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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Dominique Desbois (ECO-PUB - Economie Publique - AgroParisTech - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Defeat capitalism, remake democracy. The stakes of deliberalism. Éric Dacheux and Daniel Goujon. Éditions érès, 2020, Toulouse, 360 p., 29.50 euros. The idea of deliberative democracy is not new in political science because it can be traced back to the crisis of the Greek city in the 5th century BC with the birth of Athenian democracy based on the isgoria, the faculty for each citizen to speak to exercise their power of amendment within the Ecclesia (deliberative assembly voting on the law). In Anglo-Saxon political philosophy, the deliberative ideal remains a major paradigm of legitimization in political decision-making. In France, the establishment of nuclear power plants has established an experimental laboratory for consulting the populations affected by this type of decision. In his work Political Liberalism after Theory of Justice, John Rawls introduces deliberation to give his conception of public reason a foundation that takes into account the pluralism of metaphysical conceptions. From the publication of L'espace public, the deliberation is at the heart of the thought of Jürgen Habermas taking root in the social criticism of capitalism proposed by the Frankfurt School. However, outside of the political economy of communication, the deliberative paradigm remains unthought in the field of economics. This is why, it seems necessary to give a detailed account of the recent theoretical essay by Eric Dacheux and Daniel Goujon on the economic anchoring of deliberative democracy. Both the economic crisis of 1929 and the financial crisis of 2008 empirically demonstrate the inability of the neoliberal approach to predict the crises of the functioning of the capitalist system. Especially since historical developments such as market generalization, the globalization of trade, the financialisation of investments and markets, or the digital transition appear to be out of phase with the liberal conception of neoclassical theory rejecting any intervention by the State outside market failures, the obvious example being ecology where environmental damage is considered as "externalities". Certainly, standard economic theory gradually incorporates external criticism into its hypothetical corpus, for example those formulated by behavioral economics leading to a certain "de-rationalization" of human actors. However, the new methods developed cannot reject the paradigm of market superiority as an efficient mechanism for allocating resources. As Edgar Morin affirms in one of his most recent works "Denouncing is not enough or is not enough anymore": a triple ecological, economic and political crisis is taking hold with increasing intensity, widely propagated by so-called "laws of market ". The authors of this work share with the philosopher the idea that we must henceforth state what we must strive for. To put it more precisely, Éric Dacheux, professor of information and communication sciences and Daniel Goujon, lecturer in economics, affirm that what they call "orthodox economics" dominant in the academic environment has changed little as the world changes. |
| Abstract: | Défaire le capitalisme, refaire la démocratie. Les enjeux du délibéralisme. Éric Dacheux et Daniel Goujon. Éditions érès, 2020, Toulouse, 360 p., 29,50 euros. L'idée de la démocratie délibérative n'est pas neuve en sciences politiques car on peut la faire remonter à la crise de la cité grecque au V ième siècle avant J.C. avec la naissance de la démocratie athénienne fondée sur l'isegoria, la faculté pour chaque citoyen de prendre la parole pour exercer son pouvoir d'amendement au sein de l'Ecclesia (assemblée délibérative votant la loi). Dans la philosophie politique anglo-saxonne, l'idéal délibératif demeure un paradigme majeur de légitimation dans la prise de décisions politiques. En France, l'implantation de centrales nucléaires a constitué un laboratoire expérimental pour la consultation des populations affectées par ce type de décisions. Dans son ouvrage Libéralisme politique postérieur à Théorie de la justice, John Rawls introduit la délibération pour un donner à sa conception de la raison publique une assise qui prenne en compte le pluralisme des conceptions métaphysiques. Dès la publication de L'espace public, la délibération se situe au coeur de la pensée de Jürgen Habermas s'enracinant dans la critique sociale du capitalisme proposée par l'Ecole de Francfort. Pourtant, en dehors de l'économie politique de la communication, le paradigme délibératif demeure un impensé dans le domaine des sciences économiques. C'est pourquoi, il semble nécessaire de rendre compte en détail du récent essai théorique d'Éric Dacheux et de Daniel Goujon sur l'ancrage économique de la démocratie délibérative. Tant la crise économique de 1929 que la crise financière de 2008 démontrent empiriquement l'incapacité de l'approche néolibérale à prédire les crises de fonctionnement du système capitaliste. D'autant que les évolutions historiques comme la généralisation marchande, la globalisation des échanges, la financiarisation des investissements et des marchés, ou la transition numérique se révèlent en déphasage avec la conception libérale de la théorie néoclassique récusant toute intervention de l'Etat en dehors des défaillances de marché, l'exemple patent étant l'écologie où les dommages environnementaux sont considérés comme des « externalités ». Certes, la théorie économique standard incorpore progressivement les critiques externes dans son corpus hypothétique, par exemples celles formulées par l'économie comportementale conduisant à une certaine « dé-rationalisation » des acteurs humains. Cependant, les nouvelles méthodes développées ne sauraient rejeter le paradigme de la supériorité du marché comme mécanisme efficient d'allocation des ressources. Comme l'affirme Edgar Morin dans un de ses ouvrages les plus récents « Dénoncer ne suffit pas ou ne suffit plus » : une triple crise écologique, économique et politique s'installe en s'amplifiant, largement propagée par de prétendues « lois du marché ». Les auteurs de cet ouvrage partagent avec le philosophe l'idée qu'il nous faut désormais énoncer ce vers quoi nous devons tendre. Pour le dire plus précisément, Éric Dacheux, professeur en sciences de l'information et de la communication et Daniel Goujon, maître de conférence en sciences économiques, affirment que ce qu'ils appellent la « science économique orthodoxe » dominante dans le milieu académique a peu évolué alors que le monde change. |
| Keywords: | Théorie écononomique,Capitalisme,Démocratie -Délibération,Démocratie - Science politique |
| Date: | 2020–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02554264&r=all |
| By: | Francesco Vigliarolo (Catholic University of La Plata) |
| Abstract: | One of the tensions in economics, that has spanned the last few centuries, has undoubtedly been the dichotomy between dialectical materialism and idealism, which ended up laying the foundations between structure and superstructure, taking up the important philosophical questions faced in past centuries. This tension also ended up entering the economic visions between determinists/liberalists and interventionists, both engulfed by positivism and mathematical reason that has left out any transcendental dimension. With these assumptions, this article pretends to present the fundamentals of economic phenomenology, a branch of phenomenology that studies economics in the formation of its primary ideas in response to the economic positivism that left any transcendental dimension and questions out of the economics science, such as: what kind of society do we want? In this context, the principles of economic phenomenology take form from the relationship between subject (intention) and materiality, noesis and noema (Noesis is the intention, the subjective dimension. Noema, is the object thought in subjective terms), which always presupposes a concept, an idea that can be interpreted in everyday life. In this direction, it also proposes the presuppositions, the method, some concepts and theories of which economic phenomenology is composed. Among these, the concepts of ontological reason, Peoples rights demand, the meso-economy and the theory of wages in order to interpret the vision of life that underlies economic systems. |
| Keywords: | economics,positivism,phenomenology,theory,ontology |
| Date: | 2020–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02569319&r=all |
| By: | Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This interview was commissioned in October 2019 for a special issue on ‘Accumulation and Politics: Approaches and Concepts’ to be published by the Revue de la régulation. We submitted the text in March 2020, only to learn two months later that it won’t be published. The problem, we were informed, wasn’t the content, which everyone agreed was ‘highly interesting and stimulating’. It was the format. To begin with, the text was suddenly deemed ‘too long’. Although the length was agreed on beforehand, the special-issue editors – or maybe it was their bosses on the Editorial Board – now insisted that we cut it by no less than two-thirds. They also instructed us to make our answers more ‘interview-like’ and ‘personal’. Finally and perhaps most tellingly, they demanded that we change our ‘tone’, which they found ‘unfair’ and ‘one-sided’. Translation: we should take a hike. This encounter with two-minded editors wasn’t our first. The added epilogue at the end of this interview, titled ‘Manuscripts Don’t Burn’, sketches our history with Jekyll & Hyde editors who have often used ‘length’ and ‘tone’ to reject articles they’ve invited but can’t stomach. But first, the original interview, in full. |
| Keywords: | capital as power,liberalism,marxism,neoclassical economics,political economy |
| JEL: | P16 B14 E13 B E11 B52 B25 B |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:capwps:202002&r=all |
| By: | Cecilia Varendh-Mansson; Tyler Wry; Ariane Szafarz |
| Abstract: | Going beyond a narrow focus on social enterprise, Grimes, Williams, and Zhao (2019) advance a model of mission drift that they argue is relevant to understanding why—and with what consequences—all types of organizations might act in ways that are inconsistent with their identity and image. We applaud this effort, and agree that it is important to develop a theoretically rigorous approach to mission drift.Yet while the treatment that Grimes et al. (2019) develop is likely relevant to some organizations, their argument is built on a shakyfoundation, where “mission” is conceptualized in simplistic terms as an organization’s single, orienting purpose. In turn, this leads theauthors to make a number of problematic inferences about “drift” as a general phenomenon. This dialog details our concerns, and suggests thatit is vital to go upstream, and theorize mission as a nuanced and variegated construct if we are going to generate meaningful insightabout the nature, causes, and consequences of drift. |
| Keywords: | Mission Drift; Multiple Missions; Firm’s Identity; Organization Theory |
| JEL: | M14 D21 L21 D60 O16 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/307519&r=all |
| By: | James A. Schmitz |
| Abstract: | Today, monopolies inflict great harm on low- and middle-income Americans. One particularly pernicious way they harm them is by sabotaging low-cost products that are substitutes for the monopoly products. I'll argue that the U.S. housing crisis, legal crisis, and oral health crisis facing the low- and middle-income Americans are, in large part, the result of monopolies destroying low-cost alternatives in these industries that the poor would purchase. These results would not surprise those studying monopolies in the first half of the 20th century. During this period extensive evidence was developed showing monopolies engaging in these same activities and many others that harmed the poor. Models of monopoly were constructed by giants in economics and law, such as Henry Simons and Thurman Arnold, to explain these impacts of monopoly. These models are of sabotaging monopolies. Unfortunately, in the 1950s, the economics profession turned its back on this evidence, these models and these giants. It embraced the Cournot model of monopoly, that found in textbooks today. In this model the monopolist chooses its price, nothing more. Gone are the decisions on whether to sabotage substitutes or to employ any of the other weapons at the disposal of sabotaging monopolies. I'll call this Cournot monopoly the toothless monopoly. Using this model, the economics profession has concluded that the costs of monopoly are small. But the toothless monopoly model is ill-equipped to study the "costs of monopoly." By relying on it, the economics profession has made major errors in its study of monopoly. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; Monopoly; Cournot; Competition; Harberger; Sabotage |
| JEL: | K0 D22 L12 K21 D42 L0 |
| Date: | 2020–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmsr:87988&r=all |
| By: | Graupe, Silja |
| Abstract: | The present crisis has revealed that around the globe we are often only able to react to crises when it is (almost) too late. This paper addresses and explains the mono-structure of thought that has led to this predicament and delineates a new model of cognition capable of creating a new biodiversity of thought and action, especially in the economic sphere. With this, future crises may not only be overcome but may also contribute to avoiding them altogether. This paper offers a vision which does not provide ready-made answers but rather aims more fundamentally at opening up a wholly new imaginative scope for the possible. |
| Keywords: | Sensus Communis,Behavioral Economics,Economics,Pluralism,Epistemology,Standard Economics,Economic Education |
| JEL: | A13 A20 B13 B20 B41 B50 P40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cuswps:58&r=all |
| By: | Parrinello, Sergio (La Sapienza University of Rome) |
| Abstract: | The present paper contains two notes. The first one resumes and expands the classical approach to cope with the existence of exhaustible natural resources in the context of the theory of normal prices. Alternative closures of the model are envisaged: either a given supply of the resource or a given royalty. The fixed-supply alternative, suggested in (Parrinello 2004), rests on the method used in (Sraffa 1960) to deal with the case of intensive land cultivation. The fixed-royalty assumption reflects the position of Piccioni and Ravagnani (2002) and Ravagnani (2006) about the theory of absolute rent. The second note addresses the problem of numéraire dependence, which has been stressed as a criticism of models of general equilibrium without overall perfect competition, and argues that such a property may concern also the theory of normal prices with exhaustible natural resources. It is suggested that a way out from the impasse of the numéraire dependence should be found in an extension of the theory of normal prices to a monetary economy. |
| Keywords: | classical theory; Sraffian approach; exhaustible natural resources; numéraire dependency; price normalization. |
| JEL: | B51 D57 Q32 |
| Date: | 2020–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:0041&r=all |
| By: | Francisco Salas-Molina; Juan Antonio Rodr\'iguez Aguilar; Filippo Bistaffa |
| Abstract: | The concept of shared value was introduced by Porter and Kramer as a new conception of capitalism. Shared value describes the strategy of organizations that simultaneously enhance their competitiveness and the social conditions of related stakeholders such as employees, suppliers and the natural environment. The idea has generated strong interest, but also some controversy due to a lack of a precise definition, measurement techniques and difficulties to connect theory to practice. We overcome these drawbacks by proposing an economic framework based on three key aspects: coalition formation, sustainability and consistency, meaning that conclusions can be tested by means of logical deductions and empirical applications. The presence of multiple agents to create shared value and the optimization of both social and economic criteria in decision making represent the core of our quantitative definition of shared value. We also show how economic models can be characterized as shared value models by means of logical deductions. Summarizing, our proposal builds on the foundations of shared value to improve its understanding and to facilitate the suggestion of economic hypotheses, hence accommodating the concept of shared value within modern economic theory. |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2006.00581&r=all |
| By: | Mayntz, Renate |
| Abstract: | In the social sciences, the development of a specific social event or structure is often explained by a statistical correlation between an independent variable and a variable assumed to be dependent upon it. This mode of explanation is contested by a methodology of causal reconstruction that operates with the concept of mechanisms. A mechanism is a process in which a set of linked steps leads from initial conditions to an outcome or effect. Mechanisms are general concepts, subjecting individual cases to a general category. Except for the literature dealing specifically with the concept, the term 'mechanism' is often used without definition of its substantive content; there is no agreement with respect to the unique or plural character of the initial conditions, nor to the structure of the causal path leading to a specific outcome. Nevertheless, mechanisms have played a crucial role in detailed causal analysis of complex historical events, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and German unification of 1989. |
| Keywords: | causal reconstruction,finance crisis,German unification,mechanism,deutsche Vereinigung,Finanzkrise,kausale Rekonstruktion,Mechanismen |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:207&r=all |
| By: | Jacques Fontanel (CESICE - Centre d'études sur la sécurité internationale et les coopérations européennes - UPMF - Université Pierre Mendès France - Grenoble 2 - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble) |
| Abstract: | In 1994, Robert Eisner was looking for cures to the global economic crisis. He proposed some economic analyses and solutions that could be useful as the Covid-19 pandemic plunged the world economy into recession. He highlighted the comparative advantages of the United States because of its oil and natural reserves and the role of the dollar in international trade, which make it a debtor and a drain on investments that would be useful in developing countries. Moreover, the measure of GDP per capita is not an indicator of citizens' well-being, given that the concept is too imprecise today to account for all activities, especially non-market activities. The United States does not save enough. A public deficit can be of great economic interest, even if it can exert inflationary pressures and makes intergenerational transfers politically unappreciated, even though they can be useful for all generations. Friedman's analysis of monetarist policy and Phelps' analysis of the concept of natural unemployment are wrong. The state must have a long-term strategy, particularly in terms of infrastructure. The economic crisis highlights the shortcomings of mainstream economic theory. Eisner has renewed certain concepts and analyses, which could have been used to avoid, at least partially, the damage caused by this crisis. |
| Abstract: | En 1994, Robert Eisner cherchait des remèdes à la crise économique mondiale. Il proposait alors certaines analyses et solutions économiques qui pourraient être utiles au moment où la pandémie du Covid-19 plonge l'économie mondiale dans la récession. Il met en évidence des avantages comparatifs des Etats-Unis du fait de ses réserves pétrolières et naturelles et du rôle du dollar dans les échanges internationaux, qui font de ce pays un débiteur qui draine les investissements qui seraient bien utiles dans les pays en développement. En outre, la mesure du PIB par habitant n'est pas un indicateur du bien-être des citoyens, eu égard à ce concept aujourd'hui trop imprécis pour rendre compte de toutes les activités, notamment non marchandes. Les Etats-Unis n'épargnent pas assez. Un déficit public peut avoir un grand intérêt économique, même s'ils peuvent exercer tes tensions inflationnistes et rend politiquement les transferts intergénérationnels peu appréciés, alors qu'ils peuvent être utiles pour toutes les générations. Les analyses de Friedman sur la politique monétariste et de Phelps sur le concept de chômage naturel sont erronées. Il faut que l'Etat dispose d'une stratégie de long terme, notamment en matière d'infrastructures. La crise économique a mis en évidence les insuffisances de la théorie économique dominante. Eisner a renouvelé certains concepts et analyses économiques, qui auraient pu être utilisés pour éviter, au moins partiellement les dégâts de cette crise. |
| Keywords: | U.S. economy,NAIRU,international economy,GDP,income transfers,public debt,public deficit,inflation,dollar,savings,welfare measure,déficit public,Dette publique,économie internationale,mesure du bien-être,PIB,Epargne,transferts de revenus,Monnaie |
| Date: | 2020–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02610746&r=all |
| By: | Hoàng, NGUYỄN Minh; Huyen, Nguyen Thanh Thanh; Pham, Thanh-Hang; Yen, Nguyen Thi Quynh; Vuong, Quan-Hoang |
| Abstract: | Financing issues play essential roles in the survival and development of entrepreneurial firms. The current study, employing the bibliometric analysis of 6,903 articles from 1970 to 2019, extracted from Web of Science database, aims to provide an overview of the discipline’s landscape and major scientific domains to facilitate scientific development within the field. Entrepreneurial finance is a young and growing field with exponential growth in the number of publications (with 19.54% per year) and rising collaboration tendency among authors. Journal of Business Venturing is the most prestigious journal, while Sustainability is noteworthy for its rapid contribution to the field. We also note a sign of Western ideological homogeneity from the collaboration networks and lists of top authors, institutions, and countries. Besides, using keyword co-occurrence analysis, seven major research domains are identified: “venture capital”, “crowdfunding”, “SMEs finance”, “social entrepreneurship finance”, “financial risk”, “microfinance”, and “human-social-financial capital”. Based on these findings, we raise the concern of lacking diversity in entrepreneurial finance research and provide several recommendations for future potential research directions. |
| Date: | 2020–05–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:qf62s&r=all |