al fine di opporsi al potere della finanza capitalistica e/o di cercare di domesticarla per metterla, in un certo senso, al servizio di una logica alternativa. La seconda parte insisterà sulla necessità di articolare questa riflessione alla questione centrale della tematica di una moneta del comune, e questo secondo un approccio di cui uno dei corollari fondamentali è l’instaurazione di un reddito sociale garantito (social basic income) indipendente dl lavoro salariato. |
| Keywords: | Moneta,finanza,Tobin Taxe,Fondi d'investimento alternativi |
| Date: | 2015–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01304158&r=hme |
| By: | Putthiwanit, Chutinon |
| Abstract: | This research studies a basic concept of Schumpeterian Theory by exploring the life of Joseph Schumpeter and the application for Estonia. The secondary data were taken from World Values Survey (WVS); a worldwide group of researchers observing global values and their effect on society as a whole with headquarters in Sweden. Author took the most recent data of WVS in wave six (year 2010-2014) with the total of 74,042 cases for analysis. An analysis was performed by multiple regressions and no multicollinearity problems were detected. The results show that the nature of tasks (both manual vs. intellectual and routine vs. creative) affects the importance of employees being creative. Further analysis was performed by an independent pair sample T-test and the result shows that there are differences in the nature of tasks (both manual vs. intellectual and routine vs. creative) of Estonian and global employees. Subsequently, the final analysis was performed to explore the difference in the nature of tasks in intellectual and creative Estonian and global employees. However, there is no difference in this aspect between them. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Schumpeterian Theory; Secondary Data; Intellectual; Creative; Creativity; Workplace; Estonia |
| JEL: | L20 O30 O31 |
| Date: | 2016–04–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:71126&r=hme |
| By: | MORIKAWA Masayuki |
| Abstract: | This study, using data from an original survey covering both public and private firms in Japan, presents evidence on uncertainties over economic policies, their effects on managerial decisions, and firms' evaluations of the government's numerical targets related to economic policies. This study is an extension of Morikawa (2013), but the survey greatly expands its coverage including private firms and adds new questionnaires. The results indicate that Japanese firms perceive uncertainty over the future course of certain economic policies, such as the social security system, tax policy, fiscal expenditures, and international trade policy. Policy uncertainties have substantial effects on managerial decisions, especially on equipment investment and hiring of regular employees. Medium- to long-term numerical targets related to the government's economic policies are generally perceived to be difficult to achieve. |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:polidp:16008&r=hme |
| By: | Andrea Flori; Giuseppe Pappalardo; Michelangelo Puliga; Alessandro Chessa; Fabio Pammolli |
| Abstract: | The role of Network Theory in the study of the financial crisis has been widely spotted in the latest years. It has been shown how the network topology and the dynamics running on top of it can trigger the outbreak of large systemic crisis. Following this methodological perspective we introduce here the Accounting Network, i.e. the network we can extract through vector similarities techniques from companies' financial statements. We build the Accounting Network on a large database of worldwide banks in the period 2001-2013, covering the onset of the global financial crisis of mid-2007. After a careful data cleaning, we apply a quality check in the construction of the network, introducing a parameter (the Quality Ratio) capable of trading off the size of the sample (coverage) and the representativeness of the financial statements (accuracy). We compute several basic network statistics and check, with the Louvain community detection algorithm, for emerging communities of banks. Remarkably enough sensible regional aggregations show up with the Japanese and the US clusters dominating the community structure, although the presence of a geographically mixed community points to a gradual convergence of banks into similar supranational practices. Finally, a Principal Component Analysis procedure reveals the main economic components that influence communities' heterogeneity. Even using the most basic vector similarity hypotheses on the composition of the financial statements, the signature of the financial crisis clearly arises across the years around 2008. We finally discuss how the Accounting Networks can be improved to reflect the best practices in the financial statement analysis. |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1605.01976&r=hme |