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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2021‒05‒10
fourteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Sara Stevano (Department of Economics, SOAS University of London); Rosimina Ali (Institute of Social and Economic Studies (IESE)); Merle Jamieson (Department of Economics, SOAS University of London) |
| Abstract: | COVID-19 has shaken a foundational pillar of global capitalism: the organisation of work. Whilst workers have commonly been categorised based on skills, during the pandemic the ‘essential worker’ categorisation has taken prominence. This paper explores the concept of essential work from a global feminist social reproduction perspective. The global perspective is complemented by a zoom-in on Mozambique as a low-income country in the Global South, occupying a peripheral position in global and regional economies and with a large share of vulnerable and essential workers. We show that the meaning of essential work is more ambiguous and politicised than it may appear and, although it can be used as a basis to reclaim the value of socially reproductive work, its transformative potential hinges on the possibility to encompass the most precarious and transnational dimensions of (re)production. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19; essential work; social reproduction; dependence; Mozambique |
| JEL: | B54 F66 J46 J60 K31 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:soa:wpaper:241&r= |
| By: | Giovanni Dosi; Marcelo C. Pereira; Andrea Roventini; Maria Enrica Virgillito |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an agent-based model (ABM) of endogenous arrival of technological paradigms and new sectors entailing different patterns of labour creation and destruction, as well as of consumption dynamics. The model, building on the labour-augmented K+S ABM, addresses the long-term patterns of labour demand emerging from heterogeneous forms of technical change. It provides a multi-level, integrated perspective on so called scenarios of the future of work, currently often restricted or to firm-level or to short-time sectoral analyses, and studies the conditions under which labour creation and destruction tend to balance. It is a relatively fair and stable distribution of income granted by a Fordist-type of regulation of the labour market that guarantees that the model never reaches stages of full technological unemployment. Patterns of coordination between technical change and aggregate demand are also ensured by the increasing product complexity which keeps on absorbing the labour force. |
| Keywords: | Technical change; technological unemployment; structural change; consumption patterns. |
| Date: | 2021–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2021/17&r= |
| By: | Hicham Abdelkhalik (UIT - Université Ibn Tofaïl); Ahmed El Gazzar (Université Mohamed V - Souissi); Rachid Hasnaoui (UIT - Université Ibn Tofaïl) |
| Abstract: | Cooperatives are perceived as a social-based business model. They have the effect of creating social value, generating wealth, promoting employment and contributing to the country's socio-economic development. The membership rate of the active population in the cooperative turns around 4% according to the database of the office of development and cooperation. This study aims at revealing the contribution of the Moroccan cooperatives in the improvement of the situation of rural women at the decision-making and socio-economic levels. Therefore, we opt for a quantitative approach, which is conducted on a sample of about 70 women members of the TIZARGANE group of cooperatives in the province of Tiznit. As a result, the membership in the cooperative work has had positive effects in terms of women's empowerment and improvement of their living conditions. |
| Abstract: | Les coopératives sont considérées comme un modèle d'entreprise à base sociale. Elles ont pour effet la création de la valeur sociale et de la richesse, la promotion de l'emploi et la contribution au développement socioéconomique du pays. Le taux d'adhésion des populations actives à la coopérative tourne autour de 4% selon les données de l'Office de Développement et de la Coopération (ODCO). Ce travail de recherche vise à montrer l'apport des coopératives marocaines dans le développement de la situation des femmes rurales aux niveaux décisionnel et socio-économique.A cet effet, nous optons dans cette étude pour une démarche quantitative, menée auprès d'un échantillon d'environ 70 femmes membres du groupement TIZARGANE des coopératives de la province de Tiznit. Par conséquent, il en découle que l'adhésion au travail coopératif a eu des effets positifs en matière d'autonomisation de la femme et d'amélioration de ses conditions de vie. |
| Keywords: | Rural women,Empowerment,local employment.,Groupement TIZARGANE,Travail coopératif,Femmes rurales,Autonomisation,emploi local. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03207377&r= |
| By: | Hyejin Lee; Johan Swinnen; Patrick Van Cayseele |
| Abstract: | Agricultural cooperatives have often been promoted as a way to increase their market power and to obtain stability of profit against uncertainty. This paper estimates the firm-level markups and markup volatility to identify the countervailing market power of cooperatives in the Italian fruits and vegetable sector and the dairy sector. We use the firm-level data of Italian firms for the period 2007-2014. We find that, overall, there is a tradeoff in cooperatives’ role between obtaining market power and stability. Farmer cooperatives in both sectors gain stability in their markups but their markups are lower, on average, than those for non-cooperatives. For processor cooperatives, the fruits and vegetable sector obtains more market power. This appears to arise from the product differentiation strategy of the processors cooperative. |
| Date: | 2021–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:licosp:674093&r= |
| By: | Brzustowski, Thomas; Caselli, Francesco |
| Abstract: | We develop and formalize an equilibrium concept for a dynamic economy in which production takes place in worker cooperatives. The concept rules out allocations of workers to cooperatives in which a worker in one cooperative could move to a different cooperative and make both herself and the existing workers in the receiving cooperative better off. It also rules out allocations in which workers in a cooperative would be made better off by some of the other workers leaving. We also provide a minimum-information equilibrium-selection criterion which operationalizes our equilibrium concept. We illustrate the application of our concept and operationalization in the context of an overlapping-generation economy with specific preferences and technology. The cooperative economy follows a dynamic path qualitatively similar to the path followed by a capitalist economy, featuring gradual convergence to a steady state with constant output. Quantitatively, however, the cooperative economy features a static inefficiency, in that, for a given aggregate capital stock, firm size is smaller than what a social planner would choose. On the other hand, the cooperative economy cannot be dynamically inefficient, and could accumulate capital at a rate that is higher or lower than the capitalist economy. We also present an illustrative calibration which quantitatively compares steady-state incomes in a cooperative and in a capitalist economy. |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15720&r= |
| By: | Jerzy Kociatkiewicz (LITEM - Laboratoire en Innovation, Technologies, Economie et Management (EA 7363) - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - Université Paris-Saclay - IMT-BS - Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, MMS - Département Management, Marketing et Stratégie - TEM - Télécom Ecole de Management - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IMT-BS - Institut Mines-Télécom Business School); Monika Kostera (UW - University of Warsaw, Sodertorn University); Anna Zueva (University of Huddersfield) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this article is both a pronouncement of doom and an offer of hope for the Western business school. Both come from the recognition that business schools are haunted and that the haunting spectre is none other than the capitalist ideology. We ground our thinking in the established rich ‘ghostly' academic literature where the metaphor of the ghost is used to reveal the powerful agency of the unspoken-of and the unseen. Using three fictional ghostly tales as interpretive lenses, we make three arguments. First, we argue that capitalism is a ghost in the walls of the business school. Second, we suggest that capitalism's ghostly nature prevents the business school from offering a curriculum that serves more than the growth of financial capital. Third, we propose that naming of capitalism is integral to the exorcism of its ghost and the creation of curriculum that engages with the social and environmental challenges of our times. |
| Keywords: | Business school,capitalism,ghost,haunting,literary analysis,naming,reflexivity,spectre |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03212379&r= |
| By: | Wehrheim, Lino |
| Abstract: | One way for economists to influence economic policy and society as a whole is to shape what Robert Shiller has called "economic narratives". This, in turn, puts the media in their role as professional storytellers in a central position. In this paper, I investigate how economists have been covered by the media in a long-term perspective. Particularly, I address two questions: How has the quantitative visibility of economists in the media developed over time? And how can news stories covering economists be characterized in terms of their content? I answer these questions in two steps. First, I provide a comparison of economists' quantitative media visibility in international newspapers. Second, building on a corpus of more than 12,000 newspaper articles, I conduct a case study on the German Council of Economic Experts. Using various text mining approaches, I survey four features of newspaper coverage: topics, tonality, temporal perspective, and the role of individuals. Finally, based on extensive close reading, I briefly discuss two key turning points in the media history of economists, namely the 1980s and the late 1990s/early 2000s. The main finding is that economists have indeed become silent compared to their heyday of economic expertise in the 1960s, but that they have not been as silent as is often claimed. |
| Keywords: | economic experts,economic narratives,media analysis,topic modelling,sentiment analysis |
| JEL: | N01 P16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:pp1859:30&r= |
| By: | Kazi Iqbal; Asadul Islam; John A. List; Vy Nguyen |
| Abstract: | Whether, and to what extent, behavioral anomalies uncovered in the lab manifest themselves in the field remains of first order importance in finance and economics. We begin by examining behavior of retail traders/investors making investment decisions in constructed laboratory markets. Our results show that the behaviors of the traders are consistent with myopic loss aversion. We combine the lab results with a unique individual-level matched dataset on daily stock market transactions and portfolio positions over a two year period. We find that lab behaviors help to predict, but do not fully capture, the essential real-world trading analogs of retail traders. |
| JEL: | C9 C93 D03 N97 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28730&r= |
| By: | Donna K. Ginther; Shulamit Kahn |
| Abstract: | This study uses data from Academic Analytics to examine gender differences in promotion to associate professor in economics. We found that women in economics were 15% less likely to be promoted to associate professor after controlling for cumulative publications, citations, grants and grant dollars. In contrast, we found no significant gender differences in promotion in other fields including biomedical science, physical science, political science, mathematics and statistics, and engineering. We separated the sample by the research intensity of institutions and found suggestive evidence that these results were being driven by less research-intensive institutions. |
| JEL: | A11 J16 J40 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28743&r= |
| By: | Ma, Debin |
| Abstract: | What explains economic changes or lack-thereof in modern China during 1850-1950? This paper highlights the critical role of ideology and ideological change induced as a response to Western impact following Qing China's forced opening during the mid-19th century. I argue that Imperial Qing's highly centralized and absolutist political regimes and traditional dominance in a China-centred world order have led to a closure of mind to new intellectual resources and initial failure to recognize impending crisis in the new world order. By laying out the quantitative profile of Chinese economic change during 1850-1950 and reviewing the main historiography, this paper builds a new analytical framework linking ideology with economic changes. It delineates three phases of economic changes in light of the specific timing of intellectual and ideological transformation during this period and embed our narrative with two specific cases of commercial and financial developments. |
| Keywords: | Ideology; institutions; Meiji China; Qing China; Western impact and Chinese response |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15835&r= |
| By: | Rose, Michael E.; Georg, Co-Pierre |
| Abstract: | We present and discuss a novel dataset on informal collaboration in financial economics, manually collected from more than 5,000 acknowledgement sections of published papers. We find that informal collaboration is the norm in financial economics, while generational differences in informal collaboration exist and reciprocity among collaborators prevails. Female researchers appear less often in acknowledgements than comparable male researchers. Information derived from networks of informal collaboration allows us to predict academic impact of both researchers and papers even better than information from co-author networks. Finally, we study the characteristics of the networks using various measures from network theory and characterize what determines a researcher's position in it. The data presented here may help other researchers to shed light on an under-explored topic. |
| Keywords: | intellectual collaboration,acknowledgements,social networks,financial economics |
| JEL: | A14 D83 G00 O33 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2182&r= |
| By: | Mariano Tommasi (Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Humano - Universidad de San Andres); María Edo (Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Humano - Universidad de San Andres); Agustina Thailinger (Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Humano - Universidad de San Andres) |
| Abstract: | En las últimas décadas, las tendencias observadas con la segunda transición demográfica se han visto aceleradas para todos los grupos poblacionales: reducción en la fertilidad; caída en las tasas de matrimonio e incremento en las tasas de cohabitación, separación y divorcio; desconexión entre la procreación y la unión legal; aumento de la concepción de los hijos por fuera del matrimonio. Estos patrones no han sido homogéneos en la población: la evidencia empírica permite apreciar un gradiente socioeconómico marcado, con raíces y dinámicas muy diferentes en cada caso. Este trabajo tiene por objetivo explorar los efectos de diversas características y estructuras familiares sobre el desarrollo de los niños y jóvenes. Con tal propósito, se analizará literatura internacional de múltiples disciplinas, intentando orientar la mirada empírica hacia los casos (menos estudiados) de América Latina y en particular, de la Argentina. A pesar de que la evidencia recogida en este trabajo es muy sugestiva, múltiples estudios son necesarios para avanzar en la comprensión de las estructuras de los hogares en distintos segmentos socioeconómicos y su efecto sobre el desarrollo y el bienestar de las personas. |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sad:wpaper:152&r= |
| By: | Armouti-Hansen, Jesper; Cassar, Lea; Dereky, Anna |
| Abstract: | Many organizations nowadays combine profits with a social mission. This paper reveals a new hidden benefit of the mission: its role in facilitating the emergence of efficiency wages. We show that in a standard gift exchange principals highly underestimate agents' reciprocity and thereby offer wages that are much lower than the profit-maximizing level. This bias has a high social cost: if principals had correct beliefs and thus offered the profit-maximizing wage, efficiency would increase by 86 percent. However, the presence of a social mission (in the form of a positive externality generated by the agent's effort), by increasing principals' trust, acts as a debiasing mechanism. Thereby efficiency is increased by 50 percent. These results contribute to our understanding of behavior in mission-oriented organizations and to the debate about the relevance of reciprocity in the workplace and open new questions about belief formation in prosocial contexts. |
| Keywords: | Biased Beliefs; efficiency wages; Gift exchange; mission motivation |
| JEL: | D23 M52 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15723&r= |
| By: | Barber, Brad; Jiang, Wei; Morse, Adair; Puri, Manju; Tookes, Heather; Werner, Ingrid M |
| Abstract: | How has COVID-19 impacted faculty productivity? Does it differ by characteristics such as gender and family structure? To answer these questions, we conduct a survey of American Finance Association (AFA) members. Overall, faculty respondents report lower research productivity with less time allocated to research and more time allocated to teaching. There is also heterogeneity: 14.5% of respondents report an increase in productivity. We find the negative effects on research productivity are particularly large for women and faculty with young children regardless of gender. Thus, the pandemic has the effect of widening the gender gap for women and creates a "family gap" in productivity for both men and women with young children. Lower research productivity for faculty with young children is explained, to a large extent, by increased time spent on childcare. Our results suggest the need for deliberate policy to factor in these underlying mechanisms. We caution that a one-size-fits-all tenure-clock extension can have unintended negative consequences of increasing disparity. |
| Keywords: | academic finance profession; COVID-19; Family structure; Gender; Pandemic; Research productivity; Tenure |
| JEL: | A22 A23 G0 I23 J13 J16 J22 J24 J44 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15636&r= |