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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2015‒09‒26
eighteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Leonardo Costa Ribeiro (Cedeplar-UFMG); Pedro Mendes Loureiro (Cedeplar-UFMG); Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | What really matters to understand capitalist dynamics in the long run are the countertendencies to the tendential fall of the rate of profit. For researchers in 2015, with all historical and statistical information on capitalist dynamics (not available to Marx, Schumpeter or Bain), capitalism can be seen as an engine for the creation of countertendencies to the fall of the rate of profit. Since classical political economy (Smith, Ricardo, Mill) and Marx the behavior of the rate of profit is a key subject of investigation, that has been also investigated by Schumpeter, evolutionary economist and modern industrial economics. Contemporary debates on the rate of profit would have three advantages vis-à-vis previous rounds of this long-lasting discussion: 1) the MEGA Project has provided more information Marx's works; 2) there are data on the long-term behavior of the rate of profit; 3) there are new tools to investigate the logic of capitalism as a complex system - a dialogue with physics is useful for this analysis. This paper combines different approaches and methods: a short review of the history of economic thought, lessons from economic history, data analysis of the movements of the rate of profit and a simulation model to test our understanding of those movements - a model based on two very simple rules, inspired on an interpretation of Marx's insights about the contradictory interaction between the tendency and the countertendencies to the fall of the rate of profit. These different approaches and methods organize this paper. |
| Keywords: | the rate of profit, Marx, MEGA2 Project, complex systems, metamorphoses of capitalism |
| JEL: | P16 O33 B51 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td518&r=all |
| By: | Xiao Lei (Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University) |
| Abstract: | The literature on traditional middle-class Japanese families has found that men are socialized to become the breadwinner, while Japanese women are socialized to become good wives and wise mothers. Family consisting of a salary man and professional housewife is seen as the ‘standard family’. During the post war period, it was common for Japanese women to quit their jobs after married in order to support the family. However, the tendency of establishing a ‘standard family’ and women`s decision to marriage has changed since the Japan`s economic depression in 1990s. In 1990, 13.9 percent of women aged 30-34, 7.5 percent of women aged 35-39, and 5.8 percent of women aged 40-44 were single. In 2010, the proportion of single women in each age cohort increased to 34.5, 23.1, and 12.6 percent (S |
| Keywords: | postponed marriage, Japanese single women, lifestyle |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:2704836&r=all |
| By: | Blind, Georg |
| Abstract: | Rules as devices for the analysis of economic behaviour have earned increasing recognition since Elinor Ostrom’s work was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2009. This contribution illustrates the use of such analytical device in three foundational pioneering areas of application: The sociology of Thorstein Veblen, the organisational studies of Nelson and Winter, and Elinor Ostrom’s analysis of resource governance systems. A comparison of their respective uses of the analytical concept of behavioural rules reveals their major objective: the systematic interpretation of empirical observations. While their works provide convincing evidence on the analytical power of rules, neither has realised the full potential for generalisation toward a theory of rule-based economics. Such generalisation has recently been achieved by Dopfer and Potts. Adhering to ‘instrumental realism’ their theoretical framework integrates key elements of the reasoning about rules presented here, and achieves general applicability to the analysis of the origination and diffusion of rules, and of their use for economic operations. |
| Keywords: | rule-based economics, behavioural economics, evolutionary economics, institutional economics |
| JEL: | B15 B25 B41 D03 |
| Date: | 2015–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:66866&r=all |
| By: | Stephen Kaplan |
| Abstract: | Political economy theory expects that changes in macroeconomic governance are often catalyzed by institutional factors, such as partisanship or elections. I challenge and contextualize this view by incorporating the role of technocratic advisors into a domestic policymaking framework. I contend that structural and elite-level explanations are also important to understanding ideational shifts, particularly in regions like Latin America that suffer from severe economic volatility. Presidents tend to govern from the lens of their crisis past, appointing economic hawks (or mainstream economists) who embrace austerity in the shadow of inflation crises, and economic doves (heterodox economists) who drift from budget discipline following unemployment shocks. Employing an originally constructed data index, the Index of Economic Advisors, I conduct a statistical test of 16 Latin American countries from 1960 to 2011, finding support for sustained idological shifts in technocratic composition and fiscal governance, based on the nature of past shocks. |
| JEL: | B22 E31 E60 E62 E65 H30 H60 N16 O54 O57 |
| Date: | 2015–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2015-13&r=all |
| By: | Jimoh Yusuf Amuda (Federal University, Gusau) |
| Abstract: | This paper examined gendering theories from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century millennium. These theories arose from the women’s movement from the era of Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) across the twenty first century memory lane of feminist’s movement and feminists philosophies. These theories stemmed out of the fact that women had been undermined and under-classed in the world of human rights in all facts of development and human Endeavour. This research will Endeavour to dabble into an in-depth exegesis of these theories and implications for the success or otherwise of the women’s movement. The pedagogy applied during the course of the research is the multidisciplinary approach, use of journal articles, oral interview of some selected women and field work. The recommendations to this study are embellished under solutions and findings. The framework for this research is based on the historical differences between men and women, leading to the development of diverse theories to help in the understanding of the power relations between men and women. Feminists having different views of female oppression and how equality could be achieved have developed these theories. These diverse views and theories have been grouped into radical feminism; cultural feminism, Eco feminism and a whole lot more. |
| Keywords: | Radical feminism, Cultural feminism and Eco feminism |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:2704755&r=all |
| By: | Filippova, Irina |
| Abstract: | The article discusses the concept of social responsibility of state and business in terms of effectiveness of social production system. In this perspective the traditional approaches to determining the effectiveness of the economic system were critically reviewed. Not only new approach to assessing the effectiveness being proposed in this paper, but also the link between effectiveness of public production system and social responsibility of core subjects is substantiated. Conventional approach for the content of definition of "social responsibility" as the sphere of philosophy, ethics and morality has been criticized. The institutional system of society should provide social control that implies a mandatory appraisal of social responsibility of state and business with the system of measurable indicators. Social capital is regarded as the capital of social responsibility of subjects of relations, which provides an existing level of trust and solidarity. Institutional capital is understood as the technology of public labour division and integration efforts of participants of public production, that ensures the effective utilization of labor resources and their reproduction. Thus, the institutional capital provides a certain level of functional efficiency of distributed decision-making system on the basis of clear criteria for core subject's behavior. Science is the only factor of institutional capital's growth. |
| Keywords: | social responsibility, effectiveness, social production system, social capital, institutional capital |
| JEL: | B4 J01 O15 O43 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:66874&r=all |
| By: | Sanyal,Paromita; Rao,Vijayendra; Majumdar,Shruti |
| Abstract: | This paper brings together sociological theories of culture and gender to answer the question ? how do large-scale development interventions induce cultural change? Through three years of ethnographic work in rural Bihar, the authors examine this question in the context of Jeevika, a World Bank-assisted poverty alleviation project targeted at women, and find support for an integrative view of culture. The paper argues that Jeevika created new ?cultural configurations? by giving economically and socially disadvantaged women access to a well-defined network of people and new systems of knowledge, which changed women?s habitus and broke down normative restrictions constitutive of the symbolic boundary of gender. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Law,Population Policies,Gender and Development,Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems,Anthropology |
| Date: | 2015–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7411&r=all |
| By: | Aspiazu, Eliana |
| Abstract: | En las últimas décadas en Argentina, ha habido importantes avances en la consideración de la problemática de género en la legislación laboral, las políticas de empleo y la normativa de regulación de las relaciones laborales. Sin embargo, las desigualdades en materia de inserción laboral de las mujeres persisten y el mercado de trabajo sigue presentando profundos desafíos. En este contexto, consideramos al sindicalismo como un ámbito propicio para generar modificaciones en las desigualdades de género y promover la equidad. En este trabajo analizamos la incorporación de la problemática de género en el ámbito sindical, a partir del estudio de los aspectos institucionales, culturales y subjetivos que intervienen facilitando o limitando su inclusión y legitimación. Planteamos la investigación a partir de dos grandes dimensiones: la primera refiere al proceso objetivo de institucionalización de la problemática de género en las organizaciones gremiales, que se analiza a partir de las estrategias, las políticas y las acciones desarrolladas en el ámbito sindical para incluir el enfoque de género; la segunda se vincula a aspectos subjetivos y culturales, como la percepción y la comprensión de dicha problemática por parte de los representantes sindicales, que puede observarse en sus prácticas y discursos. Estas dimensiones se abordan relacionalmente desde tres niveles de análisis. En el nivel teórico, se definen y discuten las dimensiones que dan un marco conceptual a la investigación. En el plano contextual, se delimita un marco de referencia empírico para la problemática estudiada, a partir de los datos disponibles sobre el mercado de trabajo y el sindicalismo en Argentina. En el nivel empírico, a través de un estudio de casos se profundiza en la problemática desde el análisis micro de las prácticas concretas de dos sindicatos del sector de la salud. Para el estudio de casos tomamos como objetos de análisis a la Asociación de Profesionales de la Salud de la Provincia de Buenos Aires -CICOP- y a la Federación de Trabajadores de la Sanidad Argentina -FATSA-. Se trata de los sindicatos más representativos del sector en la Provincia de Buenos Aires, donde se localiza nuestra investigación, que por sus diferencias permiten un análisis comparativo teniendo en cuenta su historia, composición y los perfiles de trabajadores que representan. Además, se insertan en una actividad con un gran porcentaje de mujeres en el empleo y atravesada por profundas desigualdades de género, que convierten a la Salud en un ámbito propicio para promover la equidad. A lo largo del recorrido de la investigación, y a través de la práctica de estas organizaciones, la tesis propone reconstruir el complejo entramado de dimensiones que operan obstaculizando o favoreciendo la inclusión de la problemática de género en las organizaciones sindicales, buscando delinear posibles caminos en esa dirección, teniendo en cuenta las necesidades y la realidad concreta del contexto donde se insertan. |
| Keywords: | Brecha de Género; Sindicatos; Sindicalismo; Mujeres Trabajadoras; Salud; |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:2259&r=all |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Watanabe, Hiroki |
| Abstract: | Zipf’s law is one of the best-known empirical regularities in urban economics. There is extensive research on the subject, where each city is treated symmetrically in terms of the cost of transactions with other cities. Recent developments in network theory facilitate the examination of an asymmetric transport network. In a scale-free network, the chance of observing extremes in network connections becomes higher than the Gaussian distribution predicts and therefore it explains the emergence of large clusters. The city-size distribution shares the same pattern. This paper decodes how accessibility of a city to other cities on the transportation network can boost its local economy and explains the city-size distribution as a result of its underlying transportation network structure. Finally, we discuss the endogenous evolution of transport networks. |
| Keywords: | Zipf’s law; city-size distribution; scale-free network |
| JEL: | L14 R12 R40 |
| Date: | 2015–09–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:66802&r=all |
| By: | Mauro Napoletano (OFCE and SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis (France); Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa (Italy)); Andrea Roventini (University of Verona (Italy); Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa (Italy); OFCE and SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis (France)); Jean-Luc Gaffard (OFCE Sciences Po; University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France; Skema Business School) |
| Abstract: | We build an agent-based model populated by households with heterogenous and time-varying financial conditions in order to study how fiscal multipliers can change over the business cycle and are aected by the state of credit markets. We find that deficit-spending fiscal policy dampens the effect of bankruptcy shocks and lowers their persistence. Moreover, the size and dynamics of government spending multipliers are related to the degree and persistence of credit rationing in the economy. On the contrary, in presence of balanced-budget rules, output permanently falls below pre-shock levels and the ensuing multipliers fall below one and are much lower than the ones emerging from the deficit-spending policy. Finally, we show that different conditions in the credit market significantly affect the size and the evolution of fiscal multipliers. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal multipliers, agent-based models, credit-rationing, balance-sheet recession, bankruptcy shocks |
| JEL: | E63 E21 C63 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2015-30&r=all |
| By: | Yoann Verger (REEDS - REEDS - Centre international de Recherches en Economie écologique, Eco-innovation et ingénierie du Développement Soutenable - UVSQ - Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) |
| Abstract: | Cet article répond à la re-publication du texte de Michel Husson intitulé “Contre Sraffa - La transformation des valeurs en prix” (Husson, 1982 (2014)). Mon but est de démontrer que la vision de Husson sur le travail de Sraffa est fausse, notamment à la lumière de la nouvelle interprétation de Sraffa par Sinha (2012). Je m'en tiens (en premier lieu peut-être) uniquement à la critique des propositions concernant le travail de Sraffa, et n'aborderai pas les relations entre les travaux de Sraffa et Marx. |
| Keywords: | Sraffa,Valeur,Prix,Capital fixe,Taux de profit,Rente |
| Date: | 2015–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01199034&r=all |
| By: | Guillaume ASSOGBA; Samuel KLEBANER |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to investigate new theoretical approaches for explaining the concept of French filiere. By using the institutional meso-economics policy point of view (Jullien, 2011), we highlight a gap between the latest French policies for structuring industries into filieres and the objective pursued by such policies. Our demonstration is organized as follow. First, using the institutional meso-economics view, we’ll provide a theoretical definition of the filiere as a particular set of industries technologically closes, sought by the politics. Second, we introduce the instruments used by public authorities within the definition of filiere policies (like the CNI and the “34 plans de la Nouvelle France”). Finally, we show some shortcomings of such policies, both at practical and conceptual order. |
| Keywords: | industrial policy, filiere, meso-economics, institutions, innovation policy |
| JEL: | B52 L16 L52 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2015-26&r=all |
| By: | SAAD BIN AZHAR (ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY); PARVAIZ TALIB (ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to identify indicators (Barriers and Enablers) for green management practices in manufacturing organizations and to understand their relationship with environmental sustainability. By using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) approach, the paper presents a hierarchy based model and the contextual relationships among these indicators. The research shows that there exists a group of indicators having low dependence and high driving power and are of strategic importance for the companies. The proposed model provides a useful tool for companies. By focusing on specific green indicators, environmental performance can be significantly improved leading to environmental sustainability. This study further augments the academic literature on green management. |
| Keywords: | Green Management; Indicators; Environmental Sustainability; Interpretive Structural Modeling |
| JEL: | Q56 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:2704387&r=all |
| By: | Cutuli, Romina |
| Abstract: | En este trabajo presentaré un recorte de mi investigación laboral, vinculado a una de las fuentes abordadas: las sentencias dictadas por los tribunales de trabajo en conflictos vinculados al servicio doméstico. En mi investigación considero a la economía informal integrada a la economía capitalista, antes que como prácticas pre-capitalistas y evidencias de una modernización insuficiente. El crecimiento de la informalidad antes que responder a una fragmentación de circuitos económicos, podría pensarse como una dualización social entre aquellos que pueden insertarse en un reducido núcleo del empleo asalariado, y una mayoría de trabajadores precarios que se ve obligado a negociar individualmente con el capital. Las diversas modalidades de trabajo informal serían, en esta línea, un exponente del proceso de "abolición" del trabajo asalariado. Desde la consolidación de una justicia laboral en Argentina, la informalidad laboral ha sido penalizada por las normativas que regulan las relaciones entre capital y trabajo. El servicio doméstico, con una regulación tardía y discriminatoria, ha sido frágilmente considerado "trabajo", entre otras razones porque se da por sentado que no contribuye al crecimiento del capital. Existen además condicionantes de género que han favorecido la invisibilización del carácter laboral del servicio doméstico, como su asociación a la "naturaleza" femenina del trabajo doméstico. La noción de "régimen de invisibilidad" que propongo en esta investigación, surge en contraste a los elementos que, según Robert Castel, han permitido que el trabajo pasara de la esfera de la servidumbre a la esfera de la libertad. Según el autor, dos elementos centrales permiten la construcción del estatuto del salariado: el derecho del trabajo y la protección social. Es decir, el trabajo dejó de ser servidumbre al alejarse del "reino exclusivo del mercado", al superarse el régimen de meras transacciones interindividuales de trabajo por dinero. El espacio en que se desarrollan las tareas y la superposición de funciones con el trabajo femenino gratuito, contribuyen a esa invisibilización. La justicia laboral parece haber reforzado este "régimen de invisibilidad", y por lo tanto la informalidad laboral en el sector. Caracterizaré brevemente el discurso jurídico que permite afirmar esta hipótesis. Finalmente, propongo una reflexión acerca de los alcances y limitaciones de esta fuente para los estudios del trabajo, y una revisión de las explicaciones que desde las Ciencias Sociales se han dado a la segregación laboral del servicio doméstico. |
| Keywords: | Informalidad Laboral; Trabajo Doméstico; Tribunales de Justicia; |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:2204&r=all |
| By: | Christin Tønseth (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Adult learning and Counselling) |
| Abstract: | This paper is based on a mixed method study, with a questionnaire among 244 adults and interviews with 25 adults participating in different adult education courses. The results indicate that these adult’s work-related motives consist of two separate “motive categories”. One contains motives associated with increased salary, a new job, a better job and new work tasks in the current job. The other category includes motives related to increased power and influence in their current job and strengthened identity, concerning both work and privacy. In Adult Education (AE) theories and Human Resource Development theory (HRD), items in the second category are hardly mentioned as individual work-related motives, although these motives seem to be visible and strong for adults in this study. Viewed against this background, the paper includes a discussion of the possibilities for a further revitalization of AE- and HRD theories, in order to include and interpret important work-related motives as a consequence of social change and development. |
| Keywords: | Adult Learning, motivation for learning, work-related motives, Human Resource Development, mixed methods |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:itepro:2904502&r=all |
| By: | Aspiazu, Eliana |
| Abstract: | A lo largo de esta ponencia, se indaga en la relación entre la dimensión de género y el sindicalismo en Argentina, para analizar los avances y las limitaciones en la participación de las mujeres y la incorporación de la perspectiva de género en el ámbito gremial. |
| Keywords: | Género; Sindicalismo; Mujeres Trabajadoras; Participación de los Trabajadores; Representación de los Trabajadores; Argentina; |
| Date: | 2015–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:2243&r=all |
| By: | Stephan Schosser (Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg); Bodo Vogt (Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg) |
| Abstract: | When investigating bounded rationality, economists favor finite-state automatons - for example the Mealy machine - and state complexity as a model for human decision making over other concepts. Finite-state automatons are a machine model, which are especially suited for (repetitions of) decision problems with limited strategy sets. In this paper, we argue that finite-state automatons do not suffice to capture human decision making when it comes to problems with infinite strategy sets, such as choice rules. To proof our arguments, we apply the concept of Turing machines to choice rules and show that rational choice has minimal complexity if choices are rationalizable, while complexity of rational choice dramatically increases if choices are no longer rationalizable. We conclude that modeling human behavior using space and time complexity best captures human behavior and suggest to introduce a behavioral taxonomy of complexity describing adequate boundaries for human capabilities. |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mag:wpaper:150010&r=all |
| By: | Marine Agogue (CGS - Centre de Gestion Scientifique - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris); Mats Lundqvist (Department of Computational Biology, School of Computer Science and Communication); Karen Williams Middleton (Chalmers - Chalmers University of Technology - Chalmers University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Technology entrepreneurship can be seen as building upon while also deviating from technological paths. Such deviation has primarily been described as singular events where individuals with prior knowledge discover a new opportunity. In this article, we will instead study deviation as a process of collective decision making, seen more as something mindful than singular. The purpose is to explore mindful deviation as decision-making by nascent technology entrepreneurs as they conceptualize an early platform technology. Based on case assignments undertaken by 13 teams in a venture creation program, C-K design theory is used to trace how nascent technology entrepreneurs in action combine causal and effectual decision-making logics. Individually answered questionnaires also offered insights on how the entrepreneurs perceived their decision-making in hindsight. The findings break with our received wisdom around how opportunities are recognized as well as how effectual and causal logics occur. As a result, mindful deviation through combinations of effectual and causal logic is suggested as a means to understand early-stage technology entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | nascent,design theory,entrepreneurship,technology,effectuation |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01196125&r=all |