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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2018‒11‒05
sixteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Lambert, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This research note performs some limited empirical assessments of the Baran and Sweezy (1966) contention that most research and development (R&D) efforts in the US are “wasted” at the macroeconomic level in that as R&D succeeds by absorbing a little of the excess economic surplus generated by a capitalist system, it still fails to generate a lot of innovation of a transformative nature. At an aggregate level, greater R&D efforts are correlated with higher worker productivity and standards of living, which is to be expected according to mainstream economic theory and literature. Yet, R&D efforts regarding job creation, new firm creation, and net business investment show either mixed results or even negative connections. There is some preliminary empirical support in this paper for many aspects of the Baran and Sweezy point of view on R&D, and these findings also hint that R&D is used in a monopoly capital system to further monopolization. The findings of this note also may help to explain how productivity gains and innovation over the last few decades may not be benefitting the typical worker or the creation of small businesses as well. |
| Keywords: | big business, corporations, entrepreneurship, innovation, monopoly capital, research and development |
| JEL: | B51 B52 B53 L22 L26 O40 |
| Date: | 2018–10–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:89503&r=hme |
| By: | G.J.A. Hummels |
| Abstract: | This discussion paper aims to better understand what social entrepreneurship means and how it contributes to overcoming some of the greatest social and environmental challenges of our times. Based on the work of Sen and Nussbaum, the idea basic human needs – and more in particular, the idea of increasing capabilities to fulfil these needs – creates a reference point to determine the meaning of ‘social’. Apart from reinforcing these capabilities, an important dimension of ‘socialness’ is the extent to which the beneficiaries confirm that they are in a better position to fulfil these basic needs. The 18th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) deals with the improved set of capabilities. In order to contribute to the grand challenges of our times – as expressed in the 17 existing SDGs – certain conditions in terms of innovation, scalability, and (financial) sustainability have to be met. It will require that corporations, cooperatives, large business networks and institutional investors step in and promote socially entrepreneurial initiatives to contribute to the radical change needed to fulfil the basic needs of individuals and communities. Only then will human development and a life with human dignity be able to materialize. |
| Keywords: | Local labour markets, Urban wage premium, Employment, Commuting, Regional aggregation |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:use:tkiwps:1801&r=hme |
| By: | Agnès Festré (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we argue that Hayek's approach to expectations can be better understood if one takes into account the interplay between two related complex evolving systems: the cognitive system and the system of behavioural rules of action. The interplay between these two systems involves both positive and negative feedback mechanisms so that an individual system of rules can produce higher order regularities that preserve their existence over time. Our contribution complements existing work on Hayek's cognitive theory by providing insights on how Hayek's approach to expectations can inform modern behavioural economics. |
| Keywords: | Hayek, emergence, knowledge, expectations |
| JEL: | B25 B4 B53 D84 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2018-28&r=hme |
| By: | Quentin Couix (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Despite his early contribution to the rise of mathematics in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's later methodological criticism of models has received little attention from historians and philosophers of economics. This paper attempts to fill this gap following two lines. First, I examine his explicitly methodological claims and connect them with related topics in economic methodology. Building on the distinction between dialectical and arithmomorphic concepts, I characterise his approach to theory-making as a three steps process of idealisation, isolation and arithmetisation. In this framework, models perform two functions, checking for logical consistency and facilitating understanding, which can be related to the idea of modelling as theorising. I then confront these general principles with Georgescu-Roegen's flow-fund model of production. I use the methodology as a reading grid of this theory, while examining its limits and complementary principles in practice. This shows a great deal of consistency, where idealisation provides conceptual foundations, isolation determines the relevant problems, and models are built according to structural consistency. The two functions of models are then illustrated by the logical derivation of older principles formulated by Babbage and Smith, and the understanding of the different organisational patterns of production. But some slightly different functions also appear when specific configurations of the model enable to check the conceptual consistency of other theories, or the understanding provided by the model contributes to the formation of new concepts. Hence, the consistency and the complementarity between Georgescu-Roegen's methodology and practice of theory-making provide interesting insights and a useful background for further investigations |
| Keywords: | Georgescu-Roegen; methodology; philosophy; models; flow-fund; production function; input-output; substitution |
| JEL: | B16 B31 B41 C02 C65 D24 E23 O10 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:18021&r=hme |
| By: | Fahd Boundi Chraki |
| Keywords: | Valor; precios de producción; transformación; invariante; iteración. Value; prices of production; transformation; invariant; iterative method |
| JEL: | B14 B24 B51 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:016779&r=hme |
| By: | Gosselin, Pierre; Lotz, Aïleen; Wambst, Marc |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an analytical treatment of economic systems with an arbitrary number of agents that keeps track of the systems' interactions and agents' complexity. This formalism does not seek to aggregate agents. It rather replaces the standard optimization approach by a probabilistic description of both the entire system and agents' behaviors. This is done in two distinct steps. A first step considers an interacting system involving an arbitrary number of agents, where each agent's utility function is subject to unpredictable shocks. In such a setting, individual optimization problems need not be resolved. Each agent is described by a time-dependent probability distribution centered around his utility optimum. The entire system of agents is thus defined by a composite probability depending on time, agents' interactions and forward-looking behaviors. This dynamic system is described by a path integral formalism in an abstract space - the space of the agents' actions - and is very similar to a statistical physics or quantum mechanics system. We show that this description, applied to the space of agents' actions, reduces to the usual optimization results in simple cases. Compared to a standard optimization, such a description markedly eases the treatment of systems with small number of agents. It becomes however useless for a large number of agents. In a second step therefore, we show that for a large number of agents, the previous description is equivalent to a more compact description in terms of field theory. This yields an analytical though approximate treatment of the system. This field theory does not model the aggregation of a microeconomic system in the usual sense. It rather describes an environment of a large number of interacting agents. From this description, various phases or equilibria may be retrieved, along with individual agents' behaviors and their interactions with the environment. For illustrative purposes, this paper studies a Business Cycle model with a large number of agents. |
| Keywords: | path integrals, statistical field theory, business cycle, budget constraint, multi-agent model, interacting agents. |
| JEL: | C02 C60 E00 E1 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:89488&r=hme |
| By: | Jael, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the debate held in the twenties and thirties of the last century between libertarian economists and socialist economists, following the denial by the first ones of the feasibility of a socialist economy. This controversy is well known to specialists and has been widely commented. It seemed to me useful to initiate non-specialists in an original way: by having the controversy speaking by itself. We review the main contributions and summarise their arguments with, initially, the bare minimum of personal comments. Walrasian general equilibrium serves as a reference for the defenders of market socialism in the controversy. But the concept of competition behind this theory is very incomplete; it is purely passive. It follows that the market socialism which emanates from it is not really a MARKET socialism. It is lacking the competition which innovates. Markets for capital goods are also lacking in theses models. Our paper then turns to a new generation of socialist models involving this real competition. We review two models proposed by Bardhan and Roemer and then exhibit a personal model. This type of model is facing a modern criticism whose central concept is the "soft budget constraint". |
| Keywords: | planification, socialisme de marché, calcul socialiste, Barone, von Mises, Hayek, Lange, Roemer |
| JEL: | P20 P21 P27 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:89521&r=hme |
| By: | Alexandre Mendes Cunha (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | Although seldom remembered in this respect, François Perroux exerted direct and indirect influence on the debate on European integration in the immediate post-war period in France. The theme of European integration serves in Perroux’s work as a concrete case study on which a series of his recurrent themes could be explored, such as his theory of domination, his reflection on economic spaces, development and the costs of man ("coûts de l’homme"), or even as an extension of topics from his work in the 1930s related to corporatism and communitarianism. Perroux deals with the theme of European integration fundamentally in an extensive book from 1954, L’Europe sans rivages, but also in several others of his books and articles from the period, forming a complex and multifaceted analysis of the problematic that, nevertheless, insists in a central message: the importance of the global aspect of the European integration, thinking in a Europe of the “five parts of the world”. This paper offers an analysis of this set of writings, connecting it to the institutional and political context of the debate on European integration in France. The goal is to situate the effective influence Perroux’s ideas and his concrete personal influence on important names of Jean Monnet entourage. Taking these general questions as a reference, and starting with Perroux’s perspectives on topics such as national accounts, planning and liberal interventionism, the article also explores the critical thinking undertaken by Perroux, throughout the 1950s, on the institutional and political paths taken in the first years of the European integration process, approximating his analysis to other voices that critically discussed those paths, such as, for example, Gunnar Myrdal. Doing this, the paper also explores important connections, not frequently visited in the literature of the history of economic ideas, between the European integration and the field of economic development or regarding the debates on regional inequalities that took shape in the midst of the postwar European reconstruction projects. |
| Keywords: | François Perroux, Jean Monnet, European integration, Postwar Europe, National accounts, planning, liberal interventionism. |
| JEL: | B29 B31 B59 F02 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td590&r=hme |
| By: | Vernon L. Smith (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University) |
| Keywords: | Experimental Economics, History of Economic Thought |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:18-11&r=hme |
| By: | Hayat, Azmat; Mohd Shafiai, Mohammad Hakimi |
| Abstract: | Religious war and the separation of Church and state affairs in the global north contributed in the emergence and implementation of various ideologies. Instead of its positive impact these ideologies became a source of extreme violence and corruption across the planet. Liberalism, non-intervention in the socio-economic affairs of mankind is considered as an advanced state of mankind ideological evolution and End of History. In addition, it is believed that liberalism is free from internal contradiction and which can be settle by an alternate ideology. In sharp contrast, Muslims believes that beside other one of the unresolvable contradictions between liberalism and Islam is the gnosis of human being which the present study will undertake. Question to be explored that what concept of man has been held by economists (Liberals/Islamic) in their analysis of the behaviour of individual man, and to what extent they have universalized their concept of the individual to mankind? |
| Keywords: | Humans, Homo-Economicus, Liberalism and Islam |
| JEL: | A10 B00 B5 B50 P3 P50 P59 Z19 |
| Date: | 2018–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:89538&r=hme |
| By: | Paul Cooney |
| Keywords: | Competencia; monopolio; tasas de ganancia. Competition; monopoly; rates of profit. |
| JEL: | B50 B51 C67 D22 D42 D46 |
| Date: | 2017–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:016805&r=hme |
| By: | Virgile Chassagnon (CREG - Centre de recherche en économie de Grenoble - UPMF - Université Pierre Mendès France - Grenoble 2 - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes) |
| Abstract: | L'argumentation de cet essai se développe en quatre temps. Tout d'abord, une analyse des maux actuels de notre société est proposée à l'aune des grands enjeux contemporains. Est ensuite questionnée la nature du capitalisme afin de circonscrire son pouvoir de résilience et ses capacités de transformation. Un détour par la pensée humaniste progressiste du siècle dernier est alors suggéré afin de mieux réinterroger les fondements d'un capitalisme raisonnable et juste. Puis l'argumentation se fige sur le coeur de l'essai : le rôle de l'entreprise comme "bien commun" dans la création d'un agir démocratique qui servirait le vivre-ensemble dans la Cité. L'essai se termine par l'énoncé argumenté de recommandations et de pistes de progrès institutionnels et sociaux à destination des décideurs politiques et des acteurs économiques. |
| Keywords: | entreprise,bien commun,capitalisme,démocratie,crise,justice sociale |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01896980&r=hme |
| By: | Ginevra Virginia Lombardi,; Rossella Atzori |
| Abstract: | Urban population growth has triggered a process of change in rural areas and landscape patterns. This transformation has a twofold consequence. On one hand, land conversion causes loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction (Deng et al., 2017). On the other hand, higher levels of food demand, together with the reduction of available land, endanger the capability of supplying food at local level. The local food systems and food security is increasingly dependent by trade and transport costs. Local food system conservation is increasingly recognized as a key factor in the pursuit of sustainable and bio based economy perspective. Land food footprint is a significant tool in assessing food self-sufficiency, land displacement and thus food system sustainability. In this paper we adopt a landscape approach to analyse the evolution of land food footprint and landscape diversity in Sardinia over the period 1970-2010 to assess the impact of land use change and food systems evolution. Time series show a decrease in landscape diversity and greater degrees of few landscape elements dominance, agricultural specialization and land food footprint unbalance. In summary, these results show that diversified and traditional landscape have been replaced by specialised, less diverse landscape where labour-intensive crops and intensive agriculture results in environment impact and in integration of local food systems by food imports, resulting in land unbalance (land displacement), in landscape features simplification and in rural settlements abandon. |
| Keywords: | Land food footprint; Landscape diversity; Food planning; Landscape quantitative analysis; Land use. |
| JEL: | Q56 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2018_10.rdf&r=hme |
| By: | Paula Otero-Hermida |
| Abstract: | La apuesta europea por la Responsabilidad en la Investigación y la Innovación (RRI en sus siglas en inglés) puede suponer un nuevo enfoque para el trabajo que se ha realizado durante décadas en materia de igualdad de género en la innovación e investigación. El documento marco1 que define las actuales áreas de la política europea de RRI cita al género como una de ellas, entre otras como: ética, gobernanza, comunicación científica, participación ciudadana y ciencia abierta. De la misma forma, en el creciente marco teórico que sostiene la RRI (Owen et al., 2013), el género está relacionado con las dimensiones inclusiva y deliberativa que pretende abrir una puerta a visiones tradicionalmente excluidos en la ciencia e innovación. El proyecto INPERRI tiene como principal objetivo la obtención de un panel de indicadores adaptado al contexto español que permita monitorizar la innovación y ciencia desde una perspectiva RRI. Por ello, entre sus principales objetivos está la obtención de un panel específico de indicadores de género desde una perspectiva RRI en España. Para ello el proyecto trabaja a través de la aplicación de técnicas participativas (AHP o Analitycal Hierarchical Processes), contando con expertos y expertas españoles en la materia. El presente documento presenta los avances del proyecto en materia de género, en base a el citado objetivo. Dado el gran trabajo previo en materia de género, se hará especial énfasis en la primera parte en el análisis teórico y documental. En esta primera parte, el foco se situará en las políticas públicas y sus problemáticas, relacionando estas cuestiones con la medición y monitorización, según lo definido por la literatura previa en la materia. De la misma forma, se incidirá en cuestiones participativas, para introducir de una forma más clara la utilidad de la metodología participativa utilizada. Estas reflexiones servirán de base para analizar los resultados obtenidos en el trabajo de campo a través de la metodología del proyecto. En los restantes apartados de la primera parte se realizará una introducción a algunos de los principales enunciados de las políticas de igualdad en la ciencia y la innovación en la UE, así como se presentará el marco español. Igualmente, se presentan y analizan los paneles de indicadores previamente existentes en la materia, tanto a nivel europeo como en España. En la segunda parte se presentará más en detalle la metodología, resultados y conclusiones del trabajo participativo realizado por el Proyecto INPERRI. Como principal resultado, el proyecto ofrece un panel de indicadores priorizado por las expertas participantes en el proyecto. El análisis incluye algunas recomendaciones para el desarrollo futuro de la monitorización de la igualdad de género en la ciencia y la innovación en España. Las conclusiones muestran una gran diferencia entre el panel de indicadores resultante del proyecto INPERRI para el caso español, con respecto a los paneles previos, por lo que se puede resaltar el alto grado de complementariedad que puede existir con respecto a iniciativas que ya se están desarrollando. |
| Date: | 2018–10–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201803&r=hme |
| By: | Alfredo J. Mainar Causape (European Commission - JRC); George Philippidis (European Commission - JRC); Arnaldo Caivano (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | The bio-based economy will be crucial in achieving sustainable development, covering all ranges of natural resources. In this sense, it is very relevant to analyse the economic links between the bioeconomic sectors and the rest of the economy, determining their total and decomposed impact on economic growth. One of the major problems in carrying out this analysis is the lack of information and complete databases that allow analysis of the bioeconomy and its effects on other economic activities. To overcome this issue, highly disaggregated (in biobased and agriculture sectors) Social Accounting Matrices of the 28 European Union member states (and one EU28 aggregate) have been estimated. This report presents this set of Social Accounting Matrices, called BioSAMs, describing its specific structure and the basis for its estimation. |
| Keywords: | Bioeconomy, Social Accounting Matrices, European Union |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc111812&r=hme |
| By: | Musson, Anne; Rousselière, Damien |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at understanding the economic performance of craftsmen cooperatives during the crisis period. These cooperatives have the distinctive feature of being supply cooperatives. We use an exhaustive dataset for the French craftsmen cooperatives (2004-2014). We estimate Bayesian Translog econometric models in order to underline the impact of the 2008 crisis on these cooperatives. On the one hand, cooperatives’ turnover contracts during the crisis, the effect is lower for elder cooperatives and varies across sectors. On the other hand, there is convergence towards the mean for the various generations of cooperatives. Theses findings are robust to alternative econometric specifications. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:inrasl:279350&r=hme |