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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2019‒05‒06
thirteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Albers, Scott |
| Abstract: | This book is about the construction of reality. The central aim of this study is to understand how gravity works and how it may be focused and manipulated. While I do not have an answer to this question, the discoveries along the way have been worth collecting into a single volume for future reference. |
| Keywords: | Zeno's Paradox, Consciousness, Reality, Real GNP, Prices, Bio-Complexity, Hearsay, Russell's Paradox, Kondratiev Wave, Fibonacci Series, Phi, Golden Mean, Revolution, Crisis, Okun's Law, |
| JEL: | A10 A12 A13 A14 A2 A20 B4 B40 B41 B5 B50 B52 B59 C0 C00 C02 C1 C5 C6 C60 C68 E1 E10 E17 E19 E23 E27 E3 E30 E32 E37 Y1 Y10 Y8 Y80 Z1 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93632&r=all |
| By: | Díez, Federico; Fan, Jiayue; Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina |
| Abstract: | Using a new firm-level dataset on private and listed firms from 20 countries, we document five stylized facts on market power in global markets. First, competition has declined around the world, measured as a moderate increase in average firm markups during 2000-2015. Second, the markup increase is driven by already high-markup firms (top decile of the markup distribution) that charge increasing markups. Third, markups increased mostly among advanced economies but not in emerging markets. Fourth, there is a non-monotonic relation between firm size and markups that is first decreasing and then increasing. Finally, the increase is mostly driven by increases within incumbents and also by market share reallocation towards high-markup entrants. |
| Keywords: | firm size; market power; Markups; TFP |
| JEL: | D2 D4 E2 L1 L4 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13696&r=all |
| By: | Federico J Diez; Jiayue Fan; Carolina Villegas-Sánchez |
| Abstract: | Using a new firm-level dataset on private and listed firms from 20 countries, we document five stylized facts on market power in global markets. First, competition has declined around the world, measured as a moderate increase in average firm markups during 2000- 2015. Second, the markup increase is driven by already high-markup firms (top decile of the markup distribution) that charge increasing markups. Third, markups increased mostly among advanced economies but not in emerging markets. Fourth, there is a non-monotonic relation between firm size and markups that is first decreasing and then increasing. Finally, the increase is mostly driven by increases within incumbents and also by market share reallocation towards high-markup entrants. |
| Date: | 2019–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:19/82&r=all |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (University of Warwick); Fernandes, Ana (University of Bern); Weichselbaumer, Doris (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | Due to conventional gender norms, women are more likely to be in charge of childcare than men. From an employer's perspective, in their fertile age they are also at "risk" of pregnancy. Both factors potentially affect hiring practices of firms. We conduct a large-scale correspondence test in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, sending out approx. 9,000 job applications, varying job candidate's personal characteristics such as marital status and age of children. We find evidence that, for part-time jobs, married women with older kids, who likely finished their childbearing cycle and have more projectable childcare chores than women with very young kids, are at a significant advantage vis-avis other groups of women. At the same time, married, but childless applicants, who have a higher likelihood to become pregnant, are at a disadvantage compared to single, but childless applicants to part-time jobs. Such effects are not present for full-time jobs, presumably, because by applying to these in contrast to part-time jobs, women signal that they have arranged for external childcare. |
| Keywords: | experimental economics, discrimination, fertility |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12308&r=all |
| By: | Sen, Sugata |
| Abstract: | The traditional multi-dimensional measures have failed to properly project the vulnerability of human-beings towards poverty. Some of the reasons behind this inability may be the failure of the existing measures to recognise the graduality inside the concept of poverty and the disparities within the household in wealth distribution. So this work wants to develop a measure to estimate the vulnerability of households in becoming poor in a multidimensional perspective through incorporating the intra-household disparities and graduality within the causal factors. Dimensional decomposition of the developed vulnerability measure is also under the purview of this work. To estimate the vulnerability and dimensional influences with the help of artificial intelligence an integrated mathematical framework is developed. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Vulnerability, Fuzzy logic, Intra-household disparity, Shapley Value Decomposition, Machine Learning, LIME |
| JEL: | C63 I32 |
| Date: | 2019–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93550&r=all |
| By: | Karl Beyer (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Stephan Puehringer (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we address the issue of the role of ideology and political preferences of publically engaged economists and contribute to the debate on consensus in economics. To do so, we conduct a social network analysis on the signatories of economist petitions, which we identify as one channel for economists to exert public influence. We base our analysis on a sample of 77 public policy petitions and presidential anti-/endorsement letters from 2008-2017 in the United States with more than 6,400 signatories and check the robustness of our results with six sub-networks. Our contribution is twofold: On the one hand we provide an extended empirical basis for the debate on consensus in economics and the role of politics and ideology in economics. On the other hand we provide a viable tool to trace the ideological leaning of (prospective) economist petitions and economists based on the social structure of petition networks. |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:94&r=all |
| By: | Braun, Robert (Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Techno Science and Societal Transformation Research Group) |
| Abstract: | Artificial intelligence is at the heart of current debates related to ethical, social and political issues of technological innovation. This briefing refocuses attention from the techno-ethical challenges of AI to artificial decision-making (ADM) and the questions related to delegating human decisions to ADM. It is argued that (a) from a socio-ethical point of view the delegation is more relevant than the actual ethical problems of AI systems; (b) instead of traditional responsible AI approaches focusing on accountability, responsibility and transparency (ART) we should direct our attention to trustworthiness in the delegation process; and (c) trustworthiness as a socio-communicational challenge leads to questions that may be guided by a responsible research and innovation framework of anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness. This may lead to different questions policymakers and other interested publics may ask as well as novel approaches, including regulatory sandboxes and other measures to foster a more inclusive, open and democratic culture of human-ADM relations. |
| Keywords: | AI, arithmetic decision-making, delegation, Arendt, RRI |
| JEL: | M14 M31 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihswps:6&r=all |
| By: | Sprengholz, Maximilian (DIW Berlin); Wieber, Anna (DIW Berlin); Holst, Elke (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the natural experiment of German reunification in 1990 to investigate if the institutional regimes of the formerly socialist (rather gender-equal) East Germany and the capitalist (rather gender-traditional) West Germany shaped different gender identity prescriptions of family breadwinning. We use data for three periods between 1984 and 2016 from the representative German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Density discontinuity tests and fixed-effects regressions suggest that married couples in West (but not East) Germany diminished the wife's labor market outcomes in order to avoid situations where she would earn more than him. However, the significance of the male breadwinner prescription seems to decline in West Germany since reunification, converging to the more gender-egalitarian East Germany. Our work emphasizes the view that political and institutional frameworks can shape fairly persistent gender identity prescriptions that influence house-hold economic decisions for some time, even when these frameworks change. |
| Keywords: | gender identity, male breadwinner norm, institutions, female labor market outcomes, SOEP |
| JEL: | J16 J12 D10 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12284&r=all |
| By: | Klaus Gründler; Niklas Potrafke |
| Abstract: | Scholars have been active in investigating causes and consequences of austerity policies. We examine how economists use the term “austerity” in scientific studies and measure austerity in empirical analyses. The sample includes around 3,500 journal articles published in the top 400 journals (RePEc ranking) over the period 1990-2018. The results show that the term austerity is often used in heterodox journals. Papers published in mainstream journals use the term “fiscal consolidation” instead. The term austerity is ambiguous: scholars use manifold definitions of austerity and the empirical measures identify different country-year observations as periods of austerity. We employ panel data for 34 OECD countries over the period 1960-2014 and examine how austerity is associated with economic growth. The results show that depending on how austerity is measured, inferences change. Strategic selection of austerity measures allows scholars to arrive at any desired results about the economic effects of austerity periods. |
| Keywords: | austerity, fiscal consolidation, economic growth, rankings |
| JEL: | P16 O11 O23 E62 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7613&r=all |
| By: | Tamilina, Larysa; Tamilina, Natalya |
| Abstract: | By assuming that marginalization threatens social trust formation, this study introduces a new analytical framework to explain the relationship between a welfare state’s institutional design and trust levels in European societies. A good’s life cycle view consisting of production and consumption is applied to the provision of social benefits to discern four forms of marginalization in an individual’s experience with the welfare state: (a) marginalization through attitude, (b) marginalization through context, (c) marginalization through poverty, and (d) marginalization through opportunity lack. We argue that universalism in benefit provisions minimizes each of the four marginalization forms whereas selectivity is characterized by higher odds of marginalization. We further demonstrate that this especially holds true when universal social programs are generous and the state dedicates substantial resources to their funding. When the state’s resources are scarce, selectivity becomes a good alternative to universalism and may enhance social trust formation among individuals. We tested our hypotheses using data from the European Social Survey (2010). |
| Keywords: | welfare state, social trust, institutional design, universal social benefits, selective social benefits. |
| JEL: | I00 I3 I38 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93560&r=all |
| By: | Pamfili Antipa (Département d'économie); Vincent Bignon (Banque de France) |
| Abstract: | Macroeconomic analysis is not just a game of equations; it is a narrative of the real. We argue in this article for a re-evaluation of the importance of narratives. Because each financial crisis is a unique event, the narrative is the natural form of analysis. In addition, the effects of economic policies can no longer be analysed independently of the narratives appropriated by economic agents (Schiller, 2017) and policy makers (Friedman and Schwartz, 1963). There is a twofold value in adding the historical dimension. Economic history is instructive by multiplying case studies, i.e. by increasing the variety of policy successes and failures analysed. History also loosens the shackles of our preconceptions, since comparing the past and present calls into question the exceptional nature of what we are living. |
| Keywords: | Economic history; Cliometrics; Narrative; Economic policy |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4ithmorhr18kq90pu8cm6fv3ad&r=all |
| By: | Hospido, Laura (Bank of Spain); Laeven, Luc (CEPR); Lamo, Ana (European Central Bank) |
| Abstract: | We examine gender differences in career progression and promotions in central banking, a stereotypical male-dominated occupation, using confidential anonymized personnel data from the European Central Bank (ECB) during the period 2003-2017. A wage gap emerges between men and women within a few years of hiring, despite broadly similar entry conditions in terms of salary levels and other observables. We also find that women are less likely to be promoted to a higher salary band up until 2010 when the ECB issued a public statement supporting diversity and took several measures to support gender balance. Following this change, the promotion gap disappears. The gender promotion gap prior to this policy change is partly driven by the presence of children. Using 2012-2017 data on promotion applications and decisions, we explore the promotion process in depth, and confirm that during this most recent period women are as likely to be promoted as men. This results from a lower probability of women to apply for promotion, combined with a higher probability of women to be selected conditional on having applied. Following promotion, women perform better in terms of salary progression, suggesting that the higher probability to be selected is based on merit, not positive discrimination. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, working histories, promotions, central banking |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J41 J63 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12306&r=all |
| By: | Hany Abdel-Latif (Swansea University); Hassan Aly |
| Abstract: | Using an original firm-level database and utilizing the incidence of the Egyptian uprising of 2011, this paper provides an empirical investigation of the effects of firms political connections on employment growth in Egypt. Our unique dataset covers 4008 firms between 2004-2016, of which we were able to identify 735 politically connected firms. We set-up a quasi-natural experiment environment to explore how job creation responds to negative shocks to political connections. We use the differences in differences (DiD) framework to compare employment growth in both politically connected firms (PCFs) and their unconnected counterparts before and after the Egyptian uprising. To minimize possible bias in the DiD estimation due to dealing with a heterogeneous group of firms, we apply the propensity score matching (PSM). In addition, we estimate the quantile DiD at different points in the distribution. We find that connected firms before the shock decreased their job creation after the uprising. This implies that employment growth in PCFs has declined after receiving a negative political shock. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erg:wpaper:1304&r=all |