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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2018‒05‒28
sixteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Neuberger, Doris |
| Abstract: | Der ökonomische Mainstream steht seit Ausbruch der Finanzkrise 2007/08 vermehrt unter Kritik, hatten doch nur wenige Fachwissenschaftler die Krise vorhergesehen. In der entstandenen Debatte über Ausrichtung und Methoden in der Volkswirtschaftslehre wird auch eine Rückbesinnung auf nationalökonomische Klassiker gefordert, die der Mainstream aus den Lehrbüchern weitgehend getilgt hat. Hätte Karl Marx eine bessere Prognose zur Finanzkrise gestellt? Seine Geld- und Kredittheorie erschließt sich insbesondere aus der Lektüre des dritten Bandes des "Kapital", den Ökonomischen Manuskripten dazu (1863-1865) und den Londoner Heften (1850-1853). Der vorliegende Beitrag rekonstruiert diese aus dem Blickwinkel der herrschenden Ökonomik. In Aspekten wie Wesen und Erscheinungsformen des Geldes, Endogenität und Neutralität des Geldes, Rolle von Krediten, Zinsen und Krisen zeigt sich, dass Marx insbesondere durch seine Analysen zum Kreditgeld die Finanzkrise besser erklären kann als der ökonomische Mainstream. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Krise der Überakkumulation von Geldkapital, die weder einzigartig noch auf das Versagen einzelner Marktakteure zurückzuführen ist. Solche Krisen entstehen unweigerlich aus einem fundamentalen Widerspruch des kapitalistischen Wirtschaftssystems, wonach das endogene Kreditgeld zugleich Triebfeder der Produktion aber auch der Überproduktion und Überspekulation ist. |
| Keywords: | Finanzkrise,Geldfunktionen,Geldkapital,Kreditgeld,Verbriefung,Kapitalismus,financial crisis,money functions,money capital,credit money,securitization,capitalism |
| JEL: | B14 E1 E4 E5 G01 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:roswps:155&r=hme |
| By: | Adolfo Rodríguez-Herrera (Universidad de Costa Rica) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews one of the mechanisms with which capital weaves a new type of subjection of the human being, the production of needs. Unlike other living beings, whose needs are determined by their biology, human beings are the fruit of the social relations that they establish within their culture. Humans need objects, but their needs arise through the objects called to satisfy them, objects that in capitalist society are capital –value in process of valorisation. In this way, need is itself a product of capital, and capital thus appears as a force that imposes itself on the human being from within, not only in the labour process but in the very constitution of the human needing being. The article discusses the triple human condition that gives rise to this phenomenon –the objective being (the need for the object), the being of desire (the need beyond the object) and the object's being (the need as product of object)– and concludes that capitalist market, that civilizing force that gives rise to the modern, autonomous individual, reduces freedom to a simple means of capital valorisation. |
| Keywords: | Marx, subjection, need, fetishism, object, freedom, wealth, capitalism, capital |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fcr:wpaper:201802&r=hme |
| By: | Powell, Jeffrey |
| Abstract: | In the rapid growth of the literature on financialisation, the term risks becoming meaningless (‘take x, add finance’). This contribution first reviews this literature, highlighting characteristic empirical features at the macroeconomic level and their variegation across different institutional contexts, then turning to meso- and micro-level multidisciplinary studies of how processes of financialisation have manifest in the transformed behaviour of firms, states and households, as well as in the changing mode of provision of public services and the appropriation of the commons. Marxist attempts to theorize the essences of financialisation are examined and found wanting. Two proposals are made in the spirit of advancing this project. First, financialisation as cyclical process must be disentangled from financialised capitalism as secular stage. Second, it is argued that the emergence of financialised capitalism as a new stage within mature capitalism is linked with the central role played by finance in the internationalisation of the circuit of production. |
| Keywords: | Financialisation; Financialised capitalism; internationalisation; global production networks; Marxist theory; |
| JEL: | B51 F36 |
| Date: | 2018–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gpe:wpaper:20331&r=hme |
| By: | Hoon Hong (School of Economics, Yonsei University) |
| Abstract: | In line with Marx¡¯s Zur Kritik der Politischen Okonomie, this paper intends to work towards laying the groundwork for a critique of neoclassical economics (NC). For this goal, this paper attempts at: conceptualization of objects of analysis; revelation of assumptions; concentration on qualitative aspects; systemization; contextualization and socialization. On the basis of the view that NC is built upon two pillars: price mechanism; individuals¡¯ rational choices, this exploration offers preliminary results about NC¡¯s postulate of independence. This postulate can be specified as: (i) independence among individuals as agents; (ii) quasi-independence among goods (and resources); (iii) independence between an individual and goods or things. In refutation of NC¡¯s strong version of methodological individualism, an increasing number of studies advocate the existence of social relations and interdependent self. Moreover, complementarity or interdependence among goods is to be conceded on the basis of behavioral economics. Furthermore, the so-called socio-materiality lays stress on interdependence between an agent and things. Lastly, the significance of social norm and of qualitative aspects of price is demonstrated. |
| Keywords: | Marx, neoclassical economics, independence, interdependence, social relations, dialectics, context, behavioral economics JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yon:wpaper:2018rwp-119&r=hme |
| By: | Pereira, Luiz C. Bresser |
| Abstract: | Since the beginning of the twentieth century there are three basic social classes: the capitalist class or bourgeoisie, the working class and the professional class or technobureaucracy. In the first part of the century, the high technobureaucrats replaced the business entrepreneurs in the management of the corporations; from the 1980s, the rentier capitalist, most of them heirs, replaced the entrepreneurs in the ownership of such corporations. To manage their wealth a special class of professionals emerged, the financiers, bright people formed in the best universities, who assumed also the role of economic policymakers and of ideologues or organic intellectuals. They adopt the neoliberal ideology, and, as its justification, either the neoclassical, or the Austrian economics. |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:477&r=hme |
| By: | Tomas Balint (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Francesco Lamperti (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris 1 (UP1)); Antoine Mandel (Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics); Mauro Napoletano (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques); Andrea Roventini (Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM)); Sandro Sapio (Universita degli studi di Napoli "Parthenope" [Napoli]) |
| Abstract: | Climate change is one of the most daunting challenges human kind has ever faced. In the paper, we provide a survey of the micro and macro economics of climate change from a complexity science perspective and we discuss the challenges ahead for this line of research. We identify four areas of the literature where complex system models have already produced valuable insights: (i) coalition formation and climate negotiations, (ii) macroeconomic impacts of climate-related events, (iii) energy markets and (iv) diffusion of climatefriendly technologies. On each of these issues, accounting for heterogeneity, interactions and disequilibrium dynamics provides a complementary and novel perspective to the one of standard equilibrium models. Furthermore, it highlights the potential economic benefits of mitigation and adaptation policies and the risk of under-estimating systemic climate change-related risks. |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1nlv566svi86iqtetenms15tc4&r=hme |
| By: | Shirazi, Nasim Shah (The Islamic Research and Teaching Institute (IRTI)); Javed, Sajid Amin (Policy Solutions Lab, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, Pakistan); Ashraf, Dawood (The Islamic Research and Teaching Institute (IRTI)) |
| Abstract: | Using the data from Pakistan Panel Household Survey (2010), this paper assesses the role of financial inclusion in reducing social exclusion. The findings from regression analysis confirm a statistically significant negative impact of financial inclusion on social exclusion including deep [multidimensional] social exclusion. Deep exclusion for population having financial inclusion drops to 34.8% from 81% otherwise. Most importantly, none of the women was found having deep social exclusion if she has access to financial services. Results from logistic regression analysis confirm that having access to finacial services lowers the likelihood of facing marginal exclusion by 0.54 times and deep exclusion by 0.28 times compared to those having no access. Further, results from sum score method corroborate that Pakistan has higher prevalence of minor and marginal exclusion as compared to deep [multidimensional] social exclusion. The evidence further suggests that rather than income and consumption, old age, low education and gender contribute to multidimensional social exclusion mainly. The ratio of population within age groups 35-44 and 45-54 facing the multidimensional exclusion is 53.1% and 70.8% while the number rises to 85.5% and 80.5% for age groups 55-64 and 65 and above. Similarly, percentage of population with only primary education facing multidimensional social exclusion is 36% as compared to 4.7% for population having a degree. Finally, 23.3% of women face multidimensional exclusion as compared to 14.1% of men. We conclude that government needs to rethink the social design as well as to ensure improved access to financial services. |
| Keywords: | Social Exclusion; Financial Inclusion; Pakistan |
| Date: | 2018–01–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:irtipp:2018_001&r=hme |
| By: | Olivier Galland (Groupe d'Etude des Méthodes de l'Analyse Sociologique de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Les jeunes ressentent plus que les adultes les injustices et les discriminations vécues personnellement. En revanche ils sont moins sensibles à l’injustice sociale dans l'ensemble de la société. Cet article explore quelques explications possibles de ce paradoxe : particularités des injustices ressenties et probablement subies par les jeunes, effets de composition sociale du groupe des jeunes par rapport aux adultes contribuant à atténuer la sensibilité à l’injustice sociale, nature des liens, chez les jeunes, entre le positionnement politique et la perception de l’injustice dans la société. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination; Injustice; Inégalites; Jeunes |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/59flrlh5il8vo9k71pe3gjo9qn&r=hme |
| By: | Marion Fourcade (University of California [Berkeley]); Rakesh Khurana (Harvard Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,” what others have called the “shareholder value” view of the American firm. Jensen's work was embraced by a generation of corporate raiders aggressively advancing new financial practices and discourses. His contribution, commonly understood as “agency theory,” was intertwined with the transformations in corporate management and governance of the last decades of the twentieth century—from the junk bond market in the 1980s to the exponential growth of CEO pay in the 1990s to the shareholder value management strategies of the 2000s. While debates about the spread of neoliberal ideas and governance tools have largely centered on the transformations of the state and international institutions or the role of actively organized intellectual networks, this essay emphasizes the importance of identifying specific carriers of particular transformations within the space of American “business discourse.” |
| Keywords: | Agency theory; Corporate governance; Executive pay; The firm; Michael Jensen; Neoliberalism; Shareholder value |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3526bm80ns8g5bq8u475u4cbpd&r=hme |
| By: | Steinhauer, Andreas |
| Abstract: | In this paper I provide empirical evidence that the strength of beliefs regarding the harm children suffer when their mothers work plays an important role in explaining gender gaps in labor market outcomes and fertility trends. I exploit a unique setting in Switzerland and compare outcomes of one cohort of Swiss women born in the 1950s either into the French or German ethno-linguistic group. This allows me to compare outcomes of women exposed to different norms regarding working mothers while holding constant typical confounding factors such as composition, labor market opportunities, and work-family policies. Consistent with the strong belief that children suffer with working mothers in the German region, I find that German-born women are 15-25% less likely to work as mothers and 20-20% more likely to remain childless compared to their French-born peers. Only the extensive margins show marked differences and especially among the highly educated. I argue that an identity framework along the lines of Akerlof and Kranton (2000) can rationalize these patterns in a tractable way. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 Z10 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12929&r=hme |
| By: | Bain, George Sayers |
| Abstract: | Inequality of wealth and income is currently a hotly debated subject not only in the academy but also in society more generally. The protagonists disagree about how inequality should be meeasured. But however they measure it - whether by Gini coefficients, the share of the total distribution earned by a particular group (e.g., the top one per cent), or other ways - they generally agree that inequality has greatly increased in a wode range of countries since the mid-1970s. Agreement does not exist, however, about what causes inequality, what problems result from it, and what might be done to solve them. This paper attempts to answer these questions by reviewing and assessing a diverse literature drawn from economic theory, political science, sociology,philosophy, and economic and financial history. |
| Keywords: | inequality; equality; economic and social instability; rent-seeking; capitalism; fairness; social mobility; |
| JEL: | P10 |
| Date: | 2018–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86709&r=hme |
| By: | Carolina V. Zuccotti |
| Abstract: | Gender role views have long been a matter of great interest to researchers. In part, this is connected to the negative part that traditional gender role views can play in the social and economic integration of women. In Western Europe, this topic has gained additional attention with the arrival of migrants from countries where gender inequality is greater and where individuals hold more traditional views on the social roles of men and women. Research shows that, though gender role views become less traditional over time and through the generations, differences with respect to the majoritarian white population remain. This study explores one of the possible mechanisms behind the persistence of traditional gender role views among migrants and their children in the UK (i.e. ethnic minority groups): neighbourhood ethnic concentration. Neighbourhoods are spaces of interaction, as well as of transmission of beliefs and ways of doing, and this can affect individuals more or less coercively. This study employs data from Wave 2 of Understanding Society, in combination with aggregated Census data. Using this data I explore the extent to which ethnic minority groups residing in areas with a higher concentration of members of the same group have a higher probability of holding more traditional gender role views. The article finds some evidence of this for Indians and Bangladeshis, but not for Pakistanis. Problems of self-selection and endogeneity are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Ethnicity, England and Wales, Gender role views, Neighbourhood effects, Neighbourhood ethnic concentration |
| Date: | 2018–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2018/11&r=hme |
| By: | Valentina Barca (IPC-IG) |
| Abstract: | "En qui consiste la prise en considération des crises ? La protection sociale a par nature vocation à être « réactive aux crises », dans la mesure où elle est tenue d'apporter un soutien aux victimes de crises ou d'atténuer leur vulnérabilité en la matière. Nous considérons que le concept de « système de protection sociale réactive aux crises » fait implicitement référence à des chocs covariables, qui affectent simultanément de nombreuses personnes et/ou communautés, plutôt qu'à des chocs idiosyncrasiques, comme le décès d'un soutien de famille, susceptible d'affecter des ménages ou leurs membres de façon individuelle". (...) |
| Keywords: | Définir, concept, protection sociale, réactive, crises |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opfran:344&r=hme |
| By: | Charlotte Bilo (IPC-IG); Raquel Tebaldi (IPC-IG); Maja Gavrilovic (IPC-IG) |
| Abstract: | "El sexto y último webinar sobre las series de protección social sobre cuestiones de género profundizó sobre los diferentes factores que deben ser considerados a la hora de designar e implementar programas de protección social sobre cuestiones de género. La presentación llevada a cabo por Maxine Molyneux se centró básicamente en experiencias sobre América latina, teniendo en cuenta tanto su peculiar situación política como normativa. Maja Gavrilovic presentó una nueva herramienta desarrollada por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) para guiar a los responsables políticos en cuanto a cómo integrar el enfoque de género en las transferencias monetarias y programas de trabajo públicos. A su vez, Pamela Pozarny presentó algunas de las lecciones aprendidas a través de las investigaciones detalladas y minuciosas dirigidas por la FAO sobre los impactos productivos de las transferencias sociales en metálico en el área de África subsahariana". |
| Keywords: | compromisos, políticos, implementación, efectiva, programas, protección social, cuestiones, género |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opespa:355&r=hme |
| By: | Sergey A. Rashkovskiy |
| Abstract: | We analyze social and economic systems with a hierarchical structure and show that for such systems, it is possible to construct thermostatistics, based on the intermediate Gentile statistics. We show that in social and economic hierarchical systems there are elements that obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics and can be called fermions, as well as elements that are approximately subject to Bose-Einstein statistics and can be called bosons. We derive the first and second laws of thermodynamics for the considered economic system and show that such concepts as temperature, pressure and financial potential (which is an analogue of the chemical potential in thermodynamics) that characterize the state of the economic system as a whole, can be introduced for economic systems. |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1805.05327&r=hme |
| By: | Zhi-Qiang Jiang (ECUST); Wen-Jie Xie (ECUST); Wei-Xing Zhou (ECUST); Didier Sornette (ETH Zurich) |
| Abstract: | Multifractality is ubiquitously observed in complex natural and socioeconomic systems. Multifractal analysis provides powerful tools to understand the complex nonlinear nature of time series in diverse fields. Inspired by its striking analogy with hydrodynamic turbulence, from which the idea of multifractality originated, multifractal analysis of financial markets has bloomed, forming one of the main directions of econophysics. We review the multifractal analysis methods and multifractal models adopted in or invented for financial time series and their subtle properties, which are applicable to time series in other disciplines. We survey the cumulating evidence for the presence of multifractality in financial time series in different markets and at different time periods and discuss the sources of multifractality. The usefulness of multifractal analysis in quantifying market inefficiency, in supporting risk management and in developing other applications is presented. We finally discuss open problems and further directions of multifractal analysis. |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1805.04750&r=hme |