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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Alessandro Spelta; Tanya Ara\'ujo |
| Abstract: | The recent financial crisis has stressed the need to understand financial systems as networks of interdependent countries, where cross-border financial linkages play the fundamental role. It has also been emphasized that the relevance of these networks relies on the representation of changes follow-on the occurrence of stress events. Adopting a topological approach we are able to address the role that network structures play in the spread of shocks and conversely, the effectiveness of stress events and its impact on the structure of the networks. Here, from series of interbank liabilities and claims over different time periods, we have developed networks of positions (net claims) between countries. Besides the Minimal Spanning Tree analysis of the time-constrained networks, a coefficient of residuality is defined to capture the structural evolution of the network of cross-border financial linkages. Because some structural changes seem to be related to the role that countries play in the financial context, networks of debtor and creditor countries are also developed. Empirical results allows to relate the network structure that emerges in the last years to the globally turbulent period that has characterized financial systems since the latest nineties. The residuality coefficient highlights an important modification acting in the financial linkages across countries in the period 1997-2011, and situates the recent financial crises as replica of a larger structural change going on since 1997. |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1112.5711&r=hme |
| By: | Alfio Cerami (Independent Researcher); Paul Stubbs (The Institute of Economics, Zagreb) |
| Abstract: | This article explores the post-communist worlds of welfare capitalism in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, including the successor states of the former Soviet Union. It discusses recent developments, whilst offering some additional theoretical reflections on the key factors that have shaped welfare state change over time. The text explores key institutional features characterising these worlds of welfare capitalism in transition. In order to highlight the actions of political elites in the market, we discuss the notions of “state-enabled”, “state-influenced” and “state-interfered” market economies. In this article, we introduce the term “captured welfare systems” to refer to the ways in which some states and political elites interfere in the market in order to capture resources. In the conclusion, we move beyond classical approaches to institutional change based on path-dependency and lock-in arguments, drawing attention to the importance of bringing institutions and political agency back into the analysis of welfare and its transformations. |
| Keywords: | political economy of welfare capitalism, captured welfare system, Central and Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe, former Soviet Union |
| JEL: | D60 D72 H53 I38 P20 P30 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iez:wpaper:1103&r=hme |
| By: | Hasan, Dr. Syed Akif; Subhani, Dr. Muhammad Imtiaz; Osman, Ms. Amber; Mehar, Ayub |
| Abstract: | Operating in markets which include the characteristics of both the perfect and imperfect competitions has never been so easy for a firm, while setting an acceptable price. Various firms show various pricing behavior to generate and maximize revenues. This paper is an attempt to encompass pricing behaviors of firms when consumers have imperfect recall for the past prices of the products, while giving a thought to ponder that which of the behaviors has an optimal rationale when a firm sets market price for a commodity. The findings concludes that firms set prices as similar as monopolist when the consumers of their products have imperfect recall for price they offered already in yore. |
| Keywords: | Imperfect recall; pricing behavior; monopolist; hotelling tradeoff |
| JEL: | M0 D11 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:35682&r=hme |
| By: | Aoki, Masahiko (Asian Development Bank Institute) |
| Abstract: | Based on the variable rate of gross domestic product per capita growth and its sources, this paper first identifies five phases of economic development that are common to China, Japan, and Korea: M (Malthusian), G (government-led), K (à la Kuznets), H (human capital based) and PD (post demographic-transition). But there are also marked differences in the onset, duration, and institutional forms of these phases across these economies. In order to understand these differences, this paper explores the agrarian origins of institutions in Qing China and Tokugawa Japan (and briefly Chosŏn Korea) and their path-dependent transformations over those phases. In doing so, the paper employs game-theoretic reasoning and interpretations of divergent institutional evolution between China and Japan, which also clarifies the simplicity of prevailing arguments that identify East Asian developmental and institutional features with authoritarianism, collectivism, kinship-dominance, Confucianism and the like. Finally, the paper examines the relevance of the foregoing developmental discussions to the institutional agendas faced by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Japan in their respective emergent phase-transitions. In what way can the PRC avoid the “middle income trap”? What institutional shortcomings become evident from the Fukushima catastrophe and how can they be overcome in an aging Japan? |
| Keywords: | development phases; institutional evolution; agrarian origin; prc economy; middle income trap; post demographic transition; east asia; norm |
| JEL: | J11 N15 N35 N55 O15 O43 O53 P51 |
| Date: | 2012–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0340&r=hme |
| By: | Bhalotra, Sonia R. (University of Bristol); Clots-Figueras, Irma (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether politician gender influences policy outcomes in India. We focus upon antenatal and postnatal public health provision since the costs of poor services in this domain are disproportionately borne by women. Accounting for potential endogeneity of politician gender and the sample composition of births, we find that a one standard deviation increase in women's political representation results in a 1.5 percentage point reduction in neonatal mortality. Women politicians are more likely to build public health facilities and encourage antenatal care, institutional delivery and immunization. The results are topical given that a bill proposing quotas for women in state assemblies is currently pending in the Indian Parliament. |
| Keywords: | political identity, gender, mortality, health, social preferences, India |
| JEL: | H41 I18 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6216&r=hme |
| By: | Riccardo Fiorentini (Department of Economics (University of Verona)) |
| Abstract: | In the last 20 years the within countries income inequality has continuously increased. This is a global phenomenon which is observable both advanced and developing countries. Excessive income and wealth inequalities played a role in the genesis of the recent financial crisis and may impair the recovery of the world economy. The long term trend of rising inequalities is the result of different forces. On the one side technological change modified the demand for labour in favour of skilled workers widening the skill premium in wages. From the other side, globalization in trade and finance have contributed to the problem. In particular, fast financial liberalization seems to be a major source of increased inequalities. The huge expansion of financial flows in an international environment lacking adequate international regulatory and supervisory mechanisms means the problems of global economic instability and growing inequality cannot be solved at the national level. New supranational rules and cooperative solutions are called for. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, globalization, technical change |
| JEL: | F15 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:19/2011&r=hme |
| By: | Wilkins, Roger (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Wooden, Mark (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job separation, or dismissal, are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed investigation. In this paper, household panel survey data from Australia are used that also find higher dismissal rates among men than among women. This differential, however, largely disappears once controls for industry and occupation are included. These findings suggest that the observed gender differential primarily reflects systematic differences in the types of jobs into which men and women select. |
| Keywords: | dismissals, gender differentials, involuntary job separations, HILDA Survey, Australia |
| JEL: | J16 J63 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6225&r=hme |
| By: | Saïsset, L.A.; Cheriet, F. |
| Abstract: | Cooperatives are a specific type of organization. For a century, they represented an important means of organisational and strategic structuring of agricultural and food sectors in France. By the early 1990s, an accelerated process of concentration is observed between agricultural cooperatives. The purpose of our work is to analyze the concentration process mainly by mergers of agricultural cooperatives. The analysis of 14 wine cooperatives mergers in Languedoc-Roussillon wine between 2004 and 2010 is our empirical application. The main results indicate that there are different types of "process" of mergers: some are done without any backup strategy, while others respond to orders of local policies. Finally, in other cases, mergers are based on real corporate strategic projects to find synergies between the involved cooperatives. ...French Abstract : Les coopératives constituent un mode organisationnel spécifique. Elles représentent un vecteur important de structuration de certaines filières agricoles et agroalimentaires en France depuis près d’un siècle. Dès le début des années 1990, une accélération du mouvement de concentration entre coopératives agricoles est observée. L’objet de notre travail est d’analyser le processus de rapprochement (par fusion et acquisition) des coopératives agricoles. Le suivi de 14 opérations de fusions de coopératives vinicoles du Languedoc-Roussillon entre 2004 et 2010 constitue notre application empirique. Les principaux résultats indiquent qu’il existe différents types de « processus » de fusions : certaines sont menées dans l’urgence sans aucune stratégie que la sauvegarde d’exploitations en difficultés, alors que d’autres répondent à des injonctions des politiques locales. Enfin, d’autres reposent sur de véritables projets stratégiques d’entreprise permettant de trouver des synergies entre les structures coopératives engagées. |
| Keywords: | WINE COOPERATIVES; FUSIONS & ACQUISITIONS; LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON; COOPERATIVES VINICOLES; FUSIONS & ACQUISITIONS; FRANCE |
| JEL: | L14 L21 Q13 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umr:wpaper:201107&r=hme |
| By: | Doepke, Matthias (Northwestern University); Tertilt, Michèle (University of Mannheim); Voena, Alessandra (Harvard Kennedy School) |
| Abstract: | Women's rights and economic development are highly correlated. Today, the discrepancy between the legal rights of women and men is much larger in developing compared to developed countries. Historically, even in countries that are now rich women had few rights before economic development took off. Is development the cause of expanding women's rights, or conversely, do women's rights facilitate development? We argue that there is truth to both hypotheses. The literature on the economic consequences of women's rights documents that more rights for women lead to more spending on health and children, which should benefit development. The political-economy literature on the evolution of women's rights finds that technological change increased the costs of patriarchy for men, and thus contributed to expanding women's rights. Combining these perspectives, we discuss the theory of Doepke and Tertilt (2009), where an increase in the return to human capital induces men to vote for women's rights, which in turn promotes growth in human capital and income per capita. |
| Keywords: | women's rights, political economy, development |
| JEL: | J10 N30 O10 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6215&r=hme |
| By: | Esther Duflo |
| Abstract: | Women empowerment and economic development are closely related: in one direction, development alone can play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women; in the other direction, empowering women may benefit development. Does this imply that pushing just one of these two levers would set a virtuous circle in motion? This paper reviews the literature on both sides of the empowerment-development nexus, and argues that the inter-relationships are probably too weak to be self-sustaining, and that continuous policy commitment to equality for its own sake may be needed to bring about equality between men and women. |
| JEL: | D1 O1 O12 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17702&r=hme |
| By: | Lindenberger, Dietmar (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln); Kuemmel, Rainer (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln) |
| Abstract: | The mathematical conditions for the existence of macroeconomic production functions that are state functions of the economic system are pointed out. The output elasticities and the elasticities of substitution of energy-dependent Cobb-Douglas, CES and LinEx production functions are calculated. The output elasticities, which measure the productive powers of production factors and whose numerical values have been obtained for Germany, Japan, and the USA, are for energy much larger and for labor much smaller than the cost shares of these factors. Energy and its conversion into physical work accounts for most of the growth that mainstream economics attributes to “technological progress” and related concepts. It decisively determines the economic state of nations. Consequences for automation and globalization and perspectives on growth are discussed. |
| Keywords: | energy; economic growth; macroeconomic production functions; output elasticities |
| JEL: | E23 O41 Q43 |
| Date: | 2011–12–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:ewikln:2011_011&r=hme |