nep-hme New Economics Papers
on Heterodox Microeconomics
Issue of 2022‒06‒27
eighteen papers chosen by
Carlo D’Ippoliti
Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”

  1. On the Evolution of Product Portfolio of Cooperatives versus IOFs: An Agent-Based Analysis of the Single Origin Constraint By Deng, W.; Hendrikse, G.W.J.
  2. The crisis of economics By Jacques Fontanel
  3. Non-Normal Interactions Create Socio-Economic Bubbles By Didier Sornette; Sandro Claudio Lera; Jianhong Lin; Ke Wu
  4. Una reconstrucción del debate marxista sobre la fuente del plusvalor extra que apropian los capitales innovadores By Gastón Caligaris
  5. The authors of economics journals revisited: Evidence from a large-scale replication of Hodgson & Rothman (1999) By Aistleitner, Matthias; Kapeller, Jakob; Kronberger, Dominik
  6. Board Structure Variety in Cooperatives By Hendrikse, G.W.J.; Nillson, J.
  7. Territorial anchoring and clustering of the social and solidarity-based economy. The South Aquitaine Territorial Cluster of Economic Cooperation in comparative perspective By Danièle Demoustier; Xabier Itçaina
  8. The political economy of moving up in global value chains: how Malaysia added value to its natural resources through industrial policy By Lebdioui, Amir
  9. Growing Differently: A Structural Classification for European NUTS-3 Regions By Jan Weber, Jan Schulz
  10. La transformación de valores en precios de producción: una contrastación empírica para el sistema capitalista By Esteban Ezequiel Maito
  11. Multi-Asset Bubbles Equilibrium Price Dynamics By Francesco Cordoni
  12. Historical prevalence of infectious diseases and gender equality in 122 countries By Omang Ombolo Messono; Simplice A. Asongu; Vanessa S. Tchamyou
  13. Recent Contributions to Theories of Discrimination By Paula Onuchic
  14. The territorial polarization of Social and Solidarity-based economy: political work, institutionalization, territorial regimes By Xabier Itçaina; Nadine Richez-Battesti
  15. Discovering the true Schumpeter: New insights into the finance and growth nexus By Bofinger, Peter; Geißendörfer, Lisa; Haas, Thomas; Mayer, Fabian
  16. Estimación de la función de bienestar social de Amartya Sen para América Latina By John Michael Riveros Gavilanes
  17. Sustainable food systems science based on physics’ principles By Hugo de Vries; Mechthild Donner; Monique Axelos
  18. Multinationals and Varieties of Capitalism: When U.S. Giants Stepped into the Swiss Coordinated Labor Market in the 1950s By Sabine Pitteloud

  1. By: Deng, W.; Hendrikse, G.W.J.
    Abstract: An agent-based model is developed to address the relationship between the ownership structure of an enterprise and the evolution of its product portfolio. The coherence and evolution of a product portfolio is operationalized by transition rules regarding the Moore environment. The distinguishing feature of a cooperative is the single origin constraint according to Cook (1997), which is modelled as a cooperative assigning an infinite lifetime to the first product in its product portfolio, while all other products have finite lifetime. All product of an investor-owned firm (IOF) are assumed to have finite lifetime. Our simulation results show that the single origin constraint pulls the activities of the cooperative in one cluster centered around the first activity, while the IOF’s product portfolio develops in a centrifugal way. The cooperative and the IOF are more diversified in a mixed duopoly.
    Keywords: Diversification, agent-based model, coherence, single origin constraint, cooperatives
    Date: 2022–05–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:eureri:137122&r=
  2. By: Jacques Fontanel (CESICE - Centre d'études sur la sécurité internationale et les coopérations européennes - UPMF - Université Pierre Mendès France - Grenoble 2 - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble)
    Abstract: Economic science is an ideology that consecrates the omnipotence of the market economy, the police state and the management, often short-term, of an economy condemned to perpetual economic growth. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the analyses of liberal economists are losing their bearings, because the basic assumptions no longer have any concrete application in the face of a profound economic and social crisis. The economy now reveals its eminently political character. The international, national and local public sectors are organizing the fight against the crisis of the market economy. The State then becomes the central actor in the management of the national economy, in connection with the other States. The profoundly political and social character of a globalized economy highlights the violence of relations between states and citizens and often between states themselves. This situation of collective dependence is likely to create many tensions, which may lead to new conflicts or wars between states.
    Abstract: La science économique est une idéologie qui consacre l'omnipotence de l'économie de marché, l'Etat gendarme et le management, souvent de court terme, d'une économie condamnée à la croissance économique perpétuelle. Avec la pandémie de Covid-19, les analyses des économistes libéraux perdent leurs repères, car les hypothèses de base n'ont plus d'application concrète pour faire face à une profonde crise économique et sociale. L'économie révèle désormais son caractère éminemment politique. Les secteurs publics internationaux, nationaux et locaux organisent la lutte contre la crise de l'économie de marché. L'État devient alors l'acteur central de la gestion de l'économie nationale, en lien avec les autres Etats. Le caractère profondément politique et social d'une économie mondialisée met en évidence la violence des relations entre les gouvernements et les citoyens et souvent entre les Etats eux-mêmes. Cette situation de dépendance collective est susceptible de créer de nombreuses tensions, lesquelles peuvent conduire à de nouveaux conflits ou guerres.
    Keywords: Economics,international organizations,multinational firms,financial capitalism,pandemic,social inequalities,economic warfare,military conflicts
    Date: 2022–01–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03654544&r=
  3. By: Didier Sornette (ETH Zürich - Department of Management, Technology, and Economics (D-MTEC); Swiss Finance Institute; Southern University of Science and Technology; Tokyo Institute of Technology); Sandro Claudio Lera (MIT Connection Science); Jianhong Lin (ETH Zurich); Ke Wu (ETH Zurich - Department of Management, Technology, and Economics (D-MTEC); Southern University of Science and Technology)
    Abstract: We present a generic new mechanism for the emergence of collective exuberance among interacting agents in a general class of Ising-like models that have a long history in social sciences and economics. The mechanism relies on the recognition that socioeconomic networks are intrinsically non-symmetric and hierarchically organized, which is represented as a non-normal adjacency matrix. Such non-normal networks lead to transient explosive growth (a “bubble”) in a generic domain of control parameters, in particular in the subcritical regime. Contrary to previous models, here the coordination of opinions and actions and the associated global macroscopic order do not require the fine-tuning close to a critical point. This is illustrated in the context of financial markets theoretically, numerically via agent-based simulations and empirically through the analysis of so-called meme stocks. It is shown that the size of the bubble is directly controlled through the Kreiss constant which measures the degree of non-normality in the network. This mapping improves conceptually and operationally on existing methods aimed at anticipating critical phase transitions, which do not take into consideration the ubiquitous non-normality of complex system dynamics. Our mechanism thus provides a general alternative to the previous understanding of instabilities in a large class of complex systems, ranging from ecological systems to social opinion dynamics and financial markets.
    Keywords: financial bubbles, non-normal matrices, social networks, sub-criticality, hierarchical networks, anticipating tipping points
    JEL: C02 C46 G01 G17
    Date: 2022–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2243&r=
  4. By: Gastón Caligaris
    Abstract: En el artículo se reconstruye y se muestra el debate marxista sobre la naturaleza y fuente del plusvalor extra apropiado por los capitales que introducen una innovación tecnológica. Hasta el presente, esta controversia ha sido tratada siempre como subsidiaria de otros debates. Sin embargo, su recurrencia y la evolución de los argumentos esgrimidos —en particular en las últimas décadas— muestran que tiene la entidad de un debate en sí mismo. Tras rastrear la presencia de esta controversia en distintos debates marxistas en contextos históricos e intelectuales diversos, se reúnen y sistematizan los argumentos presentados. En esencia, se identifican dos posiciones contrapuestas: por un lado, la que argumenta que el plusvalor extra es la representación del trabajo de los trabajadores empleados por el capital innovador; por otro lado, la que argumenta que se trata de la representación del trabajo empleado por otros capitales. En la medida en que los argumentos se apoyan en diversas lecturas de la obra de Marx, se dedica una sección a reunir y discutir la evidencia textual disponible. Finalmente, se realiza un breve balance crítico del debate en el que se concluye que la posición que argumenta en favor de transferencias de valor no implica recaer en una concepción naturalizadora del valor ni es incompatible con los fundamentos de la crítica marxiana de la economía política.
    Keywords: Plusvalor extra, Plusganancia, Trabajo potenciado, Transferencias de valor, Debate marxista, Teoría del valor.
    JEL: B14 B24 B51 O33 D46
    Date: 2021–07–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:020143&r=
  5. By: Aistleitner, Matthias; Kapeller, Jakob; Kronberger, Dominik
    Abstract: In this paper, we present results from of a large-scale replication of Hodgson and Rothman's (1999) seminal analysis of the institutional and geographical concentration of authors publishing in top economic journals. We analyze bibliometric data of more than 49.000 articles published in a set of 30 highly influential economic journals between 1990 and 2018. Based on a random sample of 3.253 authors, we further analyze the PhD-granting institutions of the authors under study to better scrutinize the claim of an institutional oligopoly. The findings confirm the long-term persistence of strong oligopolistic structures in terms of both, author affiliations as well as PhD-granting institutions.
    Keywords: sociology of economics,bibliometrics,concentration in science,replication study
    JEL: A14 B20
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifsowp:20&r=
  6. By: Hendrikse, G.W.J.; Nillson, J.
    Abstract: This paper investigates why agricultural cooperatives exhibit different principles for the allocation of decision rights between the Board of Directors and the Management. A mass-action interpretation of the Nash equilibrium in an investment proposal game shows that, on the one hand, board structure variety is an equilibrium outcome while, on the other, the Traditional model (the board has full control) and the Management model (the professional management makes up the Board of the cooperative society) perform better than the Corporation model (the Management is in full control of the cooperative firm).
    Keywords: Internal governance, Board of Directors, Management, decision rights, game theory
    Date: 2022–05–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ems:eureri:137123&r=
  7. By: Danièle Demoustier (IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes); Xabier Itçaina (CED - Centre Émile Durkheim - IEP Bordeaux - Sciences Po Bordeaux - Institut d'études politiques de Bordeaux - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: The article explores the conditions for the emergence and consolidation of dynamics of territorial cooperation in the social and solidarity-based economy (SSE), with the example of the French Territorial Clusters of Economic Cooperation (TCECs). From a theoretical perspective, the article draws from the economy of proximity and from the political sociology of the territorial regimes of the SSE. In that sense, the TCECs can be considered as territorial cooperative innovations which indicate, with varying degrees of success, SSE-oriented development paths for the territory. From an empirical standpoint, the trajectory of the South-Aquitaine TCEC, an intersectoral TCEC located in Tarnos (Landes), is compared with two TCECs from the former Rhônes-Alpes region: the Pôle Sud Archer at Romans (Drôme) and Domb'Innov at Trévoux (Ain). The comparison evidences a shared set of conditions favourable to the anchoring and the development of a territorial process of cooperation and clustering in the SSE: areas undergoing economic restructuring; a territorial memory of former successful cooperations; the key-role of a parent organization, be it associative or public, in the activation and hybridization of the territorial resources; a moving formal perimeter of the TCECs. Nevertheless, these TCECs differ substantially with respect to each other concerning the actors involved in the cooperation (associations, cooperatives, private for-profit companies, public authorities) and their priority activities (geared towards job-seekers, inhabitants, local companies or local authorities), the nature and intensity of cooperation between heterogeneous stakeholders, the articulation with territorial development policies, the impact of the SSE footprint on territorial development. The future of the PTCEs, however, remains uncertain and will depend upon state and local policy-making, the transformations of the territorial socio-economies, changes in the interlocking between the SSE and territorial development paths.
    Abstract: L'article interroge les conditions d'émergence et de consolidation de dynamiques de coopération territoriale autour de l'économie sociale et solidaire, avec l'exemple des Pôles Territoriaux de Coopération Économique (PTCE). La relecture de l'expérience du PTCE Sud Aquitaine au miroir de deux PTCE de l'ex-région Rhône-Alpes met en évidence un socle de conditions propices au développement d'un processus de coopération et de polarisation territoriale de l'Économie Sociale et solidaire (ESS) : des territoires en reconversion ou mutation socio-économiques, la mémoire de coordinations antérieures réussies, une structure mère à statut associatif ou public hybridant les ressources et la coopération avec les acteurs du territoire ; un périmètre d'appartenance aux contours mouvants. Les PTCE se distinguent en revanche par les choix des acteurs de la coopération, les modes de structuration et d'intensité de la coopération, le degré d'articulation aux politiques territoriales.
    Keywords: cooperation,social and solidarity-based economy,territorial clusters of economic cooperation,territorial resources,public policy,coopération,économie sociale et solidaire,Pôle territoriaux de coopération économique,ressources territoriales,action publique
    Date: 2022–02–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03639185&r=
  8. By: Lebdioui, Amir
    Abstract: This article investigates the role of industrial policy in promoting upgrading in commodity sectors by examining the case of the petroleum, rubber, and palm oil industries in Malaysia. By doing so, it aims to contribute to an emerging scholarship that bridges the developmental state and the global value chains literature. Several findings emerge from this study. First, linkages do not unfold through market forces alone. Commodity value addition processes can be hindered by a range of barriers, including power dynamics alongside global commodity chains. The existence of high barriers for linkage development in developing nations justifies the need of state interventions. Second, successful government interventions for commodity value addition in Malaysia have gone far beyond fixing market failures and a ‘facilitative’ role of the state. Instead, the productive capabilities necessary for value addition were accumulated through coherent industrial policies and the strategic orientation of rents towards achieving productivity gains and learning. Third, political considerations, such the base of the ruling coalition, the regime type (marked by both executive dominance and political competition), and the influence of the regional intellectual climate, are essential to understanding both the policy will and ability to pursue a developmental approach towards commodity value addition.
    Keywords: global value chains; heterodox economics; industrial policy; macroeconomic analyses of economic development; natural resources
    JEL: O11 O13 O14 O53 Q17
    Date: 2020–11–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107523&r=
  9. By: Jan Weber, Jan Schulz
    Abstract: We document two novel stylized facts on European integration and cohesion. First, we show that the interregional income distribution, measured as GDP per capita at the NUTS-3 level, is bimodal for all considered years. Second, we demonstrate that this mixture of two log-normal distributions provides an excellent fit for this interregional distribution in all considered years. We put forward two meso-level interpretations of these stylized facts, based on heterodox growth theory: The log-normality of the individual clusters hints at a stochastically multiplicative process, where growth is strongly path-dependent. This can be derived from maximum entropy considerations. However, the bimodality in the income distributions also implies two separate growth mechanisms. We show that the high-variance log-normal distribution governs the dynamics at both tails of the income distribution, which might be interpreted as the core and periphery and the low-variance variant the bulk of the distribution, thus interpretable as a semi-periphery.
    Keywords: Inequality; Europe; Maximum Entropy; Geometric Brownian Motion; Core; Periphery; Resilience JEL Classification: C46, D63, F15, F43, C14, C63
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2022_01&r=
  10. By: Esteban Ezequiel Maito
    Abstract: El objetivo del artículo es realizar una contrastación empírica global del llamado problema de la transformación a partir de los aportes recientes de Moseley. En función de ello, en la primera parte se realiza un desarrollo teórico inicial del valor y el precio de producción en consonancia con los desarrollos secuenciales y derivados que Marx realiza en El Capital. En la segunda parte, se realiza una contrastación empírica global tomando las diecisiete economías nacionales de mayor tamano y 54 ramas de producción. Los resultados muestran que, al nivel de abstracción del valor, la tasa de ganancia desciende conforme la composición orgánica se incrementa y el nivel de la tasa de plusvalía no se relaciona con el nivel de la composición. En términos de precios de mercado vigentes en la realidad concreta —por el contrario—, la tasa de ganancia carece de asociación con la composición orgánica, nivelándose en torno a la tendencia establecida por los precios de producción marxianos mediante una fuerte correlación positiva entre tasa de plusvalía a precios de mercado y composición orgánica tal como lo establece la teoría marxiana.
    Keywords: precios de producción, tasa de ganancia, tasa de plusvalía, valor, composición orgánica del capital, economía mundial.
    JEL: B24 E11 E20 F01 P10
    Date: 2021–07–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:020142&r=
  11. By: Francesco Cordoni
    Abstract: We investigate the formation of price-bubble and crash process from a theoretical perspective in a two-asset equilibrium model. Sufficient and necessary conditions are derived for the existence of average equilibrium price dynamics of different agent-based models, where agents are distinguished in terms of factor and investment trading strategies. In line with experimental results, we show that assets with a positive average dividend, i.e., with a strictly declining fundamental value, display at the equilibrium price the typical hump-shaped bubble observed in experimental markets. Moreover, we analyse a misvaluation effect in the asset with a constant fundamental value, triggered by the other asset that displays a price bubble shape when a sharp price decline is exhibited at the end of the market.
    Date: 2022–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2206.01468&r=
  12. By: Omang Ombolo Messono (University of Douala, Douala, Cameroon); Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé, Cameroon); Vanessa S. Tchamyou (Yaoundé, Cameroon)
    Abstract: This study examines the effects of the historical prevalence of infectious diseases on contemporary gender equality. Previous studies reveal the persistence of the effects of historical diseases on innovation, through the channel of culture. Drawing on the Parasite-Stress Theory, we propose a framework which argues that historical prevalence of infectious disease reduces contemporary gender equality. Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) in a cross-section with data from 122 countries between 2000 and 2021, we provide support for the underlying hypothesis. Past diseases reduce gender equality both directly and indirectly. The strongest indirect effects occur through innovation output. Gender equality analysis may take these findings into account and incorporate disease pathogens into the design of international social policy.
    Keywords: infectious diseases; gender equality; economic development
    JEL: B15 B40 B54 I31 J24
    Date: 2022–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:22/027&r=
  13. By: Paula Onuchic
    Abstract: This paper surveys the literature on theories of discrimination, focusing mainly on new contributions. Recent theories expand on the traditional taste-based and statistical discrimination frameworks by considering specific features of learning and signaling environments, often using novel information- and mechanism-design language; analyzing learning and decision making by algorithms; and introducing agents with behavioral biases and misspecified beliefs. This survey also attempts to narrow the gap between the economic perspective on "theories of discrimination" and the broader study of discrimination in the social science literature. In that respect, I first contribute by identifying a class of models of discriminatory institutions, made up of theories of discriminatory social norms and discriminatory institutional design. Second, I discuss the classification of discrimination as direct or systemic, and compare it to previous notions of discrimination in the economic literature.
    Date: 2022–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2205.05994&r=
  14. By: Xabier Itçaina (CED - Centre Émile Durkheim - IEP Bordeaux - Sciences Po Bordeaux - Institut d'études politiques de Bordeaux - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nadine Richez-Battesti (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: Le présent dossier consacré aux polarisations territoriales de l'économie sociale et solidaire (ESS) entend témoigner d'un double renouvellement de la recherche, qu'il s'agisse d'un programme d'investigation généraliste sur les articulations entre ESS et territoire ou du développement d'analyses spécifiquement consacrées à l'émergence de pôles territoriaux d'ESS. En publiant ce dossier dans la Revue d'Économie Régionale et Urbaine, nous entendons contribuer à désenclaver les études sur l'ESS en les inscrivant à l'horizon de la communauté élargie des analyses de l'économie territoriale, dans une perspective résolument interdisciplinaire.
    Keywords: institutionnalisation,travail politique,polarisations territoriales,économie sociale et solidaire,régimes territoriaux
    Date: 2022–02–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03657412&r=
  15. By: Bofinger, Peter; Geißendörfer, Lisa; Haas, Thomas; Mayer, Fabian
    Abstract: Joseph A. Schumpeter is one of the most famous economists of the 20th century and the 'patron saint' of the finance and growth literature. We have discovered that the prevailing literature has, however, misinterpreted Schumpeter, which leads to puzzling empirical results and difficulties in explaining even fundamental relationships. We argue that this is due to a misrepresentation of the role of banks and liquidity creation and the role of household saving. After a critical discussion of the literature, we provide our own empirical analysis using a panel of 43 countries to explore the relationships between the important variables of the finance and growth literature. Our empirical analysis above all supports Schumpeter's view that credit growth supports GDP growth while saving is irrelevant for credit growth and GDP growth. In sum, a correct interpretation of Schumpeter helps to overcome the theoretical and empirical challenges which confront the prevailing literature.
    Keywords: Finance-growth nexus,Finance,Financial development,Economic growth,Economic development,Financial intermediation,Bank credit,Liquidity creation,Saving
    JEL: B20 B22 C10 E44 F30 F43 G21 O11 O16 O4
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wuewep:102&r=
  16. By: John Michael Riveros Gavilanes
    Abstract: El presente artículo realiza una serie de aproximaciones empíricas sobre la formulación teórica de la función de bienestar social de Sen (1974), aplicadas al contexto latinoamericano entre 1995 y 2018, para establecer las tendencias de bienestar social en el periodo de análisis. Las estimaciones involucran la formulación original de Sen y su versión generalizada propuesta por Mukhopadhaya (2003a; 2003b). El artículo contribuye —igualmente— a la exploración de las relaciones de largo plazo entre el bienestar, la desigualdad y el ingreso a través del análisis de cointegración de datos de panel. Los resultados indican la existencia de relaciones de largo plazo entre estas variables, una elasticidad ligeramente mayor sobre el bienestar desde la distribución del ingreso que desde el crecimiento económico, mientras que en el corto plazo el bienestar solamente es explicado a través de este último. Finalmente, para los países latinoamericanos se establece su posicionamiento a partir de los niveles de bienestar. Las predicciones del modelo econométrico planteado coinciden —en términos de comportamiento y posición comparativa del bienestar social entre países en relación— con la estimación del planteamiento original de Sen aplicado a América Latina.
    Keywords: Bienestar, Desigualdad, Crecimiento, Ingreso, América Latina.
    Date: 2021–07–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:020137&r=
  17. By: Hugo de Vries (UMR IATE - Ingénierie des Agro-polymères et Technologies Émergentes - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - UM - Université de Montpellier - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Mechthild Donner (UMR MoISA - Montpellier Interdisciplinary center on Sustainable Agri-food systems (Social and nutritional sciences) - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Monique Axelos (INRAE - TRANSFORM Division - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)
    Abstract: Background In Europe, the Farm to Fork Strategy provides ambitions for sustainable and circular food systems. However, what are the driving and uniting forces that keep systems sustainable? Scope and approach First, food systems are regarded as open thermodynamic systems, fuelled by solar energy, with seven building blocks: players, pieces, moves, playing fields, rules, wins, and time. Second, sustainable food systems are complex adaptive systems evolving in a melting zone, or safe and just operating space, between frozen states and chaos. Third, players (actors) and pieces (resources and products) are bound by 4 fundamental forces, as in physics, namely the strong, weak, electromagnetic energy, and gravitation forces. Key findings and conclusions A physics-based first-order approximation concept of sustainable food systems permits formulating relevant, future Food Science and Technology Developments. A network of food actors re-orient single food chains towards systems of diverse food products, resources, and diets. Their features are multi-functionality, resilience, adaptability, temporal and spatial flexibility regarding food handling. Their pathways are characterized by balancing patterns between frozen states and chaos, and not endless growth curves.
    Keywords: Sustainability,food systems,conceptual framework,physics principle,food science and technology
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03629092&r=
  18. By: Sabine Pitteloud (Harvard Business School, General Management Unit)
    Abstract: This working paper investigates unintended consequences of U.S. FDI in Switzerland in the 1950s-1960s: the increased competition that U.S. firms generated within the national labor market and the challenge their hiring practices constituted for the institutional settings in which labor relations were embedded. It therefore contributes to two bodies of literature: one that deals with the arrival of U.S. firms in Europe after 1945 and another that tackles the contribution of business history to the variety of capitalism (VOC) scholarship.
    Keywords: multinationals; capitalism; business & government relations; foreign direct investment; immigration policy; history; Switzerland; Americanization; R&D; labor history; labor market institutions; tax havens; USA; business interest association; lobbying;
    Date: 2022–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:22-075&r=

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