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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2017‒09‒17
nineteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Rotta, Tomas N. |
| Abstract: | In this paper I offer an innovative analysis of unproductive accumulation in the United States economy from 1947 to 2011. I develop a new theoretical and empirical framework to analyze the accumulation of capital in its productive and unproductive forms. I also develop a methodology to compute Marxist categories predicated on the idea that the production of knowledge and information is an unproductive activity that relies on the creation of knowledge-rents. In particular, I provide new empirical estimates to uncover the shifting balance between productive and unproductive forms of accumulation. The accumulation pattern observed during the 1947-1979 phase that prioritized productive accumulation gave way after the 1980s to a contrasting pattern prioritizing unproductive accumulation. Unproductive activity has been growing at a fast pace in terms of incomes, fixed assets, and employment. Among all forms of unproductive activity, my approach places special attention on how the production of knowledge and information has constituted a rising share of total unproductive income and capital stock. Additionally, productive stagnation and rapid unproductive accumulation have been related to greater exploitation of productive workers and to widening income inequality. |
| Keywords: | Unproductive activity; Capital accumulation; Exploitation; Inequality; Stagnation |
| JEL: | B51 E01 O34 |
| Date: | 2017–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gpe:wpaper:14059&r=hme |
| By: | Tirziu, Andreea-Maria; Vrabie, Catalin |
| Abstract: | An entrepreneurial education and work culture brings changes in the relation between the public sector’s organizations and its interested parties. More precisely, it is a question of changing managerial and organizational education practices towards self-direction, innovativeness, flexibility and responsibility. Understanding how public sector’s organizations operate in an entrepreneurial manner is also helpful for supporting growth within the business community. This article aims at presenting a framework on young people’s possibilities of becoming successful entrepreneurs within the public sector’s organizations, showing a literature review that concentrates on the entrepreneurship subject, with focus on youth and the public sector’s field. The results are the research made by using studies on this subject, thus leading to a proper use of entrepreneurial means, knowledge and start-up activities that allow an evolved education, self-responsibility and autonomy. We will see that the entrepreneurship concept has been expanded and a strong tendency is in favor of placing entrepreneurship in the center of attention, being regarded as natural in more contexts than the economic one. The wide understanding aims at developing abilities – power of initiative, energy, creativity, cooperation and responsibility, whereas the narrow understanding is more aimed at students obtaining business and self-engaging knowledge regarding personal growth activities. |
| Keywords: | social innovation; public sector; youth; entrepreneurship education |
| JEL: | L31 |
| Date: | 2017–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:81319&r=hme |
| By: | Julien Vercueil (Inalco - Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales) |
| Abstract: | Analyttcal book review devoted to Robert Boyer's "Economie politique des capitalismes. Théorie de la régulation et des crises" (La découverte, 2015). |
| Keywords: | Robert Boyer,Régulation theory,capitalism,crises |
| Date: | 2016–07–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01422285&r=hme |
| By: | Chelsey Palmateer; David Levinson (School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney) |
| Abstract: | Injustice in transportation services experienced by disadvantaged demographic groups account for much of these groups’ social exclusion. Unfortunately, there is little agreement in the field about what theoretical foundation should be the basis of measures of the justice of transportation services, limiting the ability of transportation professionals to remedy the issues. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved measure of the justice of the distribution of transportation services, which relates to the effectiveness of transportation services for all members of disadvantaged groups rather than for only segregated members of these disadvantaged groups. To this end potential measures of distributive justice, based on the accessibility to jobs provided by various modes, are evaluated in 48 of the top 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The purpose of the study is to inform recommendations for appropriate use of each measure. |
| Keywords: | Distributive Justice; Equity; Accessibility; Transportation |
| JEL: | R12 R14 R41 R48 R52 R53 Q56 D63 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nex:wpaper:justiceexclusionequity&r=hme |
| By: | Dia, Ibrahima; Bonnet, Jean; Abdesselam, Rafik |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to understand the determinants of women's entrepreneurship in the informal sector in Dakar (Senegal). It aims mainly at a better knowledge of women's involvement in economic activities through the informal sector. The paper does this in three ways: first, by defining the informal sector and the female entrepreneur through a literature review; second, by adapting theoretical models in entrepreneurship to the Senegalese informal sector and by defining the concept of entrepreneurial culture ; third, by making a discriminating factorial analysis and a barycentric analysis, based on primary data collected from 153 women in Dakar, to describe a woman’s belonging to a category of creation: creation in the formal or large informal sector, creation in the small informal sector and non-creation. The results show that the woman entrepreneurial activity from one sector to another depends on her human, social and cultural capital and confirm the importance of social capital in the female entrepreneurship of the developing countries where the informal sector is highly developed. |
| Keywords: | female entrepreneurship, informal sector, intentional models, barycentric regression, Dakar. |
| JEL: | E26 L26 M13 M14 |
| Date: | 2017–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:81293&r=hme |
| By: | Geneviève Fontaine (ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12) |
| Abstract: | En partant du constat que la question des conditions favorables à l’émergence des communs est présente dans les travaux d’Ostrom et que certains de ses écrits tardifs témoignent d’une prise en compte des enjeux du développement durable, nous dégageons des éléments opérationnels d’analyse de l’émergence de communs comme outils du développement durable. Pour ce faire, nous cherchons à caractériser les communs de capabilité en croisant l’approche de la justice sociale de Sen qui fonde sa conception du développement durable (Sen, 2013) et l’approche d’Ostrom sur les communs. Cet effort nous amène enrichir mutuellement ces deux approches pour définir cinq critères qui, en plus des trois critères additionnels définis par Ostrom, permettent de caractériser des communs de capabilité. A l’aide de ces critères, nous complétons notre grille des conditions favorables à l’émergence des communs issues directement ou indirectement du cadre ostromien pour les préciser dans le cas des communs de capabilité. L’application de cette grille d’analyse à la dynamique de coopération économique TETRIS sur le Pays de Grasse (France) nous permet de comprendre les éléments ayant joué favorablement dans l’émergence de leur commun foncier mais également de poser l’hypothèse que la construction de ce commun dans un écosystème rassemblant des conditions plutôt favorables, permet l’émergence d’un commun de capabilité imbriqué. |
| Keywords: | Communs, capabilités, émergence, développement durable, conditions favorables |
| Date: | 2016–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01539849&r=hme |
| By: | Bryan Dufour (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | As an increasing number of governments draw an interest in social enterprises and seek to understand the impact of social innovation through social impact measurement (SIM) practices, this paper builds a gap analysis between " traditional " programme evaluation (PE) as it is carried out by public actors and SIM as it is practiced by social enterprises. After framing our contribution in terms of context and definitions, we proceed with the case study of France, where we compare public praxis for both SIM and PE based on a documentary analysis. We find that both disciplines are bridged by a common theoretical foundation and, to a certain extent, by participative approaches. We also identify three main gaps, which are (i) the way outcomes are treated in PE and SIM; (ii) how the stakeholders' participation is managed and how it affects the ownership of the evaluation process by the involved parties; and (iii) how metrics and indicators are approached. This paper is part of a broader research project on SIM focused on work integration social enterprises (WISEs) in the French and Danish public management contexts. The SIM and PE approaches studied here are therefore considered in the perspective of an application for WISEs. |
| Keywords: | Programme Evaluation,Public Management,Social enterprises |
| Date: | 2016–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01458735&r=hme |
| By: | Helen Micheaux (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Franck Aggeri (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Le modèle économique dominant est une économie linéaire fondée sur la consommation de ressources non renouvelables et la mise en décharge des produits en fin de vie. Face aux impasses de ce modèle linéaire, un modèle alternatif a été proposé : l'économie circulaire, fondée sur un principe de bouclage des flux de matière et d'énergie. On observe depuis le milieu des années 2000, diverses expérimentations d'innovation de business models circulaires (BMC) visant à explorer le potentiel de création de valeur associé à ce modèle. Toutefois, ces initiatives restent relativement isolées. De ce fait, se pose la question du passage d'expérimentations locales à un système soutenable sur le plan économique et environnemental. Dans cette optique, cette communication analyse, au travers du concept de business model, les conditions de développement des BMC émergents dans la filière des équipements électriques et électroniques. Ainsi, nous identifions le déficit d'actions collectives qui constituent des freins à la capitalisation des expériences et à leur intégration dans des filières. Pour surmonter ces obstacles, nous mettons en évidence que la structuration d'actions collectives et l'intervention publique sont nécessaires, et proposons des pistes d'actions envisageables. |
| Keywords: | Business model circulaire,Innovation environnementale,DEEE |
| Date: | 2016–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01368036&r=hme |
| By: | Mehrdad Vahabi (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: | There is a vast literature and several surveys on the economic and political resource curse. However, the surveys often fail to capture two points: 1) they disregard the relationship between this recent literature and the staple theory and the staple trap; 2) the appropriability issue has only been treated tangentially and has never been the focus of any survey. The present work fills these gaps. This paper shows that the political resource curse approach initially focused on the appropriability issue through the lens of 'looting' behavior of rebels and distinguished 'lootable' and 'unlootable' goods. However, lootability casts light on mobility of resources or resistance to appropriation rather than state appropriability. Borrowing upon Baldwin's distinction between 'point-source' and 'diffuse' resources, the resource curse literature has recently suggested that state appropriability is related to pointy-resources. The resource curse/blessing assumes that the technical dimension of appropriability and mobility (geographical or purely physical qualities) plays primary role whereas institutional dimensions are either absent or play a secondary role. An alternative approach gives pride of place to the institutional dimension: the same agricultural product such as cereals or coffee can be appropriable or not depending on the institutional structure. Finally, while the literature suffers from a confusion between mobility and appropriability, its relevance in enhancing an appropriative perspective of the state will be underlined. |
| Keywords: | Captive and fugitive assets, Lootable goods, Natural resource curse, Pointy versus diffuse resources, Predatory state, Staple theory |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-01583559&r=hme |
| By: | C Lamine (ECODEVELOPPEMENT - Unité de recherche d'Écodéveloppement - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique); Gilles Maréchal (ESO - Espaces et Sociétés - UNICAEN - Université Caen Normandie - UM - Université du Maine - UA - Université d'Angers - UN - Université de Nantes - AGROCAMPUS OUEST - UR2 - Université de Rennes 2 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); M Darolt (Instituto Agronômico do Parana) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, four French and Brazilian case studies of transitions paths towards a greening of farming and food systems are compared. The methodology is a transitions approach, both systemic and pragmatic. The main guideline follws the emergence and evolution over time of past and current initiatives emerging from the public and private sectors, as well as in the civil society. The roles of civil society and public authorities, quite different in Brazil and France as drivers towards transition, are discussed. The quality of the linkiages kept along time by local players is key to understand the sustainability of the transition process. |
| Keywords: | Networks of actors,France,Brazil,Transition,Agri-food systems |
| Date: | 2017–08–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01579748&r=hme |
| By: | Barcena-Martín, Elena. (Departamento de Estadística y Econometría. Universidad de Malaga.); Blázquez, Maite. (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.); Moro-Egido, Ana I. (Dpto. Teoría e Historia Económica, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Universidad de Granada) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes to what extent household financial regime, in terms of level of income pooling and decision-making responsibilities, is associated with different levels of household deprivation. We conclude that either pooling incomes and sharing decisions or not pooling income and female making decisions are associated with low deprivation levels. We identify household characteristics that are frequently associated with them such as higher household income levels, middle-aged households and not being in a legal consensual union. Not pooling income and sharing decisions is related to higher levels of deprivation, being associated with dual-earner, higher income levels and not old-aged households. |
| Keywords: | Deprivation, income pooling, decision-making responsibility, gender |
| JEL: | C21 D13 I32 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uam:wpaper:201703&r=hme |
| By: | Erik Lundquist; Hanna Eklööf |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to relate the issue of the Motherhood Wage Penalty to the institutional framework “Varieties of Capitalism.†Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, we perform cross-national analyses on the discrepancy in wages between mothers with young children and females without children. The second step of the analysis entails four different measures with relevance to both the institutional framework and our applied gender focus. We find that when nations exhibit features in line with “coordinated market economies,†characterized by relatively stubborn employment protection, smaller degree of general inequality, more concentrated wage bargaining, and higher rate of unionization, mothers are relatively more penalized in monetary terms compared to “liberal market economies.†The results add valuable insight to the limited gender literature within the framework and propose follow-up questions for expanding the efforts of gendering the Varieties of Capitalism. |
| Keywords: | Varieties of Capitalism,Motherhood Wage Penalty,Gender Economics,Institutional theory,Labor Economics |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J50 D02 P10 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:710&r=hme |
| By: | Tomas Klinger; Petr Teply |
| Abstract: | The 2007-2009 financial crisis highlighted the vulnerabilities in the global banking system and shifted research focus to the study of systemic risk. Network theory and agent-based simulation have been used to investigate complex banking systems that would be difficult to model analytically. Nevertheless, the difficulty of obtaining accurate data, as well as the computational complexity of running such models, are limiting their ability to capture the complexities that are emerging in real-world scenarios. In this paper, we use an agent-based simulation combined with innovative calibration techniques in order to model the European banking system as accurately as possible. We extend the existing network approach by adding the ability to model banks of different sizes as well as the detailed connections of individual banks across countries. Our model consists of 286 banks in 9 European countries. We believe that the experiments in this model provide valuable insights into systemic risk within the European banking system as well as useful guidelines for creating new policies. |
| Keywords: | agent-based models; bank, contagion; network models; systemic risk |
| JEL: | C63 D85 G21 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp602&r=hme |
| By: | Richard R. Nelson |
| Date: | 2017–08–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2017/18&r=hme |
| By: | Mehrdad Vahabi (Centre d'Economie de l'Université de Paris Nord (CEPN)) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the evolution of Kornai’s thought on General Equilibrium Theory (GET) and his position on mainstream economics. Three moments in this evolution will be highlighted starting by rejecting GET and advocating disequilibrium in Anti-Equilibrium (1971). While Kornai does not treat the ‘equilibrium paradigm’ as irrelevant, he suggests an alternative paradigm, namely economic systems theory that he further develops in the eighties as ‘system paradigm’. Economics of Shortage (1980) marks a second phase in which Kornai distinguishes Walrasian equilibrium from normal state or Marshallian equilibrium. In this phase, he supports Marshallian equilibrium rather than disequilibrium. Finally By Force of Thought (2006) is a critical self-appraisal in which Kornai considers Anti-Equilibrium as a ‘failure’ and acknowledges GET as a benchmark of an ideal competitive market. He now advocates a Walrasian equilibrium as an abstract reference model but refuses to consider this model as a description of reality. In this sense, he refuses the New Classical economics. Paradoxically however, his original heterodox concept of ‘soft budget constraint’, irreconcilable with standard microeconomics, has been integrated in new microeconomics as an optimal intertemporal strategy of a maximizing agent in the absence of credible commitments. It will be argued that Kornai’s so-called failure is rather related to his half-in, half-out mainstream position, while his institutionalist system paradigm is still a heterodox research project of the future. |
| Keywords: | Disequilibrium, Economic Systems Theory, General Equilibrium Theory, Marshallian and Walrasian Equilibrium, New Microeconomics, Normal State, System Paradigm |
| JEL: | B3 D5 E1 P2 P5 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upn:wpaper:2017-16&r=hme |
| By: | Polterovich, Victor |
| Abstract: | Institutional (in particular, political) pluralism is a fundamental feature of modern developed societies. Its cultural basis is the tolerance of citizens. The paper proposes to distinguish between legal, evaluative and interactive tolerance. This distinction makes it possible to explain the contradictory results obtained with econometric studies of tolerance and its links with the economic growth. Legal tolerance is the basis of competitive pluralism, and interactive one is the prerequisite for the formation of consensus pluralism, based on the collaboration of various social forces. Struggle for resources, intra- and intercountry inequality, "history wars" and prejudices prevent the strengthening of tolerance. Attention is drawn to the "paradox of political correctness": dogmatic tolerance generates intolerant behavior. It is noted that interactive tolerance in developing countries is significantly correlated with technological progress and the level of well-being. The existence of this relationship, which is realized through the collaboration mechanisms, gives the ground for supposition that, despite the contradictory dynamics of the tolerance level in the past 25 years, tolerance will be strengthening in the long run. |
| Keywords: | tolerance, pluralism, collaboration, trust, inequality, corporatism, innovation |
| JEL: | B52 O15 O31 O43 P51 |
| Date: | 2017–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:81277&r=hme |
| By: | Ji Young Kang |
| Abstract: | Despite growing interest in the effects of variations in work and family reconciliation policies on female employment across countries, the questions in what way and to what extent production regimes influence female employment provide an important backdrop to the current research. Drawing on Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) literature, I examine the effects of production regimes and work and family reconciliation policies on the gender employment gap simultaneously in 15 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Childcare is associated with a lesser degree of gender gap in employment participation and leave generosity has a curvilinear relation with the gender employment gap. Whereas the coordinated market economies themselves are associated with smaller gender gaps in employment participation, in the coordinated market economies leave generosity produces a higher gender employment gap than in the liberal market economies. This research highlights the importance of production regimes in understanding female employment and the interactive effects of leave generosity by production regimes. |
| Keywords: | Gender employment gap,Varieties of Capitalism (VoC),production regimes,work and family reconciliation policies (leave generosity, public childcare) |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:709&r=hme |
| By: | DIA, Ibrahima |
| Abstract: | In developing countries and particular in Senegal the majority of women are poor. Microenterprises created by a part of these women, especially in the informal sector, qualitatively improve their lives and those of their families and arouse increasingly growing interest for public authorities. In Senegal, where the informal sector is an important part of the economy, few researchers were interested in the factors which are likely to push women entrepreneurship in this sector. Based on the data from a field survey we conducted among 107 women entrepreneurs in the informal sector of the area of Dakar, this article attempts to verify if the entrepreneurial choices of these women is linked to socio-cultural factors, economic and / or noneconomic factors using a principal component analysis of motivational factors. Our results are rather surprising and highlight the complexity of the motivational phenomenon. Women rather undertake to satisfy their desire to participate in the welfare of their community. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, women, motivation, informal sector |
| JEL: | A1 J0 J1 J12 J16 O1 O17 |
| Date: | 2017–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:81292&r=hme |
| By: | Polterovich, Victor |
| Abstract: | Strategies for socio-economic development in "catching-up" countries are designed on the basis of ideologies dominated in the society and, as a rule, fail. Until recently, economic science could not offer an alternative basis for designing strategies, but over the past twenty years the situation has changed. Nevertheless, scientific results are still weakly demanded by society. In this paper, the conflict between economics and dominant ideology is explored. On the one hand, ideology restrains the development of scientific research, and on the other hand it is changing under their influence. However, these changes are very slow for a number of reasons, analyzed in the paper. Ideology is inevitably connected with the interests of economic agents. The old elite prevents the emergence of a new ideology, since new concepts reveal the mistakes of past projects. In addition, the implementation of new ideas may require institutional changes that weaken the power of existing high-ranking officials. Meanwhile, in modern societies there are no regular mechanisms providing such transformations, and the probability of rational volitional decisions, which confront the dominant ideology, is small. |
| Keywords: | catching-up development, radicalism, Washington Consensus, gradualism, institutional reform, interim institution |
| JEL: | A11 B52 D02 O25 O29 P21 |
| Date: | 2017–09–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:81243&r=hme |