|
on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Fabio petri |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses three redefinitions of the labour theory of value: the New Interpretation of Duménil and Foley, the approach of Wolff-Callari-Roberts, and the Temporal Single System approach. In them the labour theory of value loses the role of instrument for the determination of the rate of profit and becomes a gratuitous reinterpretation of independently determined prices as ‘representing’ quantities of labour value on the basis of the undemonstrated postulate that only labour produces exchange value. It is argued that these approaches are unable to defend the thesis that profits result from labour exploitation because such a thesis must rest on the causes of wages below their potential maximum, causes that these redefinitions leave unexplained and in fact open to neoclassical explanations. They evidence an imperfect grasp of the foundations of the thesis in Marx that labour is exploited, foundations better grasped by P. Garegnani and clarified here with an example. |
| JEL: | B51 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:643&r=hme |
| By: | Fratini, Saverio M. |
| Abstract: | This critique of Malinvaud’s article of 2003 on Wicksell’s legacy to capital theory focuses in particular on three points raised there. The first regards the given amount of existing capital that appears in Wicksell’s theory and its connection with his alleged “missing equation”, the second the particular notion of the marginal product of capital adopted by Malinvaud and the meaning of its equality with the rate of interest, and the third the concept of the average period of production taken by Malinvaud from Hicks and its inverse relation to the rate of interest. |
| Keywords: | Average period of production; Malinvaud; marginalist theory; theory of capital; Wicksell |
| JEL: | D33 B13 D24 |
| Date: | 2012–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39574&r=hme |
| By: | Ugo Pagano |
| Abstract: | The last three decades have witnessed the emergence of a new species of capitalism. In spite of marked differences among its different national varieties, a common characteristic of this species can be found in the global monopolization of knowledge. This monopolization involves hierarchical relations among firms and between capital and labor because the capital of some firms includes the exclusive ownership of much of the knowledge used in production. Since the 1994 TRIPS agreements, the growing commoditization of knowledge has extended the role of closed science and closed markets at the expense of open science and open markets. The intrinsic long-term dynamics of this species of capitalism are increasingly characterized by inequality and stagnation. In order to exit from the current crisis, we must change many features of Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism and rely on an eclectic approach that draws insights from the Liberal, the Keynesian and the Marxian traditions |
| Keywords: | intellectual monopoly, great depression, eclecticism |
| JEL: | F55 G01 B52 E11 E12 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:634&r=hme |
| By: | Seltzer, Andrew (Royal Holloway, University of London) |
| Abstract: | The late 19th and early 20th century British labour market experienced an influx of female clerical workers. Employers argued that female employment increased opportunities for men to advance; however, most male clerks regarded this expansion of the labour supply as a threat to their pay and status. This paper examines the effects of female employment on male clerks using data from Williams Deacon's Bank covering a period 25 years prior and 25 years subsequent to the initial employment of women. It is shown that within position women were substitutes for men, although the degree of substitutability was less for older men than for juniors. In addition, the employment of women in routine positions allowed the Bank to expand its branch network, creating new higher-level positions, which were almost always filled by men. |
| Keywords: | clerical labour markets, female employment, spill over effects, internal labour markets |
| JEL: | N3 J3 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6663&r=hme |
| By: | Sara Vicari; Pasquale De Muro |
| Abstract: | After years of preconceptions about co-operatives in developing countries, scholars and international institutions have re-evaluated their role particularly in poverty reduction strategies. Crucial condition is that co-operatives are considered as genuine, authentically participatory enterprises. Here, investigating how these peculiar enterprises affect people’s well-being and contribute to institutional transformation of communities emerges of crucial importance. The paper, by showing the results of a case study, carried out in the Maranhão State through a field research, provides a methodology to evaluate the genuineness of the co-operative and its impact on people’s well-being and community development. Adopted methodology entails quantitative and participatory methods and, based on the Human Development and Capability Approach (HDCA) framework, it provides a multidimensional analysis of poverty. In such a way, this methodology aims at contributing to overcoming the evaluation of co-operative performance based only on monetary indicators, enhancing the concrete contribution that co-operatives can bring to human development and poverty reduction. |
| Keywords: | co-operatives; human development and capability approach (HDCA); propensity score matching; participatory methods; Brazil |
| JEL: | O15 O54 P13 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0158&r=hme |
| By: | Reuben Soto, Sergio |
| Abstract: | The paper seeks to integrate the theoretical developments in the field of imperfect competition and monopoly, and operation of the firm in such conditions, with the theories of income distribution, particularly among the macroeconomic aggregates of capital and labor. And formulating a working hypothesis to focus the breaking of the capital accumulation process expressed in the current economic crisis, from a holistic perspective. |
| Keywords: | Distribución del ingreso; Acumulación del capital; Centralización del capital; Empresas dominantes: Uso eficiente y eficaz de los recursos; Crisis por sobreproducción; Crisis por desproporción |
| JEL: | B51 D21 E12 D3 A1 D43 D59 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39591&r=hme |
| By: | Enghin Atalay |
| Abstract: | There is substantial within-industry variation, even within industries that use and produce homogeneous inputs and outputs, in the prices that plants pay for their material inputs. I explore, using plant-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the consequences and sources of this variation in materials prices. For a sample of industries with relatively homogeneous products, the standard deviation of plant-level productivities would be 7% lower if all plants faced the same materials prices. Moreover, plant-level materials prices are both persistent across time and predictive of exit. The contribution of net entry to aggregate productivity growth is smaller for productivity measures that strip out di¤erences in materials prices. After documenting these patterns, I discuss three potential sources of materials price variation: geography, di¤erences in suppliers. marginal costs, and suppliers. price discriminatory behavior. Together, these variables account for 13% of the dispersion of materials prices. Finally, I demonstrate that plants.marginal costs are correlated with the marginal costs of their intermediate input suppliers. |
| Keywords: | CES,economic,research,micro,data,microdata |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:12-11&r=hme |
| By: | Otto, Alkis Henri; Steinhardt, Max Friedrich |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on the effect of immigration on election outcomes. Our analysis makes use of data on city districts in Hamburg, Germany, during a period of substantial inflows of immigrants and asylum seekers. We find significant and robust effects for changes in foreigner shares on the electoral success of parties that built up a distinctive reputation in immigration politics. In particular, our fixed-effects estimates indicate a positive effect for xenophobic, extreme right-wing parties and an adverse effect for the Green party that actively campaigned for liberal immigration policies and minority rights. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that changes in local compositional amenities shape individual attitudes towards immigration. -- |
| Keywords: | immigration,elections,xenophobia |
| JEL: | D72 J15 R23 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hsbawp:022012&r=hme |
| By: | Emin Dinlersoz; Jeremy Greenwood |
| Abstract: | Union membership displayed an inverted U-shaped pattern over the 20th century, while the distribution of income sketched a U. A model of unions is developed to analyze these phenomena. There is a distribution of firms in the economy. Firms hire capital, plus skilled and unskilled labor. Unionization is a costly process. A union decides how many firms to organize and its members’ wage rate. Simulation of the developed model establishes that skilled-biased technological change, which affects the productivity of skilled labor relative to unskilled labor, can potentially explain the above facts. Statistical analysis suggests that skill-biased technological change is an important factor in de-unionization. |
| Keywords: | CES,economic,research,micro,data,microdata, Computers, Distribution of Income, Flexible Manufacturing, Mass Production, Numerically Controlled Machines, Panel-Data Regression Analysis, Relative Price of New Equipment, Skill-Biased Technological Change, Simulation Analysis, Union Coverage, Union Membership, Deunionization |
| JEL: | J51 J24 L23 L11 L16 O14 O33 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:12-12&r=hme |
| By: | Michelle Everson |
| Abstract: | The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 ushered in a financial crisis whose ramifications are still being felt. Within the EU, collapse not only led to a change in regulatory rhetoric, emphasising the need to secure the stability of EU money markets, but also to a significant widening and deepening of technocratic supervisory structures for European financial services. This paper accordingly investigates the newly established European System for Financial Supervision and, in particular, semi-autonomous EU agencies for banking, insurance and securities, for its ability to provide robust regulation and supervision within Europe. However, it analyses this increase in technocratic governance at supranational level in light of the worrying question of whether it has undermined capacity for political action within Europe. At a time when readily-apparent failings in established technocratic governance in Europe (monetary union) have led only to more technocratisation (proposed fiscal union), perhaps to the point of systemic collapse, the general European trend to expert-led and evidence-based supervision must be doubted; not simply because it has failed on its own terms, but also because it has established a technology of expertise, or dominant rationality, which further encourages abdication of political responsibility for economic crisis. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eiq:eileqs:49&r=hme |
| By: | Razzaq, Sadia; Sadiq, Tayyaba; Naseem, Imran |
| Abstract: | The study assesses strategies of various developmental organizations in Abbottabad to incorporate gender in Project management. This is census based research because of various limitations attached with data collection, whole population considered to reduce the chances of maximum error. Data analysis performed by descriptive statistics, correlation and regression. The results show that there are strategies at national level and various international commitments as well. Moreover, a five year project also implemented successfully by UNDP to spread the awareness of gender mainstreaming and to make the organizations to adopt gender mainstreaming in their policies, planning and managements. However, primary data analysis shows that employers are aware of gender mainstreaming and have aptitude about gender mainstreaming, but due to no implementation of designed national level policies, both genders feel lot of problems regarding the fulfillment of their duties. These problems create stress and frustration and deteriorate the effectiveness of employers work that ultimately impact badly on overall efficiency of organizations. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Development Organization; Mainstreaming; Equality; Sustainable development; Decolonization; Gender Awareness |
| JEL: | N3 J0 |
| Date: | 2012–02–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39622&r=hme |
| By: | Catherine L. Mann (International Business School, Brandeis University) |
| Abstract: | Using the detailed Statistics of US Business and the Annual Input-Output accounts, this paper addresses the employment dynamics of establishments of different sizes, in different sectors, and of different intensity of use of information technology hardware, software and IT-services over the time period 2001 to 2009. Findings include (1): IT-using sectors that are above-average in IT-intensity started out being three times more IT-intensive and ended up being more than four-times the IT-intensity as the below-average using sectors. Hence, there is widening dispersion in IT-intensity across sectors in the US economy. (2) IT producers are a small part of the economy, only about 3% of employment. However, IT-software and services establishments have tended to add jobs on net, particularly at smaller establishments (size 1-99 employees). This suggests that IT again is the hot-bed of entrepreneurship. (3) Small IT-intensive service establishments account for only about 5% of overall employment. However, net job creation at these small-IT-intensive using establishments accounted for between 13% and 68% of the economy-wide net job change from 2001 to 2009. Entrepreneurship in these IT-using services appears to be promoted by the availability of IT-software and IT-services themselves. (4) Establishments that use IT-intensively both in the manufacturing and services sectors, expand and contract employment over the business cycle relatively more than non-IT-intensive manufacturing and service establishments. This employment management strategy is more dramatic for manufacturing than for services. (5) Three approaches to quantifying the direct and indirect gains to the US economy of lower IT prices and increased IT-intensity add up to between $810 and $935 billion for the five years considered 2002-2007. Including IT-services such as computer design, yields a ball-park round $1 trillion as reasonable figure for the gain to the US economy of broad-based use of information technology hardware, software and IT-services for the mid-decade 2000s five-year time period. |
| Keywords: | Information technology, Social surplus, Startups, Small business |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brd:wpaper:46&r=hme |
| By: | Ugo Pagano |
| Abstract: | Love, War and Culture have all played an important role in the evolution of human institutions and they have been characterized by complex relationships. War can select unselfish groups ready to sacrifice themselves for the love of their communities that they recognize to be culturally different from the others. At the same time, horizontal cultural differentiation cannot be taken for granted. Culture is the outcome of long evolutionary processes. It requires some human specific characteristics, including a large brain, that are likely to have been influenced by sexual selection and by the peculiar structure of human love affairs. Thus, if war may have generated love, also the reverse may be true: by favoring the development of human culture, love may have produced the conditions for war among culturally differentiated groups. In turn, war may have co-evolved with group solidarity only under the prevailing social arrangements of hunting and gathering economies. In general, human relations have been influenced by the prevailing features of the goods (private, public and positional) that have characterized production in different stages of history. They have been embedded in institutions involving very different levels of inequality, ranging from mostly egalitarian hunting and gathering societies to typically hierarchical agrarian societies and to wealthdifferentiated industrial societies. The perspectives of the present-day knowledge-intensive economy can also be seen through the same institutional approach to human evolution. The different nature of contemporary production processes involves a new set of alternative possible arrangements that have different implications for social (in)equality and different capabilities to satisfy basic human needs. |
| Keywords: | Evolution, Complementarities, Human Capabilities, Knowledge, |
| JEL: | B20 N40 P51 J16 J13 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:632&r=hme |
| By: | Luebker, Malte |
| Abstract: | Based on the standard axiom of individual utility maximization, rational choice has postulated that higher income inequality translates into greater redistribution by shaping the median voter?s preferences. While numerous papers have tested this propositi |
| Keywords: | income distribution, redistribution, median voter theorem, behavioural economics |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-44&r=hme |
| By: | FOUNANOU, Mathurin/M; RATSIMALAHELO, Zaka/Z |
| Abstract: | We study the optimal regulation of a cooperative credit society which has private information on the intrinsic quality of its loan portfolio (adverse selection) and where the cooperative’s choice of effort to improve this quality cannot be observed by the regulator (moral hazard). We characterize the optimal contracts offered by the regulator to the credit cooperatives. We have been able to show that the optimal contracts depend on 3 main factors namely: on the accuracy of the supervisor’s signal, the likelihood of facing a high quality credit cooperative, and the cost of supervision. |
| Keywords: | Microfinance; Informational asymmetry; optimal incentive contract; regulation; supervision |
| JEL: | G28 G10 G21 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39581&r=hme |
| By: | Faber, Malte; Petersen, Thomas |
| Abstract: | Income inequality in China is severe; measured by the Gini-coefficient it amounted to 0.46 in 2011; wealth distribution is even worse with 0.61. These disparities led to a major shift in emphasis of politics in general and of the Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development by the National People´s Congress in particular. While previously the strategy of the Five-Year Plans had been “Making the nation [our emphasis] rich as top priority”, this was changed to “Making people [our emphasis] rich as top priority” in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), enacted in March 2011.The strategic change from “nation” to “people” indicates that the political decision-makers in China accepted the aim of a fair income distribution as a political issue of great importance. In this paper, richness is defined in the political-philosophical tradition as the right measure for one’s own needs and wants; only its environmental aspect is focused on in this study. The development of the Chinese environmental conditions is compared with the German ones and the former’s future outlook is judged optimistically because of the achievements in the last five years. However, the complexity and fragility of the environmental system will within a decade confront Chinese politicians with the same problems as it does right now in Germany. In order to provide a solution addressing this development, this paper analyzes what Karl Marx had to say on the long-run dynamics of the economic system. He saw poverty as a necessary yet unintended consequence of the capitalistic system and used this insight as a “precision tool for the study of social change” (Elster 1986), which can also be employed to examine the unintended repercussions of economic activity on nature. Marx, who studied environmental and resource issues in detail, thought that the inventiveness of the capitalistic system would finally overcome all of them in the course of time. In view of the fact that three billion people on earth still have a backlog demand to satisfy basic needs and in addition a further three billion are expected to be born until 2050, the future of the natural environmental conditions looks somber. If it is not possible to decouple economic growth from ensuing environmental strain, Marx may well be right after all in his prediction that the capitalistic system will collapse, although in quite a different manner than he thought. This being the case we take recourse to the thoughts of one of the influential intellectual German figures, to Romano Guardini. He foresaw changes in the self-perception of humankind and in the comprehension of nature. These imply a shift in the ethos of government as well, which would in turn pose three great challenges to politics: (i) understanding nature in a new light, (ii) listening to what drives human hearts, and (iii) governing according to law. |
| Keywords: | Wealth; Distribution; PR China; Environment; Sustainabilit y |
| JEL: | Q56 B14 B51 D31 D63 D90 O13 P26 |
| Date: | 2012–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0526&r=hme |
| By: | Kopatz, Michael |
| Abstract: | Umwelt- und Wirtschaftspolitik, so schien es Jahrzehnte lang, stehen im Widerspruch. Was hilft der gesunde Wald, wenn Millionen keine Arbeit haben? Zwar gehen mit Arbeitslosigkeit seit Einführung der sozialen Sicherungssysteme nicht länger Not, Leid und Elend einher. Aber das Stigma bedrückt die Betroffenen und ist für die Gesellschaft eine Last. Und so ist die Schaffung von Arbeitsplätzen das Kernziel aller Politik. Allzu oft werden dabei allerdings die Interessen der zukünftigen Generationen vernachlässigt. Neue Straßen und Flughäfen oder deren Ausbau wie auch Gewerbeparks im Grünen werden mit dem Arbeitsplatzargument legitimiert. Dabei gibt es zur Bekämpfung von Arbeitslosigkeit ein sozial und ökologisch wesentlich verträglicheres Konzept: die gerechtere Verteilung der zur Verfügung stehenden Erwerbsarbeitszeit. Die Arbeitslosigkeit ließe sich zumindest rechnerisch abschaffen, wenn die Menschen im Schnitt 30 Stunden in der Woche für Lohn arbeiteten. Dieser als Kurze Vollzeit für alle bezeichnete Ansatz ist so plausibel, dass man sich über die dürftige Resonanz in Politik und Gesellschaft wundert. Das Impulspapier stellt Zusammenhänge von Wachstum, Arbeitsplätze, Glück und Nachhaltigkeit her. -- Environmental and economic policy seemed to have been in conflict for decades. But what use is a healthy forest when millions of people are without work? Even if unemployment - since the introduction of social security systems - does no longer necessarily lead to misery, distress and suffering, the stigma has a depressing effect on the concerned person and becomes a burden for society. Consequently creating jobs is the core objective of all kind of policy. The interests of future generations however are often neglected in this context. Construction or extension of streets and airports or for example industrial parks in the country are advocated with the argument of new employment. At the same time a socially and ecologically much more appropriate concept exists: The fairer distribution of paid work. In purely mathematical terms unemployment could be suppressed by an average of 30 paid working hours per week. Given the plausibility of this approach called Short fulltime for everyone the weak response in politics and society is surprising. |
| Keywords: | Arbeitszeit,Arbeitsverkürzung,Arbeit fairteilen,Zeitwohlstand,Teilzeit,Teilzeitarbeit,Erwerbsarbeit,Eigenarbeit,Muße,Halbtagsgesellschaft,30-Stunden-Gesellschaft,Gelassenheit,Entspannung,Zufriedenheit,Subjektives Wohlbefinden,Gesundheitsförderung,Kurze Vollzeit für alle,Glückspolitik,Glück,Umweltschutz,Umweltpolitik,Work life Balance,Teilhabegerechtigkeit,Klimawandel,Mindestlohn,Wachstum,Wirtschaftswachstum,Wachstumgsdogma,Stagnationsprävention,Resilienz,Eigenarbeit,Ehrenamtliches Engagement |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wupimp:3&r=hme |
| By: | Christian Becker; Dieter Ewringmann; Malte Faber; Thomas Petersen; Angelika Zahrnt |
| Abstract: | The paper critically examines the status of the sustainability discourse and sustainability politics against the backdrop of considerations about the meaning of justice in the context of sustainability. We argue that the preservation of the natural basis of life is by itself a requirement of justice. However, the crucial role of the ecological dimension of sustainability has been neglected due to a problematic interpretation of the economic dimension, a limited understanding of justice, and an overemphasis of economic growth and growth politics. We propose to reposition the sustainability discourse and sustainability politics by prioritizing the long-term protection of the natural basis of life as the essential foundation of future development, welfare, and justice. |
| Keywords: | Sustainability; justice; ethics; growth; welfare; ecological economy |
| JEL: | A13 A10 Q57 Q5 Q01 O40 I31 |
| Date: | 2012–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0527&r=hme |
| By: | Kuzmin, Evgeny Anatol'evich |
| Abstract: | Uncertainty and certainty of organizational-economic systems are their integral properties. Existence and development of any object in stochastic conditions is not obviously possible without presence of uncertain conditions and the certain factors determining the subsequent conditions of organizational-economic system. Representation and a substantiation of the methodological device of carrying out of an estimation of uncertainty and the certainty, the author stated earlier in the publication «Uncertainty and certainty property estimation of organizational-economic system», have formed a basis for deepening of research and formation of a complex of analytical indicators. In the scientific article the original derivative indicators are resulted and described, allowing to carry out the analysis of properties of uncertainty and certainty in organizational-economic systems. All derivative indicators are typified on groups, allowing to make some panel of indicators. Reveals two approaches to an estimation of uncertainty and certainty on the basis of dependence of subsystems. Decomposition of public-private partnership, as example of difficult organizational-economic system is made. |
| Keywords: | uncertainty; certainty; organizational-economic systems; public-private partnership; analytical indicators |
| JEL: | C13 D81 C02 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39584&r=hme |
| By: | Detzer, Daniel |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes two instruments - asset-based reserve requirements put forward by Thomas Palley and asset-based capital requirements proposed by Charles Goodhart and Avinash Persaud - regarding their merits in reducing excessive asset price inflation. A theoretical framework of asset pricing based on the ideas of Keynes and Minsky is developed, within which the working of the instruments is demonstrated and analyzed. It is shown that in theory both instruments are able to reduce excessive asset price inflation by reducing the amount of credit money and investment flowing from financial institutions into a booming sector. It is found that asset-based reserve requirements will only work through a predictable price effect, while the effect of asset-based capital requirements is hard to predict and may even become a quantitative supply constraint. Hence, it is concluded that due to the higher predictability of asset-based reserve requirements those are more suitable for the task of tackling asset price bubbles. -- |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy,Banking Regulation,Asset Prices,Bubbles,Minsky,Financial Instability Hypothesis,Asset Based Reserve Requirements,Capital Requirements,Macroprudential Regulation |
| JEL: | E12 E52 G12 G18 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:132012&r=hme |
| By: | Georges A. Tanguay; Juste Rajaonson |
| Abstract: | <P>Cette étude discute de l’application d’indicateurs et d’indices de développement durable dans le cadre de classements des 25 plus grandes villes québécoises. Notre analyse est basée sur l’utilisation d’indices construits à partir de 20 indicateurs socio-économiques et environnementaux et permettant de tenir compte des différents aspects du développement urbain. <p> Les performances relatives des villes sont analysées en fonction des avantages-désavantages associés à l’utilisation d’une grille commune d’indicateurs et d’indices de développement durable. Nous discutons de trois principaux enjeux : i) la comparabilité des villes; ii) les possibilités compensatoires entre indicateurs dans le calcul des indices et iii) la pondération des indicateurs dans le calcul des indices. |
| Date: | 2012–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirtra:2012dt-04&r=hme |
| By: | Bertocchi, Graziella (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia); Brunetti, Marianna (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Torricelli, Costanza (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) |
| Abstract: | We empirically study the determinants of intra-household decision power with respect to economic and financial choices using a suitable direct measure provided in the 1989-2010 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth. Focusing on a sample of couples, we evaluate the effect of each spouse's characteristics, household characteristics, and background variables. We find that the probability that the wife is in charge is affected by household characteristics such as family size and total income and wealth, but more importantly that it increases with the difference between hers and her husband's characteristics in terms of age, education, and income. The main conclusion is that decision-making power over family economics is not only determined by strictly economic differences, as suggested by previous studies, but also by differences in human capital and experience. Finally, exploiting the time dimension of our dataset, we show that this pattern is increasing over time. |
| Keywords: | family economics, intra-household decision power, gender differences |
| JEL: | J12 D13 E21 G11 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6648&r=hme |
| By: | Gabriel Burdin |
| Abstract: | Worker-managed firms (WMFs) represent a marginal proportion of total firms and aggregate employment in most countries. The bulk of firms in real economies is ultimately controlled by capital suppliers. Different theoretical explanations suggest that workermanaged firms (WMFs) are prone to failure in competitive environments. Using a panel of Uruguayan firms based on social security records and including the entire population of WMFs over the period January 1997-July 2009, I present new evidence on worker managed firms´ survival. I find that the hazard of exit is 24%-38% lower for WMFs than for conventional firms. This result is robust to alternative estimation strategies based on semiparametric and parametric frailty duration models that impose different distributional assumptions about the shape of the baseline hazard and allow to consider firm-level unobserved heterogeneity. The evidence suggests that the marginal presence of WMFs in market economies can hardly be explained by the fact that these organizations exhibit lower survival chances than conventional firms. This paper adds to the literature on labormanaged firms, shared capitalism and to the Industrial Organization literature on firm survival. |
| Keywords: | labor-managed firms, capitalist firms, survival analysis |
| JEL: | P13 P51 C41 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:641&r=hme |
| By: | Anderson, Gordon |
| Abstract: | Aphorisms that "Rising tides raise all boats" or that material advances of the rich eventually "Trickle Down" to the poor are really maxims regarding the nature of stochastic processes that underlay the income/wellbeing paths of groups of individuals. This paper looks at the implications for the empirical analysis of wellbeing of conventional assumptions regarding such processes which are employed by both micro and macro economists in modeling economic behavior. The implications of attributing different processes to different groups in society following the club convergence literature are also discussed. Various forms of poverty, inequality, polarization and income mobility structures are considered and much of the conventional wisdom afforded us by such aphorisms is questioned. To exemplify these ideas the results are applied to the distribution of GDP per capita in the continent of Africa. -- |
| Keywords: | Stochastic processes,poverty,inequality,wellbeing measurement |
| JEL: | C22 D63 D91 I32 O47 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201228&r=hme |
| By: | Zsolt Darvas |
| Abstract: | Sectoral shifts, such as shrinkage of low labour productivity and the low-wage construction sector, can lead to apparent increased aggregate average labour productivity and average wages, especially when capital intensity differs across sectors. For 11 main sectors and 13 manufacturing sub-sectors, we quantify the compositional effects on productivity, wages and unit labour costs (ULCs) based and real effective exchange rates (REER), for 24 EU countries. Compositional effects are greatest in Ireland, where the pharmaceutical sector drives the growth of output and productivity, but other sectors have suffered greatly and have not yet recovered. Our new ULC-REER measurements, which are free from compositional effects, correlate well with export performance. Among the countries facing the most severe external adjustment challenges, Lithuania, Portugal and Ireland have been the most successful based on five indicators, and Latvia, Estonia and Greece the least successful. There is evidence of downward wage flexibility in some countries, but wage cuts have corrected just a small fraction of pre-crisis wage rises and came with massive reductions in employment even in the business sector excluding construction and real estate, highlighting the difficulty of adjusting wages downward. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bre:polcon:730&r=hme |