|
on Heterodox Microeconomics |
|
Issue of 2016‒11‒20
sixteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Horst Hanusch (Institute of Economics, University of Augsburg, Augsburg) |
| Abstract: | The study intends (1) to look at the importance of individual rationality as the main principle of economic behaviour, incorporated best in the concept of "homo oeconomicus". (2) to show how the third technological revolution, the "digitalization of society", may transform individual behaviour in the three pillars of an economic system (real, financial, public). One major achievement of main stream economics of Western style is the "homo oeconomicus". Behind this concept stands the idea of rational man relevant for all parts in economic systems. It allows a consequent application of profit and efficiency maximizing in the real and financial sector and of vote and utility maximization in the public sector as agents' behaviour. Psychology, sociology, behaviourism, anthropology are strictly against the idea of the "homo oeconomicus". Evolutionary and Neo-Schumpeterian Economics also claim that it is wrong because it doesn’t allow to include uncertainty considerations which are a condition sine-qua-non for innovation, change and prosperity. But, is this concept completely wrong? Or is it perhaps relevant for specific parts of an economic system, if they develop within the process of digital revolution? These are the questions which will be tackled in the paper. The analysis will follow a comprehensive approach, looking at the three institutional pillars of an economy, the financial, the real and the public sector trying to work out the effects of digitalization on the patterns of behaviour. All in all, the effects of digitalization can be summarized as follows: In the financial pillar it modifies the culture of doing business from "symbiotic capitalism" to "financial capitalism" with prevailing olympic rationality. In the industrial pillar it induces changes from short term maximizing "managerial capitalism" to a long term oriented "entrepreneurial capitalism". In the public pillar it may open ways to institutional change, at least partially, from a "bureaucratic tax state" to a system of "social capitalism" with high potentials for enabling individual creativity and resilience capabilities. |
| Keywords: | Behavioural Economics , Neo-Schumpeterianism |
| JEL: | B52 D00 O1 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0330&r=hme |
| By: | Gray Kimbrough |
| Abstract: | A wealth of research has shown that the commutes of American women are shorter, both in time and distance, than those of American men. This study takes advantage of a large, nationally representative dataset, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), to examine gender differences in commute character and time. A method of calculating commuting time that accounts for stops along the journey is applied to ATUS data; analysis of gender differences in the number, type, and length of stops demonstrates the need for this commuting measure. Explanations for womenâs shorter commutes are reviewed and tested alongside predicted relationships from a simple labor supply model. Controlling for marital status and the presence of children, women are more likely to be accompanied by children for their commute, and women tend to make longer stops than men. Multivariate regression results support two previously proposed explanations for the gender commuting time gap, based on gender differences in wages and types of jobs held. Contrary to the previously proposed Household Responsibility Hypothesis, this analysis provides evidence that greater household responsibility does not explain womenâs shorter commutes. |
| JEL: | J22 R41 J16 |
| Date: | 2016–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jmp:jm2016:pki275&r=hme |
| By: | Matteo Serri; Guido Caldarelli; Giulio Cimini |
| Abstract: | Assessing the stability of economic systems is a fundamental research focus in economics, that has become increasingly interdisciplinary in the currently troubled economic situation. In particular, much attention has been devoted to the interbank lending market as an important diffusion channel for financial distress during the recent crisis. In this work we study the stability of the interbank market to exogenous shocks using an agent-based network framework. Our model encompasses several ingredients that have been recognized in the literature as pro-cyclical triggers of financial distress in the banking system: credit and liquidity shocks through bilateral exposures, liquidity hoarding due to counterparty creditworthiness deterioration, target leveraging policies and fire-sales spillovers. But we exclude the possibility of central authorities intervention. We implement this framework on a dataset of 183 European banks that were publicly traded between 2004 and 2013. We document the extreme fragility of the interbank lending market up to 2008, when a systemic crisis leads to total depletion of market equity with an increasing speed of market collapse. After the crisis instead the system is more resilient to systemic events in terms of residual market equity. However, the speed at which the crisis breaks out reaches a new maximum in 2011, and never goes back to values observed before 2007. Our analysis points to the key role of the crisis outbreak speed, which sets the maximum delay for central authorities intervention to be effective. |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1611.04311&r=hme |
| By: | Abebe, Lemlem; Kifle, Dereje; De Groote, Hugo |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes intra-household gender difference and women empowerment in agricultural index. A combination of multistage and random sampling technique was used. A total of 60 husbands and 60 wives were included in this study, selected from four kebeles proportional to the number of beneficiaries in the kebele. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and women empowerment in agricultural index were used for analysis. There was disparity between women and men; women were less empowered than men. Women’s empowerment index in agriculture was 73%. Meanwhile, the overall gender parity index was 68% and the empowerment gap was 32%. Based on results obtained; the study suggests different areas of intervention that could bridge the gap and help for future improvement in reducing major contributors to the disempowerment of women in agricultural extension service and the level of women’s empowerment in agriculture. |
| Keywords: | Gender Parity, Men, Participation, Women Empowerment in Agricultural Index, Women, Consumer/Household Economics, Public Economics, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaae16:246398&r=hme |
| By: | Kim, Jiyoung |
| Abstract: | This study mainly aims to provide an inter-industry analysis through the subdivision of various industries in flow of funds (FOF) accounts. Combined with the Financial Statement Analysis data from 2004 and 2005, the Korean FOF accounts are reconstructed to form "from-whom-to-whom" basis FOF tables, which are composed of 115 institutional sectors and correspond to tables and techniques of input–output (I–O) analysis. First, power of dispersion indices are obtained by applying the I–O analysis method. Most service and IT industries, construction, and light industries in manufacturing are included in the first quadrant group, whereas heavy and chemical industries are placed in the fourth quadrant since their power indices in the asset-oriented system are comparatively smaller than those of other institutional sectors. Second, investments and savings, which are induced by the central bank, are calculated for monetary policy evaluations. Industries are bifurcated into two groups to compare their features. The first group refers to industries whose power of dispersion in the asset-oriented system is greater than 1, whereas the second group indicates that their index is less than 1. We found that the net induced investments (NII)–total liabilities ratios of the first group show levels half those of the second group since the former's induced savings are obviously greater than the latter. |
| Keywords: | Finance, Monetary policy, Industry, Flow-of-funds, Asset-liability-matrix, Inter-industry, Monetary policy |
| JEL: | C67 E01 E50 G30 L00 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper619&r=hme |
| By: | Horst Hanusch (Institute of Economics, University of Augsburg, Augsburg) |
| Abstract: | In the last decades the world changed dramatically. From a global point of view three disruptive processes are on their way which can be called revolutionary: a political, a technological and an economic revolution. This paper aims to give an overview when and how these movements started what the essence of these processes is and with which consequences we will have to deal with in the future. Concerning the political revolution the year 1990 can be characterized as a historical landmark because of two reasons: At first, it finished with orthodox communism as it was practiced primarily in the former Soviet Union. Secondly, this year created a new illusion which is described at its best by Francis Fukuyama in his book "The End of History" (1990). The Western form of a liberal representative democracy had overruled communism as its most important counterpart and it promised to stay forever as a political system when combined with a capitalistic market economy. That means in last consequence "the end of history". The paper shows how this illusive thinking has been demolished in the last twenty years and in which way a new regime of political thinking, the "autocratic system" of political decision making, is gaining relevance worldwide in developed as well as in developing countries. Starting in China and spreading over to other countries in the second half of the last century it now even reached countries in Europe which after 1990 tried to install a liberal representative democracy with great empathy, for instance Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and recently also Poland. The paper tries to grasp this process, to find answers why the attractiveness of the democratic ideal is fading away in these days and to show which consequences this political transformation process might have for the global economy. The last two decades of the 20 th century set off a third great wave of technological invention and disruptive innovation, the "digital revolution". Radical advances in computing-, information- and communication-technology may deliver a similar mixture of transformation as societies had experienced in the centuries before, getting acquainted to the steam engine, electricity, the telegraph and telephone for instance. The larger part of economists and scientists today sticks to the opinion that this new technological revolution will change fundamentally essential characteristics of the three pillars which constitute a socio-economic system: the financial, the public and the real sector. The paper intends to show how each of these pillars are already affected by the eruptive development of digitalization and how this process may go on in the future with all its social, economic and institutional consequences. If the 1990’s are taken as a historical landmark for fundamental changes in the world, one miraculous development has to be stressed as most important: The economic "catching up" process of the developing world, especially in those emerging countries called the BRICS group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In the last 20 years these nations’ growth has far outpaced that of the US and the EU, with China already having become the second largest economy in the world. The paper will show how this growth phenomenon already changed fundamentally the structure of the world economy and which consequences can be expected in the future, if a country like China will be successful in combining elements of the political and the technological revolution in its development strategy. This scenario and the economic system standing behind may be called "state capitalism" and it is thoroughly in conflict with what is named as "entrepreneurial capitalism", concretized at its best in the US and its Silicon Valley. If we go back to Schumpeter, the Silicon Valley example can be pictured as a realistic portrait of what he had in mind in his 1912 book (The Theory of Economic Development). Whereas the Chinese kind of forming the country’s development process and its innovation culture seems to be more in accordance with the Schumpeter book of 1942 (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy). The paper will at the end shortly focus on this interesting issue, which might be called a "Schumpeterian Battle of Systems", namely "Entrepreneurial Capitalism" against "State Capitalism". Perhaps, this antagonism might shape the development of the world economy in the coming decades of the 21 st century more than any other event. |
| Keywords: | Development Economics, Institutional Theory, Technological Change, Schumpeterianism |
| JEL: | B52 O3 P10 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0332&r=hme |
| By: | Julia Hofmann; Miriam Rehm; Syed Ali Asjad Naqvi |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clr:mwugar:160&r=hme |
| By: | Armida Alisjahbana (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University); Pipit Pitriyan (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | Many literatures suggest that eliminating poverty especially in less developed and developing countries is strongly correlated with many factors such as household’s human capital endowment, its accessibility to basic services and sources of funding. This study puts special attention to spouse (women) as the key agent in household poverty eradication. It is hypothesized that women’s human capital directly determines household’s ability in escaping poverty through its own efforts as well as through its ability to better access and utilize resources. A Multinomial Logit Analysis using the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS5) 2014 is utilized to capture the determinants of household poverty status. The dependent variables are household poverty status 2014, i.e. “poor and near poor”, “vulnerable” or “non-poor”. Our main estimator is Spouse Education as proxy of Women Human Capital. The model is controlled by variables representing household socioeconomic characteristics, district’s economic characteristics, poverty related government programs, community participation and community facilities. By performing interaction between women human capital level with community participation variable expected to bring household out of poverty. It is found that women’s human capital and its interaction with community participation has increased the probability of household’s in escaping poverty. Several policy implications related to women human capital improvement and empowerment together with poverty alleviation program follow. |
| Keywords: | Poverty alleviation; Women education; Women empowerment |
| JEL: | I32 I38 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:201601&r=hme |
| By: | Horst Hanusch (Institute of Economics, University of Augsburg, Augsburg); Yasushi Hara (Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | In modern growth or development theory innovation is a crucial factor which pushes the dynamics of an economy and determines its success in the future. Out of innovations, created in the presence, the potentials for the future of a country are prepared, deciding how its economic fitness and competitiveness will emerge. So, future-orientation is in a natural way connected with innovativeness of a firm, a region or a country and shapes the strength and the specifics of the process of development. Our study is focusing on the group of G-19 countries with respect to their future-orientation shaped and characterized by innovation and the underlying processes of creating and distributing novelties. This group is an economic, financial and political forum which consists of 19 major economies, advanced and developing ones, allocated in Asia, Europe, Euro-Asia, North and South America, The Middle East and Oceania. If you add the European Union you get the G-20 group which is the main economic council of wealthy nations nowadays. The concept of future-orientation, defined by innovativeness, gets its analytical and empirical relevance when it is placed and investigated within a specific development model. Such a model determines the theoretical basis of the study and provides the necessary ingredients for an empirical application. In our study we will use "Comprehensive Neo-Schumpeterian Economics" (CNSE) as an analytical framework (Hanusch and Pyka, 2007a). This approach is based (a) on the principle of innovation as the main driving force and the engine of development coupled b) with the notion of future-orientation penetrating all spheres of socio-economic life in developed as well as in developing countries. Based on the concept of CNSE the central aim of our study is to gain new insights and findings concerning the variety of future-orientation of the G-19 countries. For that purpose we use an empirical indicator approach which (a) tries to bring the notion of future-orientation on a concrete basis by using indicators embedded in the framework of CNSE; (b) investigates patterns of similarities in the set of indicators; (c) shows how these patterns look like by applying cluster analysis; (d) draws some conclusions from the patterns concerning the status and variety of future-orientation in the group of G-19 countries. |
| Keywords: | Development Models, Neo-Schumpeterian Economics, Indicator Analysis, Cluster Analysis |
| JEL: | B52 C8 O57 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0333&r=hme |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Lyssarides, Odd (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Sweden is often described as a country where intergenerational social mobility is high, but research also shows that social mobility decreases the closer one gets to the extreme top of the income distribution. We study the occupational mobility for an extreme elite group in society: the CEOs of Sweden’s 30 largest public firms since 1945. To our knowledge, there exists no similar study for any other country. The study is based on a hand-collected data set consisting of 229 former and current CEOs who grew up in Sweden and born between the late1800s and 1970. We have information about paternal occupations for 185 (81 percent) of them, and 60 percent grew up in Social Group I, which implies an overrepresentation for Social Group I by a factor of 9.7. Consequently, Social Groups II and III are underrepresented. However, almost four out of ten CEOs born in the 1940s came from Social Group III and toward the end of the period, the share coming from Social Group II roughly doubled to about 35 percent. Wallenberg-controlled firms were slightly more likely to have CEOs with a Social Group III background. More than half of the CEOs have a father holding a managerial position. Seven of the CEOs have noble surnames, which implies an overrepresentation equal to that of Social Group I; however, among CEOs born after 1939 only two come from a noble family, which suggests a drop in the advantage conferred by a noble background. Finally, less than five percent of the CEOs were members of a family that was a controlling owner or had a father who was also a large-firm CEO. |
| Keywords: | Social mobility; Chief executive officers; Occupational mobility; Sweden |
| JEL: | J00 J62 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1138&r=hme |
| By: | Parker, Miles |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a survey of 1281 New Zealand exporters to investigate the role of firm characteristics in setting export prices. Larger, and more productive firms, are more likely to differentiate prices across markets. Primary sector firms are more likely to price to market than firms in other sectors, even taking into account other firm characteristics. This contrasts sharply with the commonly-held view that the price of these products is determined on the international market. In a further contribution to the literature, we find that service sector firms can also price to market, at similar rates to manufacturers. JEL Classification: E30, F31, F41 |
| Keywords: | export pricing, invoicing, pricing to market, survey |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20161974&r=hme |
| By: | Guglielmo Forges Davanzati (University of Salento (IT)) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical model inspired by Veblen’s theory of the firm, and to derive some implications of firms’ behaviour for the process of income distribution. It will be shown that the firm is a locus of conflict, involving technicians – interested in expanding production – and “businessmen” – interested in gaining money profits via the management of the “pecuniary side” of the firm. The outcome of the bargaining within the firm defines the ‘workmanship-type’ or ‘non-workmanship-type’ nature of the firm, and affects the level of real wages and employment, insofar as the greater the power of technicians, the higher the real wages are. Moreover, since the expansion of production is associated with the minimum degree of underutilization of capital, technical improvements have a positive effect on the level of employment. Finally, it is argued that a wage increase can have a positive effect on the degree of capital utilization and the level of employment, via the increase in total demand and in the degree of capital utilization. |
| Keywords: | Veblen, theory of firm, wages, income distribution |
| JEL: | B15 B31 D21 D30 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1618&r=hme |
| By: | Zhang, Zengkai; Zhang, ZhongXiang |
| Abstract: | Climate regulations tend to target energy intensive sectors whose products are widely used in industrial production as intermediate inputs, such as electricity, and the carbon abatement may be partially offset by intermediate input-led leakage. This paper aims to examine the impact of intermediate input linkage on the carbon leakage both theoretically and empirically. On the theoretical part, we develop a Harberger-type model with an input-output linkage structure, identify four leakage effects and derive closed-form solutions for these leakage effects. On the empirical part, we build a computable general equilibrium model of China for empirical simulation and introduce Structural Decomposition Analysis to link both the theoretical and empirical models. By imposing a carbon price on the electricity generation sector, our results show significant carbon leakage. Our decomposition analysis further suggests that such a leakage is mainly through the production substitution effect, followed by the multiplier effect. Both of the two effects are closely related to the intermediate input linkage, and thus shed some light on importance of considering sectoral linkage when discussing the carbon leakage issue of climate policies. |
| Keywords: | Carbon Leakage, Sectoral Linkage, Climate Regulation, General Equilibrium Model, Production Substitution Effect, Multiplier Effect, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q55, Q58, Q43, Q48, O13, O31, O33, O44, F18, |
| Date: | 2016–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemmi:249350&r=hme |
| By: | Chacko, Anooja |
| Abstract: | Disability is an umbrella term consisting of various deprivations and capacity limitations of people. As it generally decelerates the overall performance of people and society, it demands constant assessment. The definitions and classification should be done properly. The present paper makes a detailed conceptual overview of the concepts and classification of disability. The diverse instances of disabilities points out to the urgency for comprehensive policy action covering multiple aspects of livelihood vulnerability. In several cases disability serves as a feeding ground for poverty and other forms of discrimination. Hence it underscores the robust initiatives from the government to address the issue with due recognition. |
| Keywords: | disability, social model, medical model, livelihood |
| JEL: | I18 I19 |
| Date: | 2015–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75062&r=hme |
| By: | John Bryant (Vocat International) |
| Abstract: | Chapter from a book entitled Entropy Man, which deals with the relationships between the disciplines of thermodynamics and economics. Chapter 1 illusrates how entropy impacts on the world in which we live. Chapter 2 is a short history of human development. Chapter 3 covers such concepts as the distribution of income, elasticity, the first and second laws of thermodynamics and utility. Chapter 4 explores production and consumption. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between economic entropy and money, illustrated by data of the UK and USA economies. Chapter 7 explores the relationship between economic entropy and employment. Chapter 8 sets out the key dynamics of resources.Chapter 9 illustrates trends in non-renewable resources of oil, gas, coal, nuclear power, steel, cement and Aluminium. Chapter 10 illustrates trends in renewable resources, including humankind, water, land and soil, cereals and grain, meat, fish, the greeen revolution, and renewable energy, including hydro-electric power, wind and solar energy. Chapter 11 is a summary of trends relating to climate change and economic output, and chapter 12 summarises how economics and entropy relate to a sustainable world. |
| Keywords: | Thermodynamics, economics, Le Chatelier, entropy, utility, money, equilibrium, value, energy, interest, elasticity, employment, climate change |
| JEL: | A1 C02 C68 D5 E O |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:voc:wpaper:em201502&r=hme |
| By: | John Bryant (Vocat International) |
| Abstract: | Chapter from a book entitled Entropy Man, which deals with the relationships between the disciplines of thermodynamics and economics. Chapter 1 illustrates how entropy impacts on the world in which we live. Chapter 2 is a short history of human development. Chapter 3 covers such concepts as the distribution of income, elasticity, the first and second laws of thermodynamics and utility. Chapter 4 explores production and consumption. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between economic entropy and money, illustrated by data of the UK and USA economies. Chapter 7 explores the relationship between economic entropy and employment. Chapter 8 sets out the key dynamics of resources. Chapter 9 illustrates trends in non-renewable resources of oil, gas, coal, nuclear power, steel, cement and Aluminium. Chapter 10 illustrates trends in renewable resources, including humankind, water, land and soil, cereals and grain, meat, fish, the greeen revolution, and renewable energy, including hydro-electric power, wind and solar energy. Chapter 11 is a summary of trends relating to climate change and economic output, and chapter 12 summarises how economics and entropy relate to a sustainable world. |
| Keywords: | Thermodynamics, economics, Le Chatelier, entropy, utility, money, equilibrium, value, energy, interest, elasticity, employment, climate change |
| JEL: | A1 C02 C68 D5 E O |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:voc:wpaper:em201501&r=hme |