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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Lo, Alex |
| Abstract: | Methodological pluralism advocates balanced consideration of multiple research methods. The concept rests upon the necessity of choice in the absence of conclusive principles to guide the preference of method. Ecological economics, however, appears to be engaging in a different conception creating confusion as to the scope for intellectual openness. This paper offers clarifications for this concept and a critique. Ecological economics advances a coherent theory crafted along its biophysical worldview and moral commitments. These imperatives guide the choice of method and favour a reduced range of methodological possibilities to the exclusion of neoclassical economic options. If ecological economics is seen as an ideological opposite of neoclassical economics, it would need a selective methodological strategy rather than maintaining methodological diversity. Maintaining diversity may erode the basis of its heterodox criticisms by requiring openness to the orthodox alternatives. Ecological economics has shown difficulty in sustaining its long-standing pluralist commitments while increasingly seeking clear differentiation from its monolithic “enemy”. |
| Keywords: | Methodological pluralism; methodological diversity; value pluralism; ecological economics; neoclassical economics. |
| JEL: | B40 Q57 |
| Date: | 2014–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49543&r=hme |
| By: | Ho Fai Chan (Queensland Behavioural Economics Group (QuBE), School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology); Bruno S. Frey (Warwick Business School, University of Warwick and Department of Economics, Zeppelin University and CREMA); Jana Gallus (Department of Economics, University of Zurich); Markus Schaffner (Queensland Behavioural Economics Group (QuBE), School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology); Benno Torgler (Queensland Behavioural Economics Group (QuBE), School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, and EBS Business School, ISBS, EBS Universität für Wirtschaft and CREMA); Stephen Whyte (Queensland Behavioural Economics Group (QuBE), School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | The external influence of scholarly activity has to date been measured primarily in terms of publications and citations, metrics that also dominate the promotion and grant processes. Yet the array of scholarly activities visible to the outside world are far more extensive and recently developed technologies allow broader and more accurate measurement of their influence on the wider societal discourse. Accordingly we analyze the relation between the internal and external influences of 723 top economics scholars using the number of pages indexed by Google and Bing as a measure of their external influence. Although the correlation between internal and external influence is low overall, it is highest among recipients of major key awards such as the Nobel Prize or John Bates Clark medal, and particularly strong for those ranked among the top 100 researchers. |
| Keywords: | Academia, Scholarly Importance, Role of Economics, Social Importance of Economists, External and Internal Influence, Academic Performance, Awards |
| JEL: | A11 A13 Z18 Z19 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2013.87&r=hme |
| By: | Aldasoro, Iñaki; Angeloni, Ignazio |
| Abstract: | The analyses of intersectoral linkages of Leontief (1941) and Hirschman (1958) provide a natural way to study the transmission of risk among interconnected banks and to measure their systemic importance. In this paper we show how classic input-output analysis can be applied to banking and how to derive six indicators that capture different aspects of systemic importance, using a simple numerical example for illustration. We also discuss the relationship with other approaches, most notably network centrality measures, both formally and by means of a simulated network. -- |
| Keywords: | banks,input-output,systemic risk,too-interconnected-to-fail,networks,interbank markets |
| JEL: | C67 G00 G01 G20 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:29&r=hme |
| By: | Brouwers, R. |
| Abstract: | In contrast to the concrete problems women face worldwide, of discrimination in family and society, of violence and disrespect, of poverty and lack of rights, the policy of international development organisations to defeat these impediments has been abstract. Wrapped in the mystifying language of ‘gender mainstreaming’, development agencies pursue a strategy which itself has consumed all attention at the cost of tangible action to solve real problems. By going back to the time that the policy became solidly rooted, the mid 1990s, I document and compare evaluation studies and reviews of bilateral and multilateral donors, in particular those conducted since the turn of the century. Not one study reports positively about the gender mainstreaming policy. The essentials of the discourse of gender and development are not reflected in practice, the policy has not moved beyond the stage of a theory. Evaluation studies have been pre-occupied with the strategy of mainstreaming itself, failing to address the results thereof for women and gender equality. This paper aims to support the discretely emerging voices to move away from the illusion of gender mainstreaming and to develop a policy that is oriented towards concrete issues and contains direct efforts to make gender equality happen. |
| Keywords: | evaluation, gender, gender equality, gender mainstreaming, international development, policy review, women in development |
| Date: | 2013–04–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:39504&r=hme |
| By: | Nicholas Stern |
| Abstract: | This paper examines a broad range of ethical perspectives and principles relevant to the analysis of issues raised by the science of climate change and explores their implications. A second and companion paper extends this analysis to the contribution of ethics, economics and politics in understanding policy towards climate change. These tasks must start with the science which tells us that this is a problem of risk management on an immense scale. Risks on this scale take us far outside the familiar policy questions and standard, largely marginal, techniques commonly used by economists; this is a subject that requires the full breadth and depth of what economics has to offer and a much more thoughtful view of ethics than economists usually bring to bear. Different philosophical approaches bring different perspectives on understanding and policy, yet they generally point to the case for strong action to manage climate change. |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsg:lsgwps:wp84a&r=hme |
| By: | Collewet, Marion |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses three approaches to well-being in economics which use insights from psychology to support their position: Scitovsky's Joyless Economy, happiness economics, and the constitutional approach to happiness in economics. It shows that in the way these approaches make use of psychology, normative choice is involved, and there is room for personal judgement. First, an approach to well-being, as an approach to what is worth pursuing, is necessarily normative. The use of psychological theories to support an approach to well-being relies on a normative step, revealed by the choice of a psychological theory by the economist. Second, personal judgement is often needed to translate the findings of psychology to recommendations for practice. Both things have implications for those theories which define well-being as something different than the fulfillment of individual preferences whatever they are, and therefore yield potential for paternalism. The paternalistic recommendations derived by economists are not based on positive science only, but also rely on personal judgement and normative choice. -- |
| Keywords: | paternalism,well-being,Scitovsky,happiness economics,constitutional approach |
| JEL: | I31 D71 B21 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:20141&r=hme |
| By: | Paul Nightingale (SPRU, University of Sussex, UK) |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter, Harnack, Qutb, Creative destruction |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:2013-15&r=hme |
| By: | Donzelli, S. |
| Abstract: | In the last two decades, a novel interdisciplinary field of inquiry has emerged under the label of Border Studies. This area of research has mainly reflected on the nature and functionalities of borders and boundaries, bringing up discussions on space, politics, economics, and culture. In particular, Border Studies have significantly contributed to the understanding of the role of borders in shaping migratory movements. In order to map this very large field of investigation, numerous state of the art reviews have been published. However, none of the reviews encountered has addressed the following issues: first, the main assumptions informing different theoretical perspectives in Border Studies; second, the application of Border Studies to analyse human mobility in the Global South. Thus, in order to participate in producing a more complete understanding of the knowledge produced in this field, the present paper pursues a pair of objectives. One objective is to critically present the main theoretical approaches employed in the field of Border Studies, reflecting on their heuristic possibilities and limitations as well as their political implications. The other objective is to explore the intertwining of Border and Migration Studies with a specific focus on Africa, Asia and Latin America, devoting particular attention to the way this body of research has analysed the condition of migrant women workers. Overall, the essay generates suggestions for future significant investigations. |
| Keywords: | Borders, boundaries, migration, Global South, migrant women workers |
| Date: | 2013–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:euriss:50160&r=hme |
| By: | Alexander Rakviashvili (Department of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University) |
| Abstract: | The article is dedicated to the state’s concept evolution. Here is the author’s vision of the state as an abstract notion that describes specific governmental relations, formatted in a result of a long evolution process. The special attention is attracted to the Russian political system and features of the new stage of the state's evolution. |
| Keywords: | State, autocracy, democracy, morality. |
| JEL: | A10 P51 P00 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upa:wpaper:0005&r=hme |