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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2017‒08‒20
five papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Jonathan Cogliano (Department of Economics, Dickinson College) |
| Abstract: | This paper highlights the separation between surplus value production and realization in Marx's work. A new method of estimating surplus value production at the industry level is proposed and implemented. Marx's procedure of transforming labor values into prices of production shows that capitalist competition to equalize the profit rate entails transfers of surplus value across industries, thus differentials between surplus value created and surplus value realized as profit can exist at the industry level. These types of transfers can also exist between productive and unproductive activities in the circuit of capital. First, to trace out these transfers, a framework linking money value added to surplus value production by industry is established. Second, data on value added by industry for the U.S. are used to estimate surplus value production at the industry level. The analysis allows comparison of surplus value production and realization in each industry. The pattern of differentials between surplus value creation and realization across industries points to a potential source of instability for capitalist economies. |
| Keywords: | Circuit of Capital, Labor Theory of Value, Productive and Unproductive Labor, Surplus Value, Transfers of Surplus Value |
| JEL: | B5 B51 E11 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dic:wpaper:2017-01&r=hme |
| By: | Ariane TICHIT (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International(CERDI)) |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the social representations of money from survey data. More specifically, it tests how organizers of a complementary currency system have a distinct perception of money compared to other citizens. The main results confirm the existence of significant differences between the two groups. The structure of their representations shows that for the local currency members money is less tied to official institutions, to the symbol of the sovereign State, to labour and to wages than for the representative population segment. This confirms a number of theoretical studies that see these social innovations as forms of protest against the standard system, questioning the sovereign State currency and close to the concept of unconditional income. Local currencies, through the different social representations of money they contain, could well be drivers of societal change. |
| Keywords: | Social representations of money, Survey data, Abric method, Complementary currencies. |
| JEL: | Z13 E42 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdi:wpaper:1886&r=hme |
| By: | Chakraborty, Tanika; Mukherjee, Anirban; Rachapalli,Swapnika Reddy; Saha, Sarani |
| Abstract: | Our study is motivated by two disturbing evidences concerning women in India. On one hand, crime against women is on the rise while on the other, women's labor force participation rate (WLFPR) has been declining over the last three decades. We estimate the extent to which the decline in WLFPR can be assigned to increasing instances of crime against women. We argue that an increase in crime against women, increases the non-pecuniary costs of traveling to work, particularly in a traditional society marked by stigma against victims of sexual crimes. Our findings suggest that women are less likely to work away from home in regions where the perceived threat of sexual harassment against girls is higher. The estimate is robust to various sensitivity checks. Moreover, the deterrence effect of crime responds to the opportunity cost of work on one hand and the stigma cost of sexual crimes on the other. |
| Keywords: | Crime-against-women,Labor-force-participation,stigma-cost |
| JEL: | E24 J16 J18 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:96&r=hme |
| By: | Saleh Albeaik; Mary Kaltenberg; Mansour Alsaleh; C\'esar A. Hidalgo |
| Abstract: | Recently we uploaded to the arxiv a paper entitled: Improving the Economic Complexity Index. There, we compared three metrics of the knowledge intensity of an economy, the original metric we published in 2009 (the Economic Complexity Index or ECI), a variation of the metric proposed in 2012, and a variation we called ECI+. It was brought to our attention that the definition of ECI+ was equivalent to the variation of the metric proposed in 2012. We have verified this claim, and found that while the equations are not exactly the same, they are similar enough to be our own oversight. More importantly, we now ask: how many variations of the original ECI work? In this paper we provide a simple unifying framework to explore multiple variations of ECI, including both the original 2009 ECI and the 2012 variation. We found that a large fraction of variations have a similar predictive power, indicating that the chance of finding a variation of ECI that works, after the seminal 2009 measure, are surprisingly high. In fact, more than 28 percent of these variations have a predictive power that is within 90 percent of the maximum for any variation. These findings show that, once the idea of measuring economic complexity was out, creating a variation with a similar predictive power (like the ones proposed in 2012) was trivial (a 1 in 3 shot). More importantly, the result show that using exports data to measure the knowledge intensity of an economy is a robust phenomenon that works for multiple functional forms. Moreover, the fact that multiple variations of the 2009 ECI perform close to the maximum, tells us that no variation of ECI will have a performance that is substantially better. This suggests that research efforts should focus on uncovering the mechanisms that contribute to the diffusion and accumulation of productive knowledge instead of on exploring small variations to existing measures. |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1708.04107&r=hme |
| By: | Mao, N.; McAleer, M.J.; Bai, S. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of psychological needs on luxury consumption. Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) invented the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe luxury goods and services, in which Veblen indicated the purpose of luxury consumption was to display wealth and social status. This paper integrates the following two papers: __(1)__ Han and Zhou (2002), who proposed an integrative model, and argued that three variables, namely Country-of-Origin, Brand Name, and Price, were major predictors for overall product evaluation and purchase intentions; and __(2)__ Han, Nunes and Dreze (2010), who proposed a taxonomy called The Luxury 4Ps, to explain the inductive and deductive psychological needs of luxury consumption. |
| Keywords: | Psychological needs, Luxury consumption, Consumer behavior |
| JEL: | N35 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:eureir:100853&r=hme |