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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2020‒05‒11
twenty-one papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Sergio Cesaratto; Stefano Di Bucchianico |
| Abstract: | This paper was inspired long ago by Jared Diamond (1997), and in particular by his extensive use of the concept of economic surplus as the key to the development of civilization. Unfortunately, Diamond does not mention the origin of the concept in classical and pre-classical economics, nor does he pay much attention to debates in economic anthropology about the role of economic analysis in studying primitive and ancient economic formations. These debates were the subject of a recent book by Cedrini & Marchionatti (2017), who dispute the neoclassical “imperialist” attempt to occupy the territory of economic anthropology. The authors rely on the institutionalist background provided by Karl Polanyi and his school and by other anthropologists of similar inspiration. Polanyians, however, fail to complete their institutional analysis by anchoring it to the changing modes of generation and distribution of the economic surplus. Yet their emphasis on the need to introduce institutions from the beginning, when speaking of economic surplus, should be taken into consideration by the classical surplus approach |
| Keywords: | surplus approach, economic anthropology, economic archaeology, Marx, Polanyi, Sraffa |
| JEL: | A12 B51 B52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:828&r=all |
| By: | Ariel Dvoskin; Guido Ianni |
| Abstract: | Literature on international trade agrees that comparative advantages (CA) regulate the pattern of trade across countries. What is not usually stressed is that, for this to be possible, CA must be identified ex-ante by some ranking of international competitiveness. Otherwise, they become a tautology: countries are said to possess CA in those sectors that have managed to become internationally competitive. In this work, we show that when there is production of capital goods, in particular of imported means of production, and even under a zero profit rate: (a) the ranking of industries on the basis of autarky comparative costs may not be a good predictor of CA; (b) no ranking of industries exists, in general. The overall conclusion of the article is that CA cannot explain the pattern of trade and, therefore, an alternative explanation must be searched for. |
| Keywords: | Comparative Advantage– Comparative Costs- Imported Capital Goods – Pattern of Specialization |
| JEL: | B51 F10 F16 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:825&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Di Bucchianico |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present a Classical-Keynesian viewpoint on financialization by using Garegnani’s ‘integrated wage-commodity sector’ method. We focus on three aspects. First, we argue that financial instruments such as derivatives have played the role of ‘luxury’ goods, unnecessary and/or detrimental to the direct and indirect production of the wage-basket. Second, we show that the accumulation of household debt can result in a higher normal rate of profit. Third, there is scope to reconsider the connection between financialization and labour market institutions, which makes labour bargaining strength wane. Labour market relationships need not be strictly tied to financialization. |
| Keywords: | financialization, household debt, labour market, rate of profit, financial markets |
| JEL: | B51 E44 F65 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:824&r=all |
| By: | Bhaduri, Amit |
| Abstract: | The debate about how to reconcile political with economic democracy is translated in the framework of wage- and profit-led growth in this paper. The inherent tension between providing sufficient profit incentive to motivate investment by the capitalist class and maintaining electoral accountability to the economically less privileged majority is examined through an analysis of policies towards raising the social wage. The paper shows how wider circumstances characterising a regime as wage- or profit-led is of consequence for determining the possibility of combining a higher profit share with a higher social wage through the effectiveness of such policies. |
| Keywords: | Profit and wage led,social wage,investment,disinvestment,ideology |
| JEL: | E11 E12 H30 P16 H40 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:1392020&r=all |
| By: | Punita Bhatt; Supriya Garikipati |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the role of feminist ideologies in developing a culture of work and entrepreneurship among disadvantaged women. It draws on evidence from ‘Lijjat’, a women’s cooperative in India where poor women were able to initiate, develop and successfully operate a women’s only enterprise. Ideological influences exist both, at the individual level (motivation) and at the collective level (organisational practices). Pragmatist feminist ideologies are found to be particularly supportive of women’s collective ventures. Women use collectivist strategies to resist the patriarchal corralling of the business. Through an intersection of feminist ideologies at individual and collective levels we explore how women have successfully engaged in economic activity while influencing the structures of patriarchy around them. We extrapolate the influence of feminist ideology further by drawing implications for women’s work in patriarchal contexts. |
| Keywords: | women’s entrepreneurship, feminist ideologies, pragmatist feminist, collectivism, cooperative, Lijjat, India |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liv:livedp:202014&r=all |
| By: | Luciano Celi (Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Italy; Institute for Chemical and Physical Processes, National Research Council, Pisa, Italy); Claudio Della Volpe (Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Italy); Luca Pardi (Institute for Chemical and Physical Processes, National Research Council, Pisa, Italy); Stefano Siboni (Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Italy) |
| Abstract: | The behavior of complex systems is one of the most intriguing phenomena investigated by recent science; natural and artificial systems offer a wide opportunity for this kind of analysis. The energy conversion is both a process based on important physical laws and one of the most important economic sectors; the interaction between these two aspects of energy production suggests the possibility to apply some of the approaches of the dynamic systems' analysis. In particular, a phase plot, which is one of the methods to detect a correlation between quantities in a complex system, provides a good way to establish qualitative analogies between the ecological systems and the economic ones and may shed light on the processes governing the evolution of the system. The aim of this paper is to highlight the analogies between some peculiar characteristics of the oil production vs. price and show in which way such characteristics are similar to some behavioral mechanisms found in Nature. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.14898&r=all |
| By: | Iammarino, Simona; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Storper, Michael |
| Abstract: | Regional economic divergence has become a threat to economic progress, social cohesion and political stability in Europe. Market processes and policies that are supposed to spread prosperity and opportunity are no longer sufficiently effective. The evidence points to the existence of several different modes of regional economic performance in Europe, responding to different development challenges and opportunities. Both mainstream and heterodox theories have gaps in their ability to explain the existence of these different regional trajectories and the weakness of the convergence processes among them. Therefore, a different approach is required, one that strengthens Europe’s strongest regions but develops new approaches to promote opportunity in industrial declining and less-developed regions. There is ample new theory and evidence to support such an approach, which we have labelled ‘place-sensitive distributed development policy’. |
| Keywords: | Regions; inequality; economic divergence; place-sensitive development; European Union |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R58 |
| Date: | 2019–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:87491&r=all |
| By: | Chant, Sylvia |
| Abstract: | Despite reductions in poverty generally, recent trends in Latin American countries show processes of both a de-feminization and re-feminization of poverty. The latter has occurred despite feminized anti-poverty programmes, most notably conditional cash transfer (CCTs), which target resources to women. We show that methodological differences in what, how, and who is the focus of measurement, may influence patterns of poverty ‘feminization’. We also suggest that feminized policy interventions might in themselves be playing a role in the re-feminization of poverty, not least because the participation of female-headed households may be limited by default if not design. The somewhat paradoxical interactions between the feminization of household headship, the feminization of poverty, and the feminization of anti-poverty programmes, present interesting challenges for redressing gender gaps in poverty within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2018–10–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:87366&r=all |
| By: | Ganguli, Ina (Stockholm School of Economics); Hausmann, Ricardo (Harvard Kennedy School); Viarengo, Martina (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) |
| Abstract: | We examine gender gaps in career dynamics in the legal sector using rich panel data from one of the largest global law firms in the world. The law firm studied is representative of multinational law firms and operates in 23 countries. The sample includes countries at different stages of development. We document the cross-country variation in gender gaps and how these gaps have changed over time. We show that while there is gender parity at the entry level in most countries by the end of the period examined, there are persistent raw gender gaps at the top of the organization across all countries. We observe significant heterogeneity among countries in terms of gender gaps in promotions and wages, but the gaps that exist appear to be declining over the period studied. We also observe that women are more likely to report exiting the firm for family and work-life balance reasons, while men report leaving for career advancement. Finally, we show that various measures of national institutions and culture appear to play a role in the differential labor-market outcomes of men and women. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, human capital, job mobility, promotion, culture, legal sector |
| JEL: | I26 J16 J62 M51 Z1 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13174&r=all |
| By: | Jan Gromadzki |
| Abstract: | The communist states promoted women’s participation in the labour market and encouraged women to enter male-dominated occupations, which should have resulted in relatively low levels of occupational segregation by gender. I show that after the transition to the market economy, the level of occupational segregation by gender in Poland did not increase, but remained rather stable. I exploit the cohort and regional variation in exposure to communist propaganda to analyse the role of social norms in shaping occupational segregation by gender. The results suggest that the fostering of women’s empowerment by communist authorities may have been limited to the early phase of the communist era. |
| Keywords: | Occupational segregation, Gender, Economic transition, Communism, Culture |
| JEL: | J16 J24 P26 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp092019&r=all |
| By: | Urban, Janina; Rommel, Florian |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a systematic assessment of academic economics teaching, research and policy advice in Germany. It assembles recent empirical studies and contributes by presenting their main findings in a comprehensible manner as well as contextualizing them in the current economic and methodological discourses. As most studies are only available in German this paper also contributes by making these findings accessible to the international debate on the special characteristics of economics as a discipline. |
| Keywords: | Economics Education,Economics Research,Pluralism,Mainstream Pluralism,German Economics |
| JEL: | A11 A14 A22 A23 B41 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cuswps:56&r=all |
| By: | Wanderley, Fernanda (IISEC, Universidad Católica Boliviana) |
| Abstract: | La pluralidad de la economía boliviana es un tema de análisis y discusión con una larga trayectoria en Bolivia debido a la persistencia y coexistencia de unidades económicas distintas a la empresa capitalista y al sector público. El periodo del gobierno del presidente Evo Morales (2005 y 2019) constitucionalizó el modelo de economía plural. Diferentes colectivos se orientaron a impulsar el nuevo modelo constitucional de economía plural a través de la elaboración y aprobación de nuevas leyes. El documento tiene dos objetivos. El primero es analizar cuatro tipos de organizaciones económicas cuyas formas se diferencian de las empresas privadas o públicas: las organizaciones económicas campesinas (OECAS), las organizaciones económicas comunitarias (OECOM), las asociaciones de artesanos y las cooperativas. Se identifica las características de las organizaciones económicas y las trayectorias históricas como sujetos políticos. El segundo objetivo es analizar la acción colectiva impulsada por estos actores durante el gobierno de Evo Morales y la economía política instaurada en un contexto de excepcional bonanza económica. Se indaga los factores que explican las dificultades de articulación entre ellos para la construcción de una agenda común de políticas públicas, consistente e integrada, hacia la institucionalización de la economía plural. El análisis ofrece pistas para entender los hechos ocurridos entre octubre y noviembre de 2019 que resultaron en la caída del gobierno de Evo Morales, en específico, las razones para la débil movilización de estos actores, los cuales constituían la base de apoyo del gobierno. Esta investigación fue desarrollada en el Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicas de la Universidad Católica Boliviana, IISEC. |
| Keywords: | Economía social y solidaria; Bolivia; Gobierno Evo Morales; Acción colectiva; economía plural; Instituto de Investigaciones Socio-Económicas de la Universidad Católica Boliviana; IISEC |
| JEL: | A14 |
| Date: | 2020–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:iisecd:2020_001&r=all |
| By: | Ozlem Albayrak |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether relative income and income inequality within reference groups affect household consumption. Using the explanations of consumption behavior based on Dusenberry's relative income hypothesis, we test if household consumption levels in Turkey are affected by the household's relative position and inequality in the reference group between 2005-12 by employing cross-sectional household-level data. We find that household consumption is negatively related to the relative income indicator after controlling for absolute income, and positively related to the income inequality of the reference group, as the literature suggests. The paper also shows that household indebtedness has a positive impact on household consumption when inequality in the reference group and the relative position of households are controlled for. We confirm that the results are not sensitive to chosen relative income indicators and income inequality. |
| Keywords: | Consumer Behavior; Inequality; Relative Income Hypothesis; Household Debt |
| JEL: | D12 D63 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_954&r=all |
| By: | Brian Jabarian |
| Abstract: | In their article, "Egalitarianism under Severe Uncertainty", (Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2018), Thomas Rowe and Alex Voorhoeve elegantly develop a theory of distributive justice, called "pluralist egalitarianism", for cases under maximal uncertainty. In this pr\'ecis for our PEA Soup Discussion, I firstly sketch their views and arguments. I then discuss their main scenarios. Finally, I suggest several objections against their view, proposing a two-stage ambiguity thought experiment. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.08892&r=all |
| By: | Ashish Kumar; Anindya S. Chakrabarti; Anirban Chakraborti; Tushar Nandi |
| Abstract: | Distress propagation occurs in connected networks, its rate and extent being dependent on network topology. To study this, we choose economic production networks as a paradigm. An economic network can be examined at many levels: linkages among individual agents (microscopic), among firms/sectors (mesoscopic) or among countries (macroscopic). New emergent dynamical properties appear at every level, so the granularity matters. For viral epidemics, even an individual node may act as an epicenter of distress and potentially affect the entire network. Economic networks, however, are known to be immune at the micro-levels and more prone to failure in the meso/macro-levels. We propose a dynamical interaction model to characterize the mechanism of distress propagation, across different modules of a network, initiated at different epicenters. Vulnerable modules often lead to large degrees of destabilization. We demonstrate our methodology using a unique empirical data-set of input-output linkages across 0.14 million firms in one administrative state of India, a developing economy. The network has multiple hub-and-spoke structures that exhibits moderate disassortativity, which varies with the level of coarse-graining. The novelty lies in characterizing the production network at different levels of granularity or modularity, and finding `too-big-to-fail' modules supersede `too-central-to-fail' modules in distress propagation. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.14485&r=all |
| By: | Louison Cahen-Fourot (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nelo Magalhães (LADYSS - Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - UPD7 - Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at integrating macroeconomic and institutional analyses of long run dynamics of capitalism with material flow analysis. We investigate the links between accumulation and socio-metabolic regimes by studying French capitalism from a material perspective since 1948. We characterize its social metabolism both in production-and consumption-based approaches. We show that the periodization of accumulation regimes in terms of Fordism and Neoliberalism translates into material terms. The offshore materiality of Neoliberalism partly substitutes for and partly complements the more domestic material-ity inherited from Fordism. The transition phase between the two socio-metabolic regimes clearly corresponds to the emergence of the offshoring-financialization nexus of French capitalism indicating the shift from the fordist accumulation regime to the neoliberal accumulation regime. Acknowledging that socio-metabolic regimes have their own logic, we highlight strong inter-linkages between accumulation and material dynamics and discuss how materials may be instrumental in shaping accumulation regimes. This work therefore illustrates the relevance of combining institutional macroeconomics with methods and approaches derived from Ecological Economics. |
| Keywords: | Material Flow Analysis,Material footprint,Socio-metabolic regime,Financialization,Offshoring,Accumulation regime |
| Date: | 2020–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cepnwp:halshs-02554906&r=all |
| By: | Cloos, Janis; Greiff, Matthias; Rusch, Hannes (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, General Economics 1 (Micro)) |
| Abstract: | We examine geographical concentration, scientific quality, and editorial favoritism in the field of experimental economics. We use a novel data set containing all original research papers ( NÂ = 596) that exclusively used laboratory experiments for data generation and were published in the American Economic Review, Experimental Economics, or the Journal of the European Economic Association between 1998 and 2018. The development of geographical concentration is examined using data on authors' affiliations at the time of the respective publication. Results show that research output produced by US-affiliated economists increased slower than overall research output, leading to a decrease in geographical concentration. Several proxies for scientific quality indicate that experiments conducted in Europe are of higher quality than experiments conducted in North America: European experiments rely on a larger total number of participants as well as participants per treatment, and receive more citations compared to experiments conducted in North America. Examining laboratory experiments published in the AER more closely, we find that papers authored by economists with US-affiliations receive significantly fewer citations in the first 5 and 10 years after publication compared to papers by authors from the rest of the world. |
| JEL: | A11 A14 C90 I23 |
| Date: | 2020–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2020014&r=all |
| By: | Kaczmarczyk, Patrick |
| Abstract: | The definition of various growth models is the latest innovation of comparative capitalism (CC) research. Yet, the literature has its weaknesses in explaining the dynamics within and the interdependencies between different growth models. I argue that this weakness stems inter alia from an inadequate conceptualization of transnational corporations (TNCs). I provide empirical evidence on the footprint of international capital in the global economy and outline how including TNCs as a unit of analysis can help us to better understand economic outcomes. This leads to several implications for the growth models literature, which I conclude my argument with. |
| Keywords: | institutions and the macroeconomy,international business,multinational firms,political economy |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:maxpod:202&r=all |
| By: | Gutierrez Garza, Ana Paola |
| Abstract: | Amid austerity policies that have retracted welfare programs and have affected the livelihood of people in Spain, this paper describes how various local practices of care among members of the PAH (Platform for People Affected by Mortgages) work to recuperate social relations morally and practically. I seek to understand the relationship between people’s perceptions of social justice and notions of fairness on the one hand and ideas about deservingness on the other. I am interested in exploring who gets to choose and allocate, and how people in the PAH use the collective notion of care to justify their choice. What are the moral conflicts that people experience while judging and constructing the figure of the deserving versus the undeserving framed within a collective struggle for social justice? I analyse the conundrums of a movement that struggles to find a balance between individual judgments and the collective good; I aim to show the dilemmas and contradictions of the struggle for social justice. |
| Keywords: | housing; social movements; advice; care; Spain; ES/M003825/1 |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2019–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:102294&r=all |
| By: | Vishwas Kukreti; Hirdesh K. Pharasi; Priya Gupta; Sunil Kumar |
| Abstract: | In this brief review, we critically examine the recent work done on correlation-based networks in financial systems. The structure of empirical correlation matrices constructed from the financial market data changes as the individual stock prices fluctuate with time, showing interesting evolutionary patterns, especially during critical events such as market crashes, bubbles, etc. We show that the study of correlation-based networks and their evolution with time is useful for extracting important information of the underlying market dynamics. We, also, present our perspective on the use of recently developed entropy measures such as structural entropy and eigen-entropy for continuous monitoring of correlation-based networks. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.09448&r=all |
| By: | Ettore Gallo (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research); Gustavo Pereira Serra (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research) |
| Abstract: | The recent debate in Post-Keynesian theories of investment has mainly focused on the endogenous nature of the degree of capacity utilization, overlooking Steindl’s and Minsky’s insights on the role of inventories and debt financing in shaping investment decisions. In order to fill this gap, this paper develops a Steindl-Minsky SFC model by including inventories, as well as firm’s deposits and debt financing into the investment function. The role of investment decisions in shaping economic growth is assessed by considering a model populated by five types of economic actors: workers, firms, rentiers, commercial banks and the central bank. First, business cycle fluctuations are investigated assuming a deterministic steady growth path in the long period, in line with recent developments in heterodox growth theory. Second, we simulate the model, calibrating it for the US economy. |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:2005&r=all |