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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2017‒07‒02
sixteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Leonardo Costa Ribeiro (Inmetro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); Leonardo Gomes de Deus (Cedeplar-UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil); Pedro Mendes Loureiro (SOAS, London, UK); Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque (Cedeplar-UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) |
| Abstract: | This article proposes a network model to replicate the behaviour of the profit rate in the long run. Specifically, it accounts for the results of an empirical investigation of the profit rate in the US, which show that it has fractal properties and its complexity changes over time. The starting point of the model is Marx’s insights on the interplay between the tendency of the rate to fall and its countertendencies. It combines these insights with the persistent generation of new commodities – inventions – and a specific set of new branches of production that triggers technological revolutions. A simulation running this network model successfully replicates historical features of the system. |
| Keywords: | Rate of profit; Technological revolutions; Marx; Complex systems; Metamorphoses of capitalism; Simulation models |
| JEL: | P16 O33 B51 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td555&r=hme |
| By: | Nikolaidi, Maria; Stockhammer, Engelbert |
| Abstract: | Minsky’s ideas have recently gained prominence in the mainstream as well as in the heterodox literature. However, there exists no agreement upon the formal presentation of Minsky’s insights. The aim of this paper is to survey the literature and identify differences and similarities in the ways through which Minskyan ideas have been formalised. We distinguish between the models that focus on the dynamics of debt or interest, with no or a secondary role for asset prices, and the models in which asset prices play a key role in the dynamic behaviour of the economy. Within the first category of models we make a classification between (i) the Kalecki-Minsky models, (ii) the Kaldor-Minsky models, (iii) the Goodwin-Minsky models, (iv) the credit rationing Minsky models, (v) the endogenous target debt ratio models and (vi) the Minsky-Veblen models. Within the second category of models, we distinguish between (i) the equity price Minsky models and (ii) the real estate price Minsky models. Key limitations of the models and directions for future research are outlined. |
| Keywords: | business cycles; financial instability; post-Keynesian economics; debt cycles; |
| JEL: | B50 E32 G01 |
| Date: | 2017–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gpe:wpaper:17448&r=hme |
| By: | Ralsmark, Hilda (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Despite major developments in gender equality, differences between men and women’s economic and social behaviors remain. Several studies demonstrate the importance of gender norms in explaining a significant part of the gender gap. But what shapes gender norms? I provide evidence on the role of education, considered to be a key factor to reach gender equality, in influencing attitudes on gender norms in two different domains: the labor market and household. Exploiting educational reforms in Europe, I find that mandatory education and years of education significantly reduces individuals’ level of agreement on the gender norm that the man should be the breadwinner but not on the gender norm that the woman should be the homemaker. The result is consistent with the hypothesis that part of the ”stalled revolution” in gender equality is because norms in the household are more rigid than in the labor market, and that educated women face a dilemma between a career and family, or a double burden where they continue to do the lion’s share of household work. |
| Keywords: | Gender equality; Education; Gender Norms; Labor market; Household Economics |
| JEL: | D10 I20 J16 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0702&r=hme |
| By: | François Bareille; Florence Bonnet-Beaugrand; Sabine Duvaleix-Treguer |
| Abstract: | Members’ commitment lessens when agricultural cooperatives grow larger. Their organization becomes more complex and their membership more heterogeneous, which threatens their sustainability and leads them to implement specific mechanisms for collective decisions. We explore how the alignment of objectives between a multi-purpose cooperative and its members influences member commitment. We estimate a multinomial probit model on a cross-section sample of 3,205 members from a large agricultural cooperative in France. We assess the determinants of member commitment through four factors: the offer of new agricultural practices, the availability of outlets and supplies to members, the farm distance to the cooperative headquarters and the farm governance. We show that the adoption of new agricultural practices has a small but significant effect. The availability of outlets and supplies has the strongest effect on the economic involvement of the farmers. Other determinants, such as farm governance or geographical distance to the cooperative headquarters, also reinforce member commitment. |
| Keywords: | agricultural cooperatives, member commitment, farm innovation, economic involvement |
| JEL: | Q13 C35 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rae:wpaper:201702&r=hme |
| By: | Sato, Yoshihiro (European Institute of Japanese Studies); Ando, Michihito (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research) |
| Abstract: | We analyze whether gender composition at non-board managerial levels has any impact on firm productivity and other related outcomes in the service sector using a linked employer-employee dataset from Sweden. Exploiting within-firm variation, we apply a difference-in-differences propensity score matching method to address an endogeneity issue. Our results suggest no significant effects on productivity but significant positive effects on firms' growth in terms of value added and labor inputs when a firm “replaces” a male manager with a woman. We do not observe any impact when a firm “appoints” a woman instead of a man to a new managerial position. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Gender diversity; Firm productivity; Manager; Difference-in-differences matching; Propensity score matching |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J71 J82 |
| Date: | 2017–01–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:eijswp:0242&r=hme |
| By: | Nikulin, Alexander (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)); Sobolev, Alexander (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)); Trotsuk, Irina (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)); Kurakin, Alexander (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)) |
| Abstract: | From an economic point of view, cooperation is an alternative type of business, which is possible in virtually any field of activity. If people are dissatisfied with how private entrepreneurs or the state meet their needs, they can organize a cooperative, supporting and developing a joint business in the hope of obtaining benefits (the best service or service that is not available in the area). In the context of backdrop of the agriculturally developed countries, Russian cooperation looks extremely depressing. Nevertheless, the state is making attempts to revive the cooperative movement in the country, but it has not been very successful so far. In this connection, the question arises of how cooperatives (as well as small agricultural producers, on which state programs for the development of cooperation are primarily directed) react to similar programs, their economic situation, and what management models there are. |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:061714&r=hme |
| By: | Tommaso Ciarli (University of Sussex - Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU)); Andre Lorentz (Universite de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard); Marco Valente (University of L'Aquila); Mario Savona (University of Sussex - Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU)) |
| Abstract: | We study the relation between income distribution and growth mediated by structural changes on the demand and supply side. Using results from a multi-sector growth model we compare two growth regimes which differ in three aspects: labour relations, competition, and consumption patterns. Regime one, similar to Fordism, is assumed to be relatively less unequal, more competitive, and with more homogeneous consumers than regime two, similar to post-Fordism. We analyse the parameters that define the two regimes to study the role of exogenous institutional features and endogenous structural features of the economy on output growth, income distribution, and their relation. We find that regime one exhibits significantly lower inequality, higher output and productivity, and lower unemployment than regime two. Both institutional and structural features explain these difference. Most prominent among the first group are wage differences, accompanied by capital income, and the distribution of bonuses to top managers. The concentration of production magnifies the effect of wage differences on income distribution and output growth, suggesting the relevance of the norms of competition. Among structural determinants, particularly relevant are firm organisation and the structure of demand. The way in which final demand distributes across sectors influences competition and overall market concentration. Particularly relevant is the demand of the least wealthy classes. We also show how institutional and structural determinants are tightly linked. Based on this link we conclude by discussing a number of policy implications emerging from our model. |
| Keywords: | Structural change; income distribution; competition; consumption behaviour; technological change |
| JEL: | O41 L16 C63 O14 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:2017-12&r=hme |
| By: | Florentin GLOETZL (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria); Ernest AIGNER (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria) |
| Abstract: | This paper scientometrically investigates concentration in economics between 1956and 2016 using a large-scale data set. It is revealed that economics is highly concentratedalong six dimensions: articles, journals, regions, institutions, authors, and paradigms. NorthAmerica accounts for half of all published articles and three quarters of all citations, while thetop twenty academic institutions reap a share of 42 percent of all citations. The top 100 authorsalone receive a share of 15 percent. Five journals account for 27.7 percent of all citations andonly 8 percent of all articles, and 3 percent of all citations may be attributed to heterodoxschools of thought. The overall Gini coefficient for the distribution of citations among articlesis 0.72. Generally, concentration is found to increase towards the top of the discipline and to behigher and more persistent on the level of citations than on the level of articles. Concentrationhas increased over the last few decades, with the strongest increases occurring already until the 1970s. |
| Keywords: | concentration, economics, scientometrics |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwiee:ieep15&r=hme |
| By: | Robert A. Margo |
| Abstract: | In the United States today the academic field of economic history is much closer to economics than it is to history in terms of professional behavior, a stylized fact that I call the “integration of economic history into economics”. I document this using two types of evidence – use of econometric language in articles appearing in academic journals of economic history and economics; and publication histories of successive cohorts of PhDs in the first decade since receiving the doctorate. Over time, economic history became more like economics in its use of econometrics and in the likelihood of scholars publishing in economics, as opposed to economic history journals. But the pace of change was slower in economic history than in labor economics, another sub-field of economics that underwent profound intellectual change in the 1950s and 1960s, and there was also a structural break evident for post-2000 PhD cohorts. To account for these features of the data, I sketch a simple, “overlapping generations” model of the academic labor market in which junior scholars have to convince senior scholars of the merits of their work in order to gain tenure. I argue that the early cliometricians – most notably, Robert Fogel and Douglass North – conceived of a scholarly “identity” for economic history that kept the field distinct from economics proper in various ways, until after 2000 when their influence had waned. |
| JEL: | A14 N01 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23538&r=hme |
| By: | Esteban Cruz-Hidalgo (Universidad de Extremadura, Spain); Francisco M. Parejo-Moruno (Universidad de Extremadura, Spain) |
| Abstract: | The rupture of the nexus between monetary and fiscal policies, which derives from the supranational transfer of the monetary sovereignty by the states, is the origin of the great macroeconomic imbalances that shake today some nations inserted in the European integration process. In this paper we try to show the so-called Modern Monetary Theory, from which underlies the urgency of recovering the monetary-fiscal bond, and consequently, the need of conceiving public finances in a functional way. In contrast to the orthodox recommendations, which suggest fiscal balance and austerity as macroeconomic stabilization measures, the MMT contemplates the government and nongovernmental sectors balances as one, being desirable, therefore, fiscal expansion in recession periods to achieve full employment, without neglecting the one related to price stability. Thus, the implementation of job guaranteed programs would act as a powerful corrector of the supply-side imbalance in the labor market, meanwhile stimulating social and/or environmental improvements in the countries concerned, favoring higher levels of well-being in them ultimately. |
| Keywords: | Money, Modern Monetary Theory, Chartalism, Guarranteed work program, Functional Finance |
| JEL: | B19 B25 B50 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:1704&r=hme |
| By: | Oliver Picek; Enno Schröder |
| Abstract: | We calibrate a closed multi-country input-output model with data from the World Input-Output Database to estimate the size of spillover effects of Germany?s final demand on GDP, employment, and the trade balance in Southern European countries. We find that spillover effects are rather small. Germany alone will hardly make a significant contribution to the external adjustment process in the European South. |
| Keywords: | euro area, macroeconomic imbalances, external adjustment, input-output analysis, global value chains, spillover effects |
| JEL: | F14 F32 F42 C67 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:wpaper:181-2017&r=hme |
| By: | Leon, Dorian |
| Abstract: | El enfoque de capacidades ha sido operatibilizable y un ejemplo de ello es el Índice de Desarrollo Humano y el Índice de Pobreza Multidimensional. No obstante, su carácter operativo en el ámbito de la evaluación de funcionamientos específicos tales como educación, género y pobreza desde una perspectiva difusa es aún más amplio. En ese sentido, el presente artículo tiene como objetivo brindar una aproximación formal muy breve al enfoque, principalmente centrándose en algunos de sus conceptos fundamentales. |
| Keywords: | enfoque de capacidades, funcionamiento, Amartya Sen |
| JEL: | D63 I31 I32 |
| Date: | 2017–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79877&r=hme |
| By: | Abeles, Martín; Arakaki, Agustín; Villafañe, Soledad |
| Abstract: | El objetivo de este estudio es aportar evidencia sobre la importancia de la estructura productiva para entender el nivel y la dinámica de la distribución del ingreso entre el capital y el trabajo. Por un lado, procura entender en qué medida las diferencias en la distribución funcional del ingreso que se evidencian entre los países de la región responden a factores propiamente distributivos y/o a la composición sectorial de la economía, donde conviven actividades con distintos grados de participación de los trabajadores en el valor agregado. Con ese objetivo se analiza la evolución reciente de la distribución funcional del ingreso en los siguientes países de la región: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras y México. Por otro lado, plantea una serie de interrogantes de orden metodológico, ya sea respecto a la información disponible para hacer este tipo de análisis en los países de la región como a las mismas herramientas metodológicas. |
| Keywords: | CONDICIONES ECONOMICAS, DISTRIBUCION DEL INGRESO, ANALISIS ECONOMICO, METODOLOGIA ESTADISTICA, INDICADORES ECONOMICOS, ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY, ECONOMIC INDICATORS |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col030:41786&r=hme |
| By: | Gao, Lin |
| Abstract: | Given the importance of trust, exploring what may affect trust then becomes attractive. The main purpose of this paper is to explain general trust quantitatively. This paper from, but not limited to, a perspective of original institutional economics elaborates what may affect general trust and proposes three reasonable hypotheses first, and then uses CGSS 2013 dataset to execute ordered logit regression of general trust on some selected variables. It is found that taken advantage has a strongly significant negative impact on general trust; fairness, moral satisfaction, opinion similarity, leisure time for rest and leisure time for learning have strongly significant positive impacts on general trust; public security problem, however, has a negative but not significant impact on general trust. These core explanatory variables improve predictive capability by 4 percent. This paper also compares general trust and trust in strangers, and regress trust in strangers on the same independent variables of general trust. There are two main differences: the first is that the negative impact of public security problem gets significant for trust in strangers; the second is that the significant impact of leisure time for resting gets negative for trust in strangers. |
| Keywords: | general trust, trust in strangers, original institutional economics, fairness, morality, opinion, public security, leisure time |
| JEL: | B52 C1 |
| Date: | 2017–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79948&r=hme |
| By: | Stefano Spalletti (University of Macerata) |
| Abstract: | Questo scritto analizza i contributi dello Stato Commerciale Chiuso (1800) di Johann Gottlieb Fichte all'economia politica nel loro complesso. Presenta l'interpretazione del diritto di proprietà del filosofo tedesco come un a priori fondamentale del suo metodo economico. Quanto deriva da questa interpretazione - principalmente l'impianto di un'economia pianificata centralmente - appare il risultato di una costituzione economica "razionale" che perviene a un equilibrio di stampo socialista ma senza un calcolo economico esplicito. Il paper fornisce anche una nuova e diversa interpretazione dell'"anarchia dei mercati" di Fichte, riconducendola a un esito derivante dal "fallimento dei mercati" stessi. Questi argomenti vengono discussi, infine, in una prospettiva comportamentale che giustifica l'attenzione di Fichte verso gli stili economici (Wirtschaftsstil) quale caratteristica tipica della tradizione economica tedesca. |
| Keywords: | Stili economici,Fichte,Fallimenti del mercato,Pianificazione,Diritto di proprietà |
| JEL: | B14 B31 B51 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcr:wpaper:wpaper00049&r=hme |
| By: | Howden, David |
| Abstract: | Machaj (2015) does a great service in pointing out a key assumption, heretofore unaddressed, in Filleule (2007) and Hülsmann (2010). Machaj errs, however, in stating that who saves will have an ambiguous effect on the interest rate and that where savings are directed can have ambiguous effects on the length of production. In this brief comment I will first show that who saves will have no effect on the interest rate. I then turn my attention to what it means to “lengthen” the structure of production. Although extended production time or additional “stages” of production make convenient placeholders for increased roundaboutness, they fail to grasp the core concept as it pertains to capital theory – what is it about production processes that makes more or better consumer goods? |
| Keywords: | capital theory, interest, production structure, roundaboutness, labor intensity |
| JEL: | B13 B53 D24 E43 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79806&r=hme |