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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2018‒04‒09
twenty-two papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Deepankar Basu (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts - Amherst) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a unified analytical treatment of Marx’s theory of ground-rent, building on the analysis that is available in Volume Three of Capital. Since ground-rent is a transformation of surplus profit generated in agriculture, the main argument is developed in two steps. In the first step, I derive results on the existence of surplus profit in capitalist agriculture in the absence of landed property. In the second step, I used these results on surplus profit to arrive at the total ground-rent that is appropriated by the owners of land, and also decompose it into the three components that Marx highlighted: absolute rent, differential rent I, and differential rent II. I argue that the power of Marx’s analysis lies in the fact that it can be generalised far beyond the domain of agriculture, which he had analysed, and can illuminate the emergence of rent in any system of capitalist commodity production that uses privately owned non-produced resources that is limited in quantity. Hence, Marx’s analysis of ground-rent can be used to investigate many interesting issues in contemporary capitalism. |
| Keywords: | ground-rent, surplus value, Marx |
| JEL: | B51 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2018-04&r=hme |
| By: | Bartels, Charlotte (DIW Berlin); Shupe, Cortnie (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We compute participation tax rates across the EU and find that work disincentives inherent in tax-benefit systems largely depend on household composition and the individual's earner role within the household. We then estimate participation elasticities using an IV Group estimator that enables us to investigate the responsiveness of individuals to work incentives. We contribute to the literature on heterogeneous elasticities by providing estimates for different socioeconomic groups by country, gender and earner role within the household. Our results show an average elasticity of 0.08 for men and of 0.14 for women as well as a high degree of heterogeneity across countries. The commonly cited difference in elasticities between men and women stems predominantly from the earner role of the individual within the household and nearly disappears once we control for this factor. |
| Keywords: | participation elasticities, labor supply, taxation, cross-country comparisons |
| JEL: | H24 H31 J22 J65 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11359&r=hme |
| By: | Florent Bédécarrats (autre - AUTRES); Isabelle Guérin (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)); François Roubaud (LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris-Dauphine) |
| Abstract: | This last decade has seen the emergence of a new field of research in development economics: randomised control trials. This paper explores the contrast between the (many) limitations and (very narrow) real scope of these methods and their success in sheer number and media coverage. Our analysis suggests that the paradox is due to a particular economic and political mix driven by the innovative strategies used by this new school’s researchers and by specific interests and preferences in the academic world and the donor community. |
| Abstract: | La dernière décennie a vu l'émergence d'un nouveau champ de recherche en économie du développement : les méthodes expérimentales d'évaluation d'impacts par assignation aléatoire. Cet article explore le contraste entre d’une part les limites (nombreuses) et la circonscription (très étroite) du champ réel d'application de ces méthodes et d’autre part leur succès, attesté à la fois par leur nombre et leur forte médiatisation. L’analyse suggère que ce contraste est le fruit d’une conjonction économique et politique particulière, émanant de stratégies novatrices de la part des chercheurs de cette nouvelle école, et d’intérêts et de préférences spécifiques provenant à la fois du monde académique et de la communauté des donateurs. |
| Keywords: | Evaluation d'impact,méthode expérimentale,Essai randomisé,Méthodologie,Economie politique,Développement,Impact evaluation,Randomized control trial,Experimental method,Methodology,Political economy,Development |
| Date: | 2018–01–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01686672&r=hme |
| By: | Pilon, André Francisco |
| Abstract: | An analytical, ecosystemic, epistemological and methodological framework, encompassing the combination and co-design of four dimensions of being in the world (intimate, interactive, social and biophysical), is posited to identify and deal with the problems of difficult settlement or solution in the world, reconceptualising roles and drives, in view of a transformative change of the current paradigms of development, growth, power, wealth, work and freedom embedded at institutional, cultural, economic and political level. |
| Keywords: | Public Policies, Ecosystems, Education, Ethics, Economics |
| JEL: | I0 I2 I25 I28 I3 O21 Q5 Q56 Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2018–01–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85308&r=hme |
| By: | Roveretti, Daniela Natalia |
| Abstract: | En Argentina la crisis económica, política y social desatada en el 2001, entre cuyas causas se encuentran las políticas neoliberales implementadas en la década anterior, derivó en el cierre de fábricas y despidos masivos de trabajadores. En este contexto se desarrolló el fenómeno de "empresas recuperadas" que, a pesar de sus diferencias, se hallaron unidas bajo el lema “Ocupar, Resistir y Producir" considerado el eje conductor en la conservación de las fuentes de trabajo e ingreso. Éstas se organizaron en una gestión colectiva y democrática, bajo la forma jurídica de cooperativas. En este marco esta investigación se propone realizar un estudio de caso de la "Cooperativa de Trabajo Nuevo Amanecer" cuyas plantas se encuentran en Mar del Plata y Tandil, para ello se describen y analizan el proceso de recuperación y las estrategias empresariales que implementó desde sus orígenes. Se realizaron entrevistas a trabajadores de la empresa y agentes del Estado cuya información fue contrastada con el análisis de los Balances Generales y el Estado de Situación Patrimonial. Como resultado se obtuvo que, a través de diversas prácticas cooperativistas y empresariales y con la participación de las instituciones del Estado, los trabajadores lograron adaptarse a la nueva forma de organización autogestionada y expandirse en el mercado, siendo una empresa referente a nivel local y un símbolo de lucha, trabajo y crecimiento. |
| Keywords: | Empresas Recuperadas; Cooperativas; Estrategia Empresarial; Expropiación; |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:2843&r=hme |
| By: | Stjepan Begu\v{s}i\'c; Zvonko Kostanj\v{c}ar; H. Eugene Stanley; Boris Podobnik |
| Abstract: | Detection of power-law behavior and studies of scaling exponents uncover the characteristics of complexity in many real world phenomena. The complexity of financial markets has always presented challenging issues and provided interesting findings, such as the inverse cubic law in the tails of stock price fluctuation distributions. Motivated by the rise of novel digital assets based on blockchain technology, we study the distributions of cryptocurrency price fluctuations. We consider Bitcoin returns over various time intervals and from multiple digital exchanges, in order to investigate the existence of universal scaling behavior in the tails, and ascertain whether the scaling exponent supports the presence of a finite second moment. We provide empirical evidence on slowly decaying tails in the distributions of returns over multiple time intervals and different exchanges, corresponding to a power-law. We estimate the scaling exponent and find an asymptotic power-law behavior with 2 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1803.08405&r=hme |
| By: | Egbert, Henrik |
| Abstract: | This paper puts Marcel Mauss’s concept on money in the context of economic theories. Mauss articulated his thoughts on money in the first decades of the 20th century. They are considerably less known and discussed than his famous essay on ‘the gift’. Nevertheless, his contributions on the origin and function of money are worth being examined in economics as well as in economic-anthropological discourse. This essay relates Mauss’s ideas to microeconomic theories. The argument pursued is that his concepts on money are both compatible with neoclassical, and with New Institutional Economic theories. For this purpose, the text addresses three parallels. |
| Keywords: | Marcel Mauss; money; the gift; history of economic thought |
| JEL: | B15 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85522&r=hme |
| By: | Henrik Egbert (Anhalt University of Applied Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This short note illustrates how social structures and behavior of scientists in the societal sub-system of open science resemble patterns analyzed in the Gift, an essay written by Marcel Mauss nearly 100 years ago. The presented analysis goes beyond existing interpretations of gift giving in science. The latter has mainly focused on the exchange of knowledge and citations. I argue that the Gift explains also identity, competition, co-opetition, rituals, and punishment. Mauss’s Gift is seen as a complementary model to existing economic and sociological approaches regularly used to analyze structures and behavior in open science. By accentuating such an anthropological approach, I conclude that the Gift provides explanations of the stability and the expansion of the open science community. |
| Keywords: | open science; scientific competition; gift; Marcel Mauss; reciprocity; anthropology of open science |
| JEL: | A12 A14 Z11 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sko:wpaper:bep-2018-04&r=hme |
| By: | David Manheim; Scott Garrabrant |
| Abstract: | There are several distinct failure modes for overoptimization of systems on the basis of metrics. This occurs when a metric which can be used to improve a system is used to an extent that further optimization is ineffective or harmful, and is sometimes termed Goodhart's Law. This class of failure is often poorly understood, partly because terminology for discussing them is ambiguous, and partly because discussion using this ambiguous terminology ignores distinctions between different failure modes of this general type. This paper expands on an earlier discussion by Garrabrant, which notes there are "(at least) four different mechanisms" that relate to Goodhart's Law. This paper is intended to explore these mechanisms further, and specify more clearly how they occur. This discussion should be helpful in better understanding these types of failures in economic regulation, in public policy, in machine learning, and in Artificial Intelligence alignment. The importance of Goodhart effects depends on the amount of power directed towards optimizing the proxy, and so the increased optimization power offered by artificial intelligence makes it especially critical for that field. |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1803.04585&r=hme |
| By: | Hameed, Abdul; Padda, Ihtsham ul Haq; Karim, Shahid |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates and maps the multidimensional poverty for rural Pakistan. It uses micro data from household surveys to construct the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) with human development indicators like education, health, standard of living and wealth. Furthermore, it identifies multiple deprivations at individual level contributions in education, health, standard of living and wealth in the rural multidimensional poverty as overall and district levels. The results show that the 59 percent rural population of Pakistan is poor. The district Thatta, in Sindh, district Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab and the district Nowshera in the KPK record highest multidimensional poverty index. No district is included from Baluchistan due to unavailability of data. It is expounded that the policy makers can develop the strategies to reduce the rural poverty by enhancing rural education, improving living standards and creating opportunities for income. |
| Keywords: | Multidimensional poverty, Education, Living standard, Wealth, Rural Pakistan |
| JEL: | D10 I10 I20 I32 R20 |
| Date: | 2016–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85022&r=hme |
| By: | Ingrid Palmary; Thea De Gruchy; Ali Ashraf; Koh Chiu Yee; Kellynn Wee; Charmian Goh; Brenda S.A. Yeoh |
| Abstract: | In this paper we consider four factors that shaped the development of migration policy intended to protect the rights of vulnerable migrant women. They are: the role players in the policy change process, the debates that shaped the policy change, the role that research played and the political context in which the policy change took place. Based on case studies from Bangladesh, South Africa, and Singapore, we trace the drivers of policy change in these contexts and how the gendered vulnerability of the intended beneficiaries impacted the policy process. Our research showed that policy development is shaped by complex socio-political conditions. Understanding these conditions can help to make policy change advocacy more effective and contextually relevant. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-38&r=hme |
| By: | Ramos-Toro, Diego |
| Abstract: | This paper establishes the detrimental effect of historical conflict on contemporary gender disparities. Such effects appear to be absent when focusing on female labor participation, revealing that long-run determinants of women’s positioning do not opperate solely through labor outcomes. Further, a historical compilation of Mexican conflicts was digitized and geo-referenced to establish the persistence of such results at a subnational level. Causal estimates are achieved at this level by exploiting exogenous changes introduced by the Columbian exchange and by long-run reductions in precipitation. Finally, the document examines gender views of US respondents and of second-generation migrants in Europe to show that culture constiutes a mechanism through which gender biases emerge and consolidate. |
| Keywords: | Historical conflict, Gender Disparities, Female Labor Force Participation |
| JEL: | J16 N30 Z10 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85045&r=hme |
| By: | Mario Coccia |
| Abstract: | A fundamental problem in technological studies is how to measure the evolution of technology. The literature has suggested several approaches to measuring the level of technology (or state-of-the-art) and changes in technology. However, the measurement of technological advances and technological evolution is often a complex and elusive topic in science. The study here starts by establishing a conceptual framework of technological evolution based on the theory of technological parasitism, in broad analogy with biology. Then, the measurement of the evolution of technology is modelled in terms of morphological changes within complex systems considering the interaction between a host technology and its subsystems of technology. The coefficient of evolutionary growth of the model here indicates the grade and type of the evolutionary route of a technology. This coefficient is quantified in real instances using historical data of farm tractor, freight locomotive and electricity generation technology in steam-powered plants and internal-combustion plants. Overall, then, it seems that the approach here is appropriate in grasping the typology of evolution of complex systems of technology and in predicting which technologies are likeliest to evolve rapidly. |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1803.08698&r=hme |
| By: | Manfredi, Marisol |
| Abstract: | En el presente trabajo se elabora un índice sintético integral de bienestar que involucra los componentes salud, educación e ingresos en sus dos dimensiones, objetiva y subjetiva. La base conceptual es el paradigma de Desarrollo Humano que se deriva del enfoque de las capacidades de Sen. A partir del matching de las bases de datos del Public Data Explorer del PNUD y de la World Values Survey se realizaron dos tipos de análisis para un total de 58 países. Por un lado, se testea el grado de asociación entre cada uno de los indicadores objetivos y subjetivos a nivel agregado, así como también con la felicidad promedio y la satisfacción con la vida promedio. Este análisis dio cuenta de la no intercambiabilidad entre indicadores de un mismo componente que pertenecen a distinta dimensión y del bajo o no significativo nivel de correlación entre la satisfacción en un ámbito y la satisfacción vital. Por otro lado, considerando parte de la metodología de Seth, se elaboraron dos índices sintéticos de bienestar a través de los siguientes procedimientos bietápicos de agregación: 1) promediando los tres componentes en cada dimensión y luego las dos dimensiones y, 2) agregando las dos dimensiones en cada uno de los componentes y luego los tres componentes. Dado que las diferencias entre rankings fueron significativas, se conjugaron ambos índices considerando el cálculo propuesto por Bouchet et al, y así se obtuvo una medida final a la que denominamos Índice de Desarrollo Humano integral. Los resultados obtenidos dan cuenta de la importancia de incluir las percepciones de los individuos en cada uno de los componentes del bienestar. |
| Keywords: | Bienestar Social; Desarrollo Humano; Indicadores; Medición; |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:2847&r=hme |
| By: | Pavlina R. Tcherneva |
| Abstract: | The job guarantee (JG) is a public option for jobs. It is a permanent, federally funded, and locally administered program that supplies voluntary employment opportunities on demand for all who are ready and willing to work at a living wage. While it is first and foremost a jobs program, it has the potential to be transformative by advancing the public purpose and improving working conditions, people’s everyday lives, and the economy as a whole. This working paper provides a blueprint for operationalizing the proposal. It addresses frequently asked questions and common concerns. It begins by outlining some of the core propositions in the existing literature that have motivated the JG proposal. These propositions suggest specific design and implementation features. (Some questions are answered in greater detail in appendix III). The paper presents the core objectives and expected benefits of the program, and suggests an institutional structure, funding mechanism, and project design and administration. |
| Keywords: | Job Guarantee; Unemployment; Full Employment; Living Wage; Policy Design |
| JEL: | D6 E2 E6 H1 H3 H4 H5 J2 J3 J4 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_902&r=hme |
| By: | Bedi, Arjun S. (ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam); Majilla, Tanmoy (ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam); Rieger, Matthias (ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a field experiment to study the effect of perceived gender norms on the motherhood penalty in the Indian labor market. We randomly reported motherhood on fictitious CVs sent to service sector job openings. We generated exogenous variation in gender norms by prominently signaling patrilineal or matrilineal community origins of applicants. Employers are less likely to callback mothers relative to women or men without children, but only if they are of patrilineal origin. Mothers of matrilineal origin face no such penalty. We discuss the results in relation to the competing influence of ethnicity, the Indian context and theories of discrimination. |
| Keywords: | gender, culture, motherhood penalty, ethnic discrimination, field experiment, India |
| JEL: | J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11360&r=hme |
| By: | Philipp Herkenhoff; Sebastian Krautheim |
| Abstract: | Over the last decades, the internationalization of the value chain has allowed firms to exploit cross-country differences in environmental and labor regulation (and enforcement) in ways that have led to a large number of NGO campaigns and consumer boycotts criticizing ‘unethical’ practices. How do potential ‘unethical’ cost savings on the one hand and the threat to reputation and sales on the other interact with the international organization of production? In this paper we introduce North-South differences in regulation, a cost-saving ‘unethical’ technology and consumer boycotts into a standard property rights model of international production. Contracts are incomplete, so that a firm has limited control over both investments and (un)ethical technology choices of both foreign affiliates and suppliers along the value chain. We show that international outsourcing and ‘unethical’ production are linked through a novel unethical outsourcing incentive, for which we also provide empirical support: a high cost advantage of ‘unethical’ production in an industry and a low regulatory stringency in the supplier's country favor international outsourcing (as opposed to vertical FDI). We also provide a microfounded model of investment and pricing under incomplete contracts when the production technology is a credence characteristic of the final good and an NGO investigates firms and may initiate a consumer boycott. |
| Keywords: | multinational firms, international outsourcing, property rights theory of the firm, ethical production, labor standards, pollution, consumer boycotts, credence goods, NGOs |
| JEL: | D21 D23 F12 F23 J81 L22 L23 L31 L50 Q53 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6922&r=hme |
| By: | Rachel M. Gisselquist |
| Abstract: | Legal empowerment has become widely accepted in development policy circles as an approach to addressing poverty and exclusion. At the same time, it has received relatively little attention from political scientists and sociologists working on overlapping and closely related topics. Research on legal empowerment has been largely applied, with its clearest grounding in the fields of law and economics. This is an introductory/framing paper for a collection of studies on legal empowerment and group-based inequality to be published in a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies. It provides a brief introduction to legal empowerment and advances two broad arguments. First, that an ethnic group-focused approach is a useful starting point in considering the impact of legal empowerment and other development interventions. Second, that the state, via the law, contributes to ethnic inequalities in four broad ways—via its written laws, via their implementation and actual practice, through historical legacies of law and practice, and through the ethnic hegemony embedded in the system. Thinking about legal empowerment initiatives within this framework provides understanding of both their potential and their limitations. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-39&r=hme |
| By: | Torfs, Wouter; Lupoli, Mario |
| Abstract: | This report summarises the current state of the external financing markets of the Social Enterprises targeted by the Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) guarantee program managed by the European Investment Fund (EIF) and funded by the European Commission. The report starts by elaborating on the interpretation of what constitutes a Social Enterprise under the EaSI program. It goes on to provide an overview of the EaSI Social Enterprise sector in Europe and a discussion of its external financing market challenges. It furthermore discusses the initiatives undertaken by the EIF to address the challenges Social Enterprises face on the debt market. While the EIF has booked significant progress towards improving access to finance of Social Enterprises', a rough approximation of the unmet external financing demand on the market reveals that additional efforts are required to further close the social funding gap. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eifwps:201739&r=hme |
| By: | Roger E A Farmer |
| Abstract: | I review the contribution and influence of Milton Friedman’s 1968 presidential address to the American Economic Association. I argue that Friedman’s influence on the practice of central banking was profound and that his argument in favour of monetary rules was responsible for thirty years of low and stable inflation in the period from 1979 through 2009. I present a critique of Friedman’s position that market-economies are self-stabilizing and I describe an alternative reconciliation of Keynesian economics with Walrasian general equilibrium theory from that which is widely accepted today by most neo-classical economists. My interpretation implies that government should intervene actively in financial markets to stabilize economic activity. |
| Keywords: | Keynesian economics, monetarism, natural rate of unemployment |
| JEL: | E3 E4 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsr:niesrd:491&r=hme |
| By: | Velde, Francois R. (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | I examine the Neapolitan public banks, a group of non-profit institutions that emerged in the late sixteenth century, in the context of the early public banks that existed elsewhere in early modern Europe. In terms of size and stability they compare well with their peers, in spite of a difficult political and economic environment. They were also remarkably financially advanced for their time. Their success is likely due to their ownership structure, governance, and well managed relationship with the monarchical authorities. |
| Keywords: | Central bank; public banks; Naples (Italy) |
| JEL: | E58 N13 |
| Date: | 2018–03–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2018-05&r=hme |
| By: | John E. Roemer (Dept. of Political Science & Cowles Foundation, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Economic theory has focused almost exclusively on how humans compete with each other in their economic activity, culminating in general equilibrium (Walras) and game theory (Nash). Cooperation in economic activity is, however, important, and is virtually ignored. Because our models influence our view of the world, this theoretical lacuna biases economists’ interpretation of economic behavior. Here, I propose models that provide micro-foundations for how cooperation is decentralized by economic agents. It is wrong, in particular, to view competition as decentralized and cooperation as organized only by central diktat. My approach is not to alter preferences, which is the strategy behavioral economists have adopted to produce cooperation, but rather to alter the way that agents optimize. Whereas Nash optimizers view other players in the game as part of the environment (parameters), Kantian optimizers view them as part of action. When formalized, this approach resolves the two major failures of Nash optimization from a welfare viewpoint -- the Pareto inefficiency of equilibria in common-pool resource problems (the tragedy of the commons) and the inefficiency of equilibria in public-good games (the free rider problem). An application to market socialism shows that the problems of efficiency and distribution can be completely separated: the dead-weight loss of taxation disappears. |
| Keywords: | Kantian equilibrium, cooperation, tragedy of the commons, free rider problem, market socialism |
| JEL: | D50 D60 D70 |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2125&r=hme |