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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2017‒12‒11
23 papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Dieter Bögenhold |
| Abstract: | We are currently in times in which an increased discussion on interdisciplinarity is on the agenda. Economics tends to go into directions of sociology, history, and psychology, taking on topics of their domains. Questions of convergencies and divergencies between the academic subjects are a result. This observation goes parallel with sociological debate on the status of sociology. Major questions remaining are: (1.) Has the field of sociology changed since Emilé Durkheim or Max Weber? (2.) Which domain can sociology claim as being its exclusive ground? Answers to these questions have to identify a broader landscape of academic division: Economics is moving increasingly in the direction of social topics and sociological ground. The “imperialism of economics” (Granovetter) is increasingly approaching traditional academic fields of history, psychology, and sociology. However, at least two psychologists (H. Simon, D. Kahneman) and an economic historian (R. Fogel) have received Nobel prizes in economics. How can sociology map with this trend, how can this challenge be converted into an academic opportunity? The paper will explore observed trends in detail in order to conclude that the public image of sociology may have declined during recent decades, but the strategic use and importance of (economic) sociology has never been greater. Economic sociology seems to have become an upgraded discipline since social networks, communication processes, institutions and culture are increasingly considered as core dimensions. Of course, the conclusion follows exactly the script of earlier instructions provided by Max Weber or Joseph Schumpeter. |
| Keywords: | Pluralism in economics, Imperialism of economics, institutional economics, old institutional economics, interdisciplinarity, sociology of economics |
| JEL: | A11 A14 B00 B41 B52 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hpo:wpaper:3_2017&r=hme |
| By: | Angela Ambrosino |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses institutional change and Veblen’s work (1907, 1914, 1919) under the perspective of cognitive economics. Particularly it focuses on two interesting issues of Veblen’s theory of economic change: 1. in Veblen’s view habits are both mental habits and behavioral habits and they play a twofold role in economic change because they are particularly relevant both as elements of propensity, and as forces resisting to change. 2 Veblen gives an exhaustive definition of instincts and habits but he does not completely explain the cognitive processes that bring changes and evolution in social habits. He develops an economic theory at the base of which there is an evolutionary view of reality and a deep awareness of the role of the human mind within the decision-making processes of choice. This paper is aimed at analyzing both issues using the interpretive tools offered by psychology and discussing the role of agents psychological propensity toward conformity and independence in explaining institutional change. The central idea is that if we better encompass the theory of conformity and independence developed in psychology (starting from Asch, 1952) in the analysis of economic institutions, we can better explain institutional change. Conformity is the effect of the pressure of social group on agents’ behavior. That concept contributes to explain resistance to change. On the other hand, psychology shows that agents are also subject to mechanisms of independence. These are key elements in explaining behavioral change. The analysis of Veblen’s instinct-habit concept under conformity-independence perspective shows interesting connections between Veblen and Hayek’s ideas of economic change. Hayek’s concept of evolution based on psychological and neurobiological aspect, in fact, is a contribution of great significance both in explaining the dual role of habits in institutional change and in understanding individual mechanisms that bring changes in social habits. |
| Keywords: | Institutional change, old institutional economics, cognitive economics, Veblen, Hayek |
| JEL: | B15 B20 B25 B52 B53 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hpo:wpaper:1_2017&r=hme |
| By: | Jaslin Kaur (Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre, Curtin University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses factors which affect the intra-household distribution of entitlements between men and women in Australian couple households. Several studies have been undertaken into the effects of intra-household bargaining on labour, domestic violence, fertility decisions, and wealth. However, Australian studies of the intra-household distribution of economic resources are rare. Following the methodology in De Hanau and Himmelweit’s (2013) British study as published in the Journal of Marriage and Family this paper generates new data and analysis which accounts for the distribution of entitlements between Australian men and women in couple households. The study exploits quantitative data from the survey of Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), whereby, between 2001 to 2014, individuals in 7902 couple households responded to questions on their satisfaction with their financial situation (SWFS). Changes in SWFS indicate changes in perceived benefits from pooled household finances and thus provide insights into the intra-household distribution of entitlements. |
| Keywords: | intra-household entitlements, gender, employment |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ozl:bcecwp:wp1705&r=hme |
| By: | Dorn, Franziska; Silbersdorff, Alexander |
| Abstract: | Women in Mexico spent at least three times as much time on unpaid work compared to men. It is argued that these duties restrict women in their time use and channel them into flexible working arrangements, which are predominantly in the informal economy. This motivates the hypotheses investigated in this paper, that unpaid work impacts employment status of women in Mexico. The empirical investigations are made using the national occupation and employment survey of Mexico. The results obtained from the sequential logit model suggest that hours spend on unpaid work decrease the probability of being formally employed for women. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:328&r=hme |
| By: | Oluwafisayo Alabi (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde); Max Mundy (Welsh Economy Research Unit (WERU), Cardiff University); Kim Swales (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde); Karen Turner (Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses input-output accounting methods to identify the direct, indirect and induced physical demand for water. Previously the seminal work by Leontief (1970) has been employed to motivate a fuller account of issues related to sectors that generate and sectors that clean/treat polluting outputs (Allan et al 2007). The present paper extends this approach to deal with sectors that use a natural resource and the sector(s) that supply it. We focus on the case of water use and supply and a case study for the Welsh regional economy. The analysis shows how the proposed method, using both the quantity input-output model and the associated price dual, can be used to consider economy wide implications of the deviation between actual expenditure on the output of the water sector and actual physical water use. The price paid per physical amount of water appears to vary greatly amongst different uses. This may occur for various reasons. We argue that such analysis and information is essential for policy makers and regulators in understanding the demands on and supply of UK regional water resources, their role in supporting economic expansion, and can ultimately inform water sustainability objectives and strategies. |
| Keywords: | Water resources; Full Leontief environmental model; input-output; Multipliers; Wales |
| JEL: | C67 Q25 Q51 R11 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:str:wpaper:1612&r=hme |
| By: | João Antonio de Paula (Department of Economics and Cedeplar at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais); Leonardo Gomes de Deus (Department of Economics and Cedeplar at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais); Hugo Eduardo da Gama Cerqueira (Department of Economics and Cedeplar at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais); Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque (Department of Economics and Cedeplar at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates Marx's understanding of the connections between technological revolutions and the centre-periphery divide. Marx's initial elaboration on those topics may be helpful for a contemporary agenda to investigate how global capitalism has been shaped and reshaped by movements in this structural divide between a dynamic centre and a changing periphery. Technological revolutions have been shaping the structure of that divide, its nature and structure. Therefore, Marx's elaboration may be fruitful for both the understanding of the origin and the dynamics of technological revolutions and their impact upon the divide centre-periphery. |
| Keywords: | technological revolutions, centre-periphery, metamorphoses of capitalism, Marx |
| JEL: | B14 B31 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td570&r=hme |
| By: | Basant, Rakesh |
| Abstract: | Significant research has gone into the analysis of the complex linkages between public policy and innovation. While this research has generated a lot of interesting insights, it has also identified several gaps in our understanding of these linkages. This paper is an attempt to pool together some of the ideas that academic research has highlighted on the linkages between innovation and public policy and identify the current challenges as well as opportunities for meaningfully exploring these linkages further. Through a select review of the literature the paper (i) provides a broad overview of the public policy–innovation interface; (ii) discusses issues of conceptualizing and measuring innovation, innovation related activities and policy changes; (iii) summarizes mechanisms through which various policies impact innovation along with available evidence on the same; and (iv) identifies challenges in exploring policy-innovation interface along with a few potential areas of research in the context of India. |
| Date: | 2017–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:14582&r=hme |
| By: | Tanadej Vechsuruck |
| Abstract: | The demand and distributive regimes are estimated from 62 countries around the world based on the Structuralist Goodwin model. The distributive regime appears to be Marxian/profit-squeeze and the demand exhibits a weekly profit-led regime. The profitled demand regime and the profit-squeeze distributive regime are stronger in advanced economies than in emerging economies. The results are also supported when the slopes are allowed to be varied across regions. In the long run, the results reveal that the collective wage suppression would result only in declining wage share, and no positive gain in utilization is found both in developed and developing countries. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2017_08&r=hme |
| By: | Ferraz, Diogo; Silveira, Naijela J. C.; Herick Fernando Moralles; do Nascimento Rebelatto, Daisy Aparecida; Pyka, Andreas |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to create an indicator that compares the efficiency of countries in converting economic complexity into human development through the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and econometric validation. The DEA will not only enable comparisons of efficiency across countries, but will also enable the creation of a global indicator and social efficiency rankings. |
| Keywords: | Economic Complexity,Human Development,Data Envelopment Analysis |
| JEL: | O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esconf:171455&r=hme |
| By: | Voskoboynikov, Ilya B. |
| Abstract: | Intensive growth, structural change and expanding informality has characterized many developing and emerging economies in recent decades. Yet most empirical investigations into the relationship between structural change and productivity growth overlook informality. This paper includes the informal sector in an analysis of the effects of structural changes in the Russian economy on aggre-gate labour productivity growth. Using a newly developed dataset for 34 industries covering the period 1995–2012 and applying three alternative approaches, aggregate labour productivity growth is decomposed into intra-industry and inter-industry contributions. All three approaches show that the overall contribution of structural change is growth-enhancing, significant and attenuating over time. Labour reallocation from the formal sector to the informal sector tends to reduce growth through the extension of informal activities with low productivity levels. Sectoral labour reallocation effects are found to be highly sensitive to the methods applied. |
| JEL: | O11 O17 C82 N14 |
| Date: | 2017–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2017_018&r=hme |
| By: | Martin Kniepert (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute of Sustainable Economic Development) |
| Abstract: | Developments in economic policy since the 1980s have shown a general trend towards a single type of institutional arrangement, following short-term, immediately applicable efficiency criteria. This was supported through the teaching by putting particular weight on the corresponding analytical instruments. The thesis presented here observes a systematic bias in this. It does so by evaluating institutional trends in the various sectors of the economy, and by discussing institutional arrangements of selected areas in detail. Furthermore, it reviews contributions by representatives of New Institutional Economics for a more comprehensive approach. Based on this, institutions themselves are conceptualised as public or club goods. As such they are applied to the policy areas selected. It can thereby be shown that microeconomic theory can find an appropriate place in this extended economic approach, along with concepts like common-pool resource management. In conclusion, this thesis proposes giving considerably more space to institutions in economics curricula, to their evolution and implications for economic outcomes. Particularly for economics as a minor subject, more emphasis should be placed on institutional arrangements. |
| Keywords: | New Institutional Economics, History of Economic Thought, Agricultural Economics, Teaching of Economics. |
| JEL: | B25 B20 N54 A22 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sed:wpaper:702017&r=hme |
| By: | Pietro Guarnieri |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses Searle's description of institutions in terms of deontological constitutive rules and collective recognition. It aims at integrating Searlian conception of commitment with an epistemology of rule-following capable to illustrate processes of formation of institutions. Social ontology per se cannot account for the formation of constitutive rules. Actually, it requires taking as given the object of collective recognition, i.e. the specific content of status functions. The hypothesis of interactive intentionality is introduced to account for the commitment to status functions as the result of an interactive decision-making process concerning alternative constitutive definitions. This interactive process, by acting on the normative interpretation of decision contexts, frames relevance and salience criteria and grounds the formation of institutions. Interactive intentionality hypothesis offers the opportunity to make social-ontological approach based on commitment theoretically commensurable with social-scientific approach based on equilibria and self-enforcement. |
| Keywords: | institutions, rule-following, conflict, formation |
| JEL: | B15 B31 B40 |
| Date: | 2017–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pie:dsedps:2017/227&r=hme |
| By: | Barslund, Mikkel; Di Bartolomeo, Anna; Ludolph, Lars |
| Abstract: | The integration of refugees and migrants in general into the labour market – and into society at large –stands at the forefront of current policy debate. And rightly so: better integration enriches not only the migrant, but also the host country’s population and its public finances. A number of recent noteworthy publications have therefore studied the labour market integration process and how to improve it. While the diverse background of new arrivals is often acknowledged in these studies, on-the-ground labour market integration programmes too often follow a one-size-fits-all approach. In this Policy Insights study, we argue that there is a particularly strong case for labour market integration measures specifically geared towards female migrants. The primary reason is the traditionally low female labour market participation in the majority of source countries, which translates into a large excess gender gap in labour market integration among non-EU migrants in Europe. This gap is further mirrored by other important aspects of societal integration. We argue that this lack of labour market integration inhibits wider societal integration of female migrants. Hence, integration efforts need to more explicitly take the gender dimension into account and further analyse the determinants of the gender gap in integration. A mapping of successful initiatives targeting migrant women, as has been done in recent best-practice guidelines, is therefore essential. However, these studies mainly stress that the number of targeted measures is currently insufficient. |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eps:cepswp:12262&r=hme |
| By: | Sabien Dobbelaere (VU Amsterdam; Tinbergen Institute, The Netherlands); Kozo Kiyota (Keio University; Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Japan) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the links between the internationalization mode of firms and market imperfections in product and labor markets. We develop a framework for modelling heterogeneity across firms in terms of (i) product market power (price-cost markups), (ii) labor market imperfections (workers' bargaining power during worker-firm negotiations or firm's degree of wage-setting power) and (iii) revenue productivity. We apply this framework to analyze whether the pricing behavior of firms in product and labor markets differs across firms that engage in different forms of internationalization. Engagement in international activities is found to matter for determining not only the type of imperfections in product and labor markets but also the degree of imperfections. Clear differences in behavior between firms that serve the foreign market either through exporting or through FDI are observed. Being an exporter introduces allocative inefficiencies in product as well as labor markets as we find export status to be positively correlated with both product market power (markups) and market power consolidated on the labor supply side (workers' bargaining power). But exporting firms where search frictions are inducing wages to vary with revenue are less able to exploit wage-setting power. Firms with foreign subsidiaries, on the other hand, seem to reduce price distortions in product and labor markets. In addition, we observe heterogeneous returns to being an exporter/MNE within an industry and also discern cross-industry differences. |
| Keywords: | Rent sharing; monopsony; price-cost mark-ups; productivity; exporting; multinational firms; panel data |
| JEL: | C23 D24 F14 F16 J50 L13 |
| Date: | 2017–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20170113&r=hme |
| By: | Dieter Hendricks; Adam Cobb; Richard Everett; Jonathan Downing; Stephen J. Roberts |
| Abstract: | We introduce a framework to study the effective objectives at different time scales of financial market microstructure. The financial market can be regarded as a complex adaptive system, where purposeful agents collectively and simultaneously create and perceive their environment as they interact with it. It has been suggested that multiple agent classes operate in this system, with a non-trivial hierarchy of top-down and bottom-up causation classes with different effective models governing each level. We conjecture that agent classes may in fact operate at different time scales and thus act differently in response to the same perceived market state. Given scale-specific temporal state trajectories and action sequences estimated from aggregate market behaviour, we use Inverse Reinforcement Learning to compute the effective reward function for the aggregate agent class at each scale, allowing us to assess the relative attractiveness of feature vectors across different scales. Differences in reward functions for feature vectors may indicate different objectives of market participants, which could assist in finding the scale boundary for agent classes. This has implications for learning algorithms operating in this domain. |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1712.01137&r=hme |
| By: | Dondena; CASE; IEB; PWC |
| Abstract: | This study provides a comprehensive review of the theoretical and empirical economic literature on tax and entrepreneurship, taking also into account a number of open, tax-related questions raised by the changing nature of entrepreneurship, symbolised by the growing importance of the collaborative economy |
| Keywords: | taxation, innovation, digital, entrepreneurship, collaborative economy |
| JEL: | H24 H25 L86 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tax:taxpap:0070&r=hme |
| By: | Mathieu Bunel; Yannick L'Horty; Souleymane Mbaye; Loïc du Parquet; Pascale Petit |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tep:tepprr:rr17-10&r=hme |
| By: | Oliver Lipps; Daniel Oesch |
| Abstract: | The 1990s and 2000s were a gloomy period for Germany’s working class, hit by mass unemployment, welfare retrenchment and wage stagnation. We examine whether the growing economic disparity between the top and the bottom of Germany’s class structure was accompanied by a widening class gap in life satisfaction. We analyse whether there is a social class gradient in life satisfaction and whether, over the last decades, this class gradient increased in Germany, relative to the comparison case of Switzerland. We use panel data for Germany (1984-2014) and Switzerland (2000-2015) and check the robustness of our results by replicating our analysis with the pooled German and Swiss samples of the European Social Survey (2002-2014). In both countries, respondents in higher classes report substantially higher life satisfaction than those in lower classes. The class gap is twice as large in Germany than in Switzerland. In Germany, the class gap in life satisfaction narrowed between 1984 and 1990, strongly widened between 1990 and 2005 and then decreased again after 2010. In Switzerland, the class gap did not follow a clear time trend, but remained basically constant. In Germany, differences in unemployment risks and household income account for half of the class gap and its evolution over time. |
| Keywords: | Germany, inequality, life satisfaction, social class, Switzerland, unemployment, working class |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp940&r=hme |
| By: | Yannick L'Horty; Mathieu Bunel; Souleymane Mbaye; Pascale Petit; Loïc du Parquet |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tep:tepprr:rr17-08&r=hme |
| By: | Souleymane Mbaye; Mathieu Bunel; Yannick L'Horty; Pascale Petit; Loïc du Parquet |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tep:tepprr:rr17-07&r=hme |
| By: | Loïc du Parquet; Mathieu Bunel; Yannick L'Horty; Souleymane Mbaye; Pascale Petit |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tep:tepprr:rr17-06&r=hme |
| By: | Pascal Glémain |
| Abstract: | Direct heir of the Italian Mount of piety, the “Credit Municipal” or French pawnshop model was born in Nantes in 1813, a metropole which are located in the west part of France. At this period of time, it was public organization of credit with a social mission: to help people who are in financial difficulty (excluded from access to banking currency). In 1955, the “Credit Municipal” became establishment of Public Welfare, with legal personality and financial autonomy under the governance of the City of Nantes. Credit Institution like “cooperative banks” but with a general purpose since 1984, the “Credit Municipal” is located today in the social and solidarity economy (SSE). With this research paper, we want to demonstrate the historical place of the French pawnshops in the microcredit devises landscape. Indeed, since “social banking” is not yet used as a category in official French banking system, we lack an authoritative definition because, we seem to be without social banking model through the French banking system history. But, we try to show that it’s not the case. Indeed, French pawnshops, from Middle-Age to nowadays, have always experimented “social banking devises” in order to straight against usury practices and banking exclusion. Since the beginning of the 19th Century, the pawnshops have been an important element of the French model of social microcredit both through their traditional “pawn loans” system and through their “stability loan” devise. |
| Keywords: | France; Pawnshop; social banking; social microcredit; pawn loans; stability loan devise; beneficiary; social movements; capitalism; solidarism; social enterprise; banking exclusion |
| JEL: | G21 |
| Date: | 2017–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/261717&r=hme |
| By: | Shibly Shahrier (Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology); Koji Kotani (Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology); Makoto Kakinaka (Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University) |
| Abstract: | Past literature examines determinants of charitable activities and shows that prosocial and religious people provide more contribution. However, when an individual faces opportunities of multiple donations, an interplay among them in the context of substitutability or complementarity, along with limited sources extrinsically and intrinsically, can matter on her choice. In this paper, we study this phenomenon for religious and humanitarian donations by analyzing a survey-experiment data from a developing country, Bangladesh. Our result finds that as the degree of religiosity is intensified, people tend to donate more to religious activities at the expense of humanitarian donation. We argue that such different effects of religiosity originate from limited sources for donations and the substitutability between humanitarian and religious donations. The analysis also presents that social value orientation is an important predictor for humanitarian donation, but not for religious donation, such that prosocials donate more for humanitarian activities than the proselfs. Our results conclude that to maintain humanitarian donations, religiosity may not be a panacea but prosociality is rather needed for a society. Given the argument that ongoing modernization makes people become less prosocial and thus might dissatisfy the growing needs of humanitarian activities that require prosocial behaviors, some policy device is necessary to sustain humanitarian donations in developing countries of Asia and Africa since they are becoming modernization in a faster speed. |
| Keywords: | Religious and humanitarian donations, religiosity, prosociality, substitutability of multiple donations |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kch:wpaper:sdes-2017-23&r=hme |