|
on Heterodox Microeconomics |
|
Issue of 2017‒06‒11
23 papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Isabelle Salle (Utrecht School of Economics - Utrecht University [Utrecht]); Pascal Seppecher (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes a range of alternative specifications of the interest rate policy rule within a macroeconomic, stock-flow consistent, agent-based model. In this model, firms' leverage strategies evolve under the selection pressure of market competition. The resulting process of collective adaptation generates endogenous booms and busts along credit cycles. As feedback loops on aggregate demand affect the goods and the labor markets, the real and the financial sides of the economy are closely interconnected. The baseline scenario is able to qualitatively reproduce a wide range of stylized facts, and to match quantitative orders of magnitude of the main economic indicators. We find that, despite the implementation of credit and balance sheet related prudential policies, the emerging dynamics feature strong instability. Targeting movements in the net worth of firms help dampen the credit cycles, and simultaneously reduce financial and macroeconomic volatility, but does not eliminate the occurrence of financial crises along with high costs in terms of unemployment. |
| Keywords: | Agent-based modeling, Credit cycles, Monetary and Macroprudential policies, Leaning against the wind |
| Date: | 2017–05–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-01527740&r=hme |
| By: | Joan R. Rovira (Economic Studies Office, Barcelona Chamber of Commerce (ES)) |
| Abstract: | We identify a set of key stylised facts characterising the evolution of the seven largest advanced economies from the 1960s to 2015 and develop a small one-sector model of growth and distribution broadly consistent with these facts. The model is used to explore the relationship between falling trend growth, the re-distribution of aggregate income towards profits and the concentration of corporate power and wealth. Theory is confronted with history to illustrate how changes in social structure can affect economic behaviour and performance. We argue that finance-led corporate restructuring, involving debt-financed corporate transactions, may have played a crucial role in shaping long-term patterns of growth and distribution. |
| Keywords: | Stagnation, Distribution, Growth, Financialisation, Heterodox Economics |
| JEL: | B22 E11 E12 E44 E65 G01 O11 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1704&r=hme |
| By: | Trofimov, Ivan D. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether there is empirical evidence to support the hypothesis of secular decline in the economy-wide profit rates as predicted by classical economic theories. We specifically consider profit rates in the OECD economies based on the national accounts data contained in the Extended Penn World Table database. In our analysis we use linear trend, Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) tests, and also allow for structural breaks and instabilities in the series. Results suggest that profit rates in OECD economies exhibited a wide variety of patterns, including stochastic and deterministic trends, random walk, reversals, as well as stability. Secular decline (fluctuation around falling deterministic trend) hypothesis is supported for Canada, Portugal and the USA, while secular rise is witnessed for Greece and Norway. |
| Keywords: | Profit rate, autoregressive model, structural breaks, trend. |
| JEL: | B50 C22 P17 |
| Date: | 2017–06–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79529&r=hme |
| By: | John E. Roemer (Dept. of Political Science & Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Marxists have viewed the task of socialism as the elimination of exploitation, defined in the Marxian manner in terms the excess of labor expended over of labor commanded. I argue that the concept of Marxian exploitation commits both type-one (false positives) and type-two (false negatives) errors as a diagnosis of distributive injustice: it misses instances of distributive injustice because they do not involve exploitation, and it calls some economic relations characterized by exploitation unjust when they are not. The most important reformulators of Marx’s concept of socialism, which implicitly or explicitly attempt to correct the Marxian errors, are Oscar Lange, James Meade, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Ronald Dworkin and G.A. Cohen. I trace this development, and argue for a re-definition of socialist principles based upon it. |
| Keywords: | Exploitation, Socialist equality of opportunity, Market socialism |
| JEL: | P2 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2089&r=hme |
| By: | Mercer-Blackman , Valerie (Asian Development Bank); Foronda , Amador (Asian Development Bank); Mariasingham , Mahinthan J. (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | Existing literature on economic growth and structural change relies on trade data to make pronouncements about a country’s competitiveness and long-term growth prospects through the acquisition of capabilities. However, insufficient data give us a limited view of what is happening within the domestic economy, and how the development of manufacturing through links in the production process leads to the export of intermediate or final products. Using input–output data, this paper devises an agglomeration indicator to measure economic diversification and to compare Bangladesh with other key economies. In the process, we shed light on the symbiotic relationship between manufacturing and services as the country develops. Despite Bangladesh’s astounding growth over the past 15 years, diversification has been somewhat slower than expected for its level of development. |
| Keywords: | Bangladesh; business services; economic diversification; global value chains; input–output tables; ready-made garments; structural transformation |
| JEL: | D24 D57 F15 O14 |
| Date: | 2017–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0513&r=hme |
| By: | Kato, Takao (Colgate University); Kodama, Naomi (Hitotsubashi University) |
| Abstract: | We review recent studies on management practices and their consequences for women in the work-place. First, the High Performance Work System (HPWS) is associated with greater gender diversity in the workplace while there is little evidence that the HPWS reduces the gender pay gap. Second, work-life balance practices with limited face-to-face interactions with coworkers may hamper women’s ca-reer advancement. Third, individual incentive linking pay to objective performance may enhance gen-der diversity while individual incentive with subjective performance may have an opposite effect. Fourth, a rat race model with working hours as a signal of the worker’s commitment is a promising way to explain the gender gap in promotions. Fifth, corporate social responsibility practices may increase gender diversity. We temper the findings by identifying three major methodological challenges: (i) how to measure management practices; (ii) how to account for endogeneity of management practices; and (iii) how to minimize selection bias. |
| Keywords: | pay for performance, incentive pay, family-friendly practices, work-life balance, high performance work system, management practices, gender pay gap, gender diversity in the labor market, promotion tournament, rat races, corporate social responsibility |
| JEL: | J16 M5 J7 M14 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10788&r=hme |
| By: | Simy Joy (University of East Anglia, UK); Priya Nair Rajeev (Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode) |
| Abstract: | Rising social inequality around the world has prompted organizational scholars to pay increased attention to socially innovative organizations that address issues of inequality and social exclusion. A key area of research has been the creation of legitimacy for such organizations in the institutional landscape. We note that social inequality is an outcome of the refusal to recognize marginalized groups as legitimate social, political and economic actors, and argue that mitigation of inequality would require building greater legitimacy for beneficiaries themselves rather than for the organization alone. We observe that the processes by which beneficiary legitimacy is built are relatively underexplored in the extant literature. In this paper, we draw on the literature on the social process of (de)legitimation of status hierarchies, and examine the beneficiary participation in the Kudumbashree Community Based Organization (KS CBO), a poverty eradication initiative started in Kerala, India in 1998, and present an empirical model to demonstrate a progressive shift in the referential beliefs about poor women resulting in a greater legitimacy for them as social, economic and political actors. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, social organizations, Community Based Organization, legitimacy, status hierarchy, Kudumbashree |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iik:wpaper:241&r=hme |
| By: | Nelu Burcea (Athenaeum University of Bucharest) |
| Abstract: | Human dignity is a concept which can hardly be confined to a unique field of inquiry, or be analyzed from a restricted scientific approach. In this paper I would like to approach the idea of human dignity through the lenses of economics and religion. The word dignity has wide and multiple applications, ranging in meaning from the concepts of freedom, reaching economic level by applying the idea of a welfare concept or feeling decent. Although, the term of dignity is not likely to be reduced to the economic arena, this paper draws attention, although not exclusively, to the terms of poverty and wealth. Poverty is generally regarded as important to human dignity, but what can be said about wealth? Considering the meaning of poverty and wealth in relation to human dignity, this research uses a general theological approach from the perspective of the Bible |
| Keywords: | human dignity, economics, ethics, future, morality, human rights |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:gpaper:203&r=hme |
| By: | Dai, Shuanping |
| Abstract: | China's economics education started at the beginning of the 20th century, when China was learning from the Western civilization, and accordingly economics curriculum system was introduced as well. As the communist government was established in 1949, economics education in China was interrupted, started to follow a conventional Marxism, and almost acted as ideological education approach and as a tool to economic plan. The fundamental economic reform from 1980s brought modern economics back to China, and from 1990s, economists who were educated in Europe and the USA introduced Western Economics, of which majority are neoliberalism, to China's Universities, and the popular economics textbooks and curriculum prevailed in China as well. This made the existing socialism economics education struggling in the research evaluation and classroom, although the Communist Party still is giving strong support to Marxism. The 2005 debate between Marxist and Neoliberalism actually reflected two monism tried to lead whole China's economics education. A hidden issue behind the learning from the West is that China's economists are keeping pursuing an approach based on China's reality, which in particular has been reinforced by the recent impressive economic success. Generally, China's economists have a common sense of that China did not follow a single economic theory to lead its reform and development, and believe that China's success can contribute to economics, although none tells what is a China's idiosyncratic economics. Hence, an unknown monism might be emerging in China, but pluralism may act as a channel for understanding Chinese economy, and accordingly be the essential parts of China's idiosyncrasy economics, which will be a new monism. |
| Keywords: | China's Idiosyncratic Economics,Pluralism in Economics Education,Monism,Marxian Political Economy |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:udedao:1112017&r=hme |
| By: | Gabor Hajdu (Institute for Sociology, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and MTA-ELTE Peripato Comparative Social Dynamics Research Group, Hungary); Tamas Hajdu (Institute of Economics, Research Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between intra-couple income distribution and subjective well-being, using nationally representative data from Hungary. We show that the association between the woman’s relative income (the woman’s share of the couple’s total earnings) and life satisfaction is negative not only for men, but for women as well. Because we control for financial disadvantages on the individual and household level, as well as for socio-economic and job characteristics of the respondent and their partner, the result can be interpreted as the impact of traditional gender roles and the persistence of the traditional male breadwinner mentality. In addition, we show that gender norms moderate this negative association. Among those with low levels of traditional norms, the woman’s relative income has no effect on life satisfaction, whereas among those who prefer traditional gender roles, the negative association is stronger. Our results suggest that conflicts between the gender norms and the social and economic reality reduce life satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | intra-couple income distribution; life satisfaction; gender norms; relative income |
| JEL: | I31 D10 J16 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:1711&r=hme |
| By: | Florian Brugger (Department of Sociology, University of Graz); Christian Gehrke (Department of Economics, University of Graz) |
| Abstract: | The paper provides a summary account of the views of the classical political economists on the effects of technical change on the demand for labour, and in particular for skilled versus unskilled labour. The views of the classical economic theorists, from Smith to Ricardo, Babbage, Ure and Marx, are then contrasted with the historical record of the bias of technical change with regard to de-qualifying and skill-enhancing tendencies in the 18th and 19th century that emerges from studies of economic historians. The paper shows that some of the classical economists made a serious effort to account for heterogeneous labour in a changing technical environment. While Smith and Marx envisaged the de-qualification of the workforce as the main characteristic of technological development and as a purposely intended consequence of the introduction of new technologies, other authors like Babbage also took into account capital - skilled labour complementarities and skill-enhancing effects of technological change. While for Smith the deskilling bias is a by-product of progress, Marx and Ure regarded directed technological change as a bourgeois weapon in the class struggle for the reduction of the bargaining power of the proletariat. Economic historians found strong confirmation for Marx’s hypotheses that technical change was used as a weapon against the proletariat. But most empirical studies found no evidence for a deskilling tendency of industrialization as a whole. According to those studies industrialization was accompanied by a polarization of labour. On the one hand, industrialization deskilled part of the labour force and on the other hand it sharply raised the demand for highly skilled workers. |
| Date: | 2017–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpsses:2017-02&r=hme |
| By: | Marco Lonzi; Samuele Riccarelli; Ernesto Screpanti |
| Abstract: | In his theoretical model of production prices Marx follows the classical economists in treating wages as being paid in advance. Sraffa, instead, tends to treat them as being paid post factum. However, when Marx tackles the problem under less abstract scrutiny, he abandons the classical approach and declares that, as a matter of fact, wages are postponed. We prove that, if the period of postponed wage payment differs from the length of the production process, the correct prices are better approximated by an equation with the full post-payment of wages than by one with full pre-payment. Under perfect competition and postponed wage payments, Sraffa’s approach to price determination is the correct one, and validates Marx’s non-classical vision, whatever the period of wage payment. |
| Keywords: | Value theory, Marx, Sraffa |
| JEL: | B31 B51 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:756&r=hme |
| By: | Trofimov, Ivan D. |
| Abstract: | The paper provides comprehensive review of alternative explanations of the trade policy formation, associated rise of trade protectionism, and difficulties of trade liberalisation. Normative economic, systemic, public interest, political, institutional and constitutional economic theories of trade policy, together with political science models of trade cooperation are considered. The paper shows that current research in the area tends to accentuate the factors that entrench trade protectionism, while paying insufficient attention to the role of agency, policy dynamics and informal institutions that may bring in trade liberalisation. Requirements for holistic and dynamic analysis of trade policy are outlined. |
| Keywords: | Trade policy, protectionism, liberalisation, policy dynamics. |
| JEL: | F13 F50 P11 Z18 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79504&r=hme |
| By: | Liviu Ursache (Timotheus Theological Institute in Bucharest) |
| Abstract: | There are different venues to knowledge and their importance in the process depends very much on the worldview on holds on to. I have pointed out some ways in which both modernism and postmodernism influences someone s hermeneutics, with predilection for theological hermeneutics. Even though a lot could be said about the core ideas of the two worldviews mentioned above, I am more interested, in this article, in highlighting how these could help out the interpreter in the process of knowing. In the same way, any other view of world, in future, would help the interpreter in ways former worldviews did not. |
| Keywords: | knowledge, modernism, postmodernism, hermeneutics, method, interpretation |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:gpaper:105&r=hme |
| By: | Sayanagi, Nobuo R. |
| Abstract: | Workers in the field of development aid, particularly those involved in capacity development projects, have for some time recognized the importance of understanding the psychology of aid beneficiaries. However, there have been very few psychological studies on development aid, possibly because there are yet few tested theoretical frameworks that allow empirical research. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical framework that would be applicable to aiding, assessing, and researching the psychology of people facing difficulties such as extreme poverty. The framework is based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and also draws from behavior modification approaches. It is argued that for such people, as a prerequisite for supporting the need for autonomy, it is necessary to support the needs for competence and relatedness. Based on the modified SDT framework, aid paradigms such as conditional cash transfers (CCTs), the life improvement approach (LIA), the smallholder horticultural empowerment project (SHEP), and the freedom for enhancing empowerment (FrEE) approaches are examined, and future research directions are discussed. |
| Keywords: | psychology of development aid,sustainable behavioral change,behavior modification,Self-Determination Theory |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:151&r=hme |
| By: | Marian Gh. Simion (Supervisor at Harvard Divinity School, President of the Institute for Peace Studies in Eastern Christianity) |
| Abstract: | The relationship between religion as a source of meaning and the violent or compassionate behavior of the human beings is one of the vital ingredients of a Society of Conscience. While organized religions are viewed with suspicion, and accused to be the main sources of aggression, intolerance and divisiveness, the conscience of religious faith, as a devotional behavior, offers the key to a renewed spirituality; the cornerstone to a Society of Conscience. Therefore, this white paper focuses on the contributions of the founder of the Institute for Peace Studies in Eastern Christianity, in exploring the resources of Orthodox Christianity in order to advance compassion, and peaceful coexistence. |
| Keywords: | peace, Orthodox Christianity, education, consulting, research, politics, religion, economics |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:gpaper:303&r=hme |
| By: | Carolina Castilla |
| Abstract: | Drawing data from the India Human Development Survey 2011 and the year of the first election with reserved seats for women pradhans, I estimate the effect of the Panchayati Raj institutions on age and autonomy over marriage. Results indicate that women in local government decrease the likelihood of child marriage, and increase the age at first marriage and gauna. The effects seem to be driven by changes in gender and cultural norms, because there is a reduction in the prevalence of arranged marriages with minimum involvement of the bride. Overall results suggest a change in gender norms after 18 years of the implementation of reserved seats for women in local government. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2017-121&r=hme |
| By: | Ion Lucian Racila (Independent scholar) |
| Abstract: | Social influence of the religious phenomenon, is a complex phenomenon, especially in contemporary society, which takes account of certain indicators such as: context of religious freedom, religious language or religious speech, religious affiliation, religious practice; attitudes of religious groups or religious institutions on society and on social security; the impact of specific religious groups, secret societies, mysteries on the population firms. In order to be objective and to have the right attitude towards certain aspects that define contemporary society issues on the globalization, integration, secularism, atheism indifference, pluralism, it is first necessary that these issues be carefully studied, known and understood in the context of contemporary society. The phenomenon of secularization, globalization, religious indifference, not social issues but social phenomena, specific ways of expression of contemporary society |
| Keywords: | religious phenomenon, secularization, globalization, pluralism, atheism |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:gpaper:106&r=hme |
| By: | Carmen Beatrice Pauna (Institute for Economic Forecasting-NIER, Romanian Academy); Mihaela Simionescu (Institute for Economic Forecasting-NIER, Romanian Academy); Tiberiu Diaconescu (Institute for Economic Forecasting-NIER, Romanian Academy); Raluca I. Iorgulescu (Institute for Economic Forecasting-NIER, Romanian Academy) |
| Abstract: | In a world shaken by unsustainability conundrums, a bio-based economy (bioeconomy) seems like the solution. This paper introduces two ways to define a sustainable bioeconomy, one advanced by Nicholas Georgescu Roegen in the 1970s and another implemented by the European Union in recent years. Also, an overview of Romania’s potential to develop a bio-based economy is drawn. Its renewable energy profile is presented, followed by a discussion of the bio-based industrial sectors with potential for development. |
| Keywords: | bio-based economy, bioeconomy, Romania |
| JEL: | Q42 Q56 Q57 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:wpaper:12&r=hme |
| By: | Rubem Polo Costa Mafra (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – UFMG); Márcia Siqueira Rapini (Cedeplar-UFMG); Tulio Chiarini (Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia - INT) |
| Abstract: | Starting from the concept of techno-economic paradigms developed by Freeman and Perez (1988) and by the articulation between productive and financial capital (Perez, 2002) in the consolidation of each Technological Revolution, this paper articulates innovation and financial bubbles. In the first four Technological Revolutions - Era of Mechanization; Era of Steam and the Railways; Era of Heavy Engineering, Steel and Electricity; And Oil, Automobile and Mass Production - the financial capitalwas responsible for economic speculation related to innovations and to the construction of a new industrial infrastructure.Productive capital took a lead in the construction of industrial infrastructure from the strong speculation and the detachment of real economy asset prices, that is, from the generation of a financial bubble. In contrast, a fifth Technological Revolution - the Microelectronic Era - has altered the dynamics of previous technological revolutions: the financialization of the economy changed the logic of the relationship between productive and financial capital. In other words, productive capital did not overlap with financial capital, which can be explained by profound structural transformations. |
| Keywords: | Technological revolutions, Financial bubbles, Capitalism crises |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td554&r=hme |
| By: | Anindita Paul (Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode); Kim M. Thompson (School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University,Australia) |
| Abstract: | A holistic outlook of inclusive growth can be achieved with higher and equitable citizen participation. Digital governance cannot be bereft of the end-user perspective. The purpose of this particular study is to present factors that may affect digital technology use by middle class Indian women in particular. The study follows the interpretive paradigm and is situated to explore an understanding of culture and gender in the Indian context. Applying Venkatesh’s (2003) UTAUT model of technology acceptance we have discussed the four categories of users identified in our study. |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iik:wpaper:236&r=hme |
| By: | John E. Roemer (Dept. of Political Science & Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Socialism is conceptualized as a society in which individuals cooperate, distinguished from capitalism, characterized as involving ubiquitous economic competition. Here, I embed a formal model of cooperation in an Arrow-Debreu model, using the Kantian optimization protocol, and define a Walras-Kant equilibrium, in which firms maximize profits, consumers choose demands for commodities in the usual utilitymaximizing fashion, and the state rents capital to firms. The labor-supply decision of workers, however, is arrived at using the cooperative protocol. Incomes are redistributed through a flat income tax. Walras-Kant equilibria, with any desired degree of income equality exist, are decentralizable, and are Pareto efficient. |
| Keywords: | Market socialism, General equilibrium, First welfare theorem, Cooperation, Kantian optimization |
| JEL: | D50 D59 D6 P2 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2090&r=hme |
| By: | Henselmann, Klaus; Ditter, Dominik; Lupp, Philipp |
| Abstract: | The financial crisis has highlighted the necessity of discussions on the adequacy of banking regulation and accounting standard-setting for financial institutions. We compare the development of several variables in this context between commercial banks, cooperative banks and savings banks from 2005 through 2013, in order to investigate whether smaller banks such as cooperative banks or savings banks tended to be more robust to the financial crisis. We find that the volume of lending (loan loss provisioning) remained stable or increased (decreased) for smaller financial institutions. Furthermore, there is no significant increase in loss avoidance behavior specifically for cooperative banks. Cooperative banks are also the group of banks that showed the least pro-cyclical effects and the most income smoothing behavior. Our results suggest that cooperative banks were the group of banks being most stable during the years surrounding the financial crisis in 2007/2008. This demonstrates the importance that policy makers consider the broad range of financial institutions for discussions on policy adjustments. |
| Keywords: | Cooperative Banks,Financial Crisis,Loan Loss Provisioning,IFRS |
| JEL: | M41 M48 G21 G28 G18 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fauacc:20161&r=hme |