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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2025–06–16
fifteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Sandye Gloria (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France) |
| Abstract: | This article examines Menger's theory of money in the lens of the philosophical concept of emergence. While Menger's theory of the emergence of money is well known, the precise nature of this process has been relatively unexplored. The article begins by situating itself within philosophical debates to understand the meaning, scope, and implications of emergence. Section 2 demonstrates that the Mengerian approach is based on an ontology, epistemology, and methodology that differ from those of his contemporaries, particularly Walras. In this approach, the concept of emergence becomes legitimate and even attains the status of an epistemic concept. Finally, we categorise the type of emergence associated with the monetary phenomenon in light of the typology presented in the first section. As a result we argue that money is a weak case of diachronic and epistemological emergence involving a top-down, selective causal effect. |
| Keywords: | Emergence, Money, Menger, Complexity |
| JEL: | B13 B41 B53 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2025-24 |
| By: | Jean-Paul Daemen; Silvia Leoni |
| Abstract: | This paper employs agent-based modelling to explore the factors driving the high rate of tertiary education completion in the Netherlands. We examine the interplay of economic motivations, such as expected wages and financial constraints, alongside sociological and psychological influences, including peer effects, student disposition, personality, and geographic accessibility. Through simulations, we analyse the sustainability of these trends and evaluate the impact of educational policies, such as student grants and loans, on enrollment and borrowing behaviour among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, further considering implications for the Dutch labour market. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2505.01142 |
| By: | Lambert, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This research note/paper examines several factors that have been mentioned and debated as determinants of how Britain moves from feudalism to mercantilism and then to capitalism by way of agricultural and industrial innovations and also how it arrives at the cusp of the industrial revolution. Of special interest are somewhat recent conjectures of macroeconomic data, investment estimates, and data on horses, serfs, and slaves of previous centuries that perhaps can better contribute to and add some clarification to the debates over the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the transition from an early form a capitalism or mercantilism to the industrial revolution. The estimates, empirical notes, and exploratory analyses in this paper partially support the Brenner thesis or concept of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and also support the notion that the proceeds of slave sales and slave production provide a substantive portion of British investment amounts leading up to the industrial revolution of the 18th Century. The mainstream economic notions of property rights, thrift, free markets, and free trade are only part of the picture of how Britain achieves economic prominence in the 19th Century. Exploitation of people and animals play a very significant role that has been ignored or minimized in many history and economic history accounts. |
| Keywords: | Baran ratio, economic surplus, investment, slave trade, slavery, serfs, horses, Great Britain |
| JEL: | B51 B52 N13 N33 N44 |
| Date: | 2024–11–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124978 |
| By: | Davis, John B. (Department of Economics Marquette University); (Department of Economics Marquette University) |
| Abstract: | This paper, originally a presentation at the 2024 World Congress of Social Economics Summer School at University of Massachusetts-Boston, discusses how ethical values can be incorporated in empirical research. It identifies mainstream economics’ barriers to doing this, and shows they produce a view of the relationship between ethics and economics that excludes ethics from economics. Mainstream economics sees this relationship as interdisciplinary – an ethics and economics. I argue it should be seen as multidisciplinary – an ethics in economics. The mainstream regards ethical values as subjective assuming that there are no facts about ethical values. But there is considerable factual evidence about what people’s ethical values are. One influential source I review is the decades of accumulated survey research in the World Values Survey. The paper then discusses two ways researchers can incorporate evidence about values in their empirical work. First, drawing from Stratification economics, it shows how we can identify ethical values overlooked by the mainstream in discriminatory employment settings, and how this can stimulate search for new data and lead to new theoretical hypotheses. Second, it shows how experiments-based research can identify ethical values people employ in different market settings, in this example, those used to determine how people are willing to ration health care. The paper concludes with brief discussion of how, for a multidisciplinary ethics in economics, ethics can affect future economics. |
| Keywords: | ethics, economics, mainstream economics, World Values Survey, stratification economics, experimental research, future economics |
| JEL: | A12 A13 A23 B41 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2025-03 |
| By: | Kurz Heinz D.; Strohmaier Rita; Knell Mark |
| Abstract: | Technological change, an overwhelming fact in recent socioeconomic history, involves, as Joseph A. Schumpeter famously put it, âcreative destructionâ on a large scale: it gives rise to new goods, production methods, firms, organisations, and jobs, while rendering some received ones obsolete. Its impact extends beyond the economy and affects society, culture, politics, and the mind-set of people. While it allows solving certain problems, it causes new ones, inducing further technological change. Against this background, the paper attempts to provide a detailed, yet concise exploration of the historical evolution and measurement of technological change in economics. It touches upon various questions that have been raised since Adam Smith and by economic and social theorists after him until today living through several waves of new technologies. These questions include: (1) Which concepts and theories did the leading authors elaborate to describe and analyse the various forms of technological progress they observed? (2) Did they think that different forms of technological progress requested the elaboration of different concepts and theories â horses for courses, so to speak? (3) How do different forms of technological progress affect and are shaped by various strata and classes of society? Issues such as these have become particularly crucial in the context of the digitisation of the economy and the widespread use of AI. Finally, the paper explores the impact of emerging technologies on the established theoretical frameworks and empirical measurements of technological change, points to new measurements linked to the rise of these technologies, and evaluates their pros and cons vis-Ã -vis traditional approaches. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:laedte:202503 |
| By: | Crawford, Ben |
| Abstract: | This critical survey reviews long standing debates between the ‘entity’, ‘contractarian’ and ‘stakeholder’ theories of the corporation. These perspectives are shown to obscure the legal structuring power corporate law confers on the owners of capital, rewriting corporate property relations in terms of managerial interest intermediation, contractual voluntarism, or stakeholder ‘property’ rights, respectively. Marxist analysis and the perspective of workers and labour law are utilized to show the limitations of these debates and emphasize the constitutive role of class relations in corporate law. From this perspective, the dominant theories fail to deal with fundamental characteristics of the modern corporation: the shifting of risk, the exercise of control without liability, and patterns of hierarchy beyond the firm. New perspectives emerging from the ‘Law and Political Economy’ movement in the US, in particular Katherina Pistor’s analysis of the ways in which capital is ‘coded’ in law to the advantage of elites (The Code of Capital) are more promising. What Pistor brings out is twofold. Firstly, the critical role of private law rules in the core ‘modules’ which underpin capital. Secondly, the relative autonomy with which elites are able to utilize these rules to enhance and protect their wealth. Yet Pistor ignores the labour relationship and the class dimensions of the code of capital in her analysis. The survey concludes with reflections on the limits to legal reform of corporate law, and directions for future research bringing together analysis of the code of capital and Marxist perspectives. |
| JEL: | L20 L22 K31 |
| Date: | 2025–05–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128029 |
| By: | Byrialsen, Mikael Randrup; Valdecantos, Sebastián; Raza, Hamid; Laurentjoye, Thibault |
| Abstract: | With the important contribution of Marglin and Bhaduri different demand and growth regimes were identified, which inspired a strand of empirical research aiming to uncover the type of growth regime. Most of these studies can be framed into two methodological approaches: (i) a structural, and (ii) an aggregative approach. In this paper, we use a third approach where we exploit the advantages of the stock-flow consistent framework. We argue that using an empirical SFC model retains the advantages of the two more widely used approaches, while adding some novel features: (i) the endogenization of income distribution, which allows for a two-way relationship between demand and income shares, (ii) the consistent incorporation of stock variables in the estimation of the equations of aggregate demand components, and (iii) the inclusion of endogenous labor market dynamics in the analysis. To introduce these features, we build an empirical stock-flow consistent model for Denmark for the period 2005q1-2020q1. Our analysis suggests that demand can neither be categorically defined as wage-led nor profit-led, as the effects of a change in income distribution on the aggregate demand components cancel each other out. Results are more conclusive for capital accumulation, which is found to be profit-led. |
| Keywords: | Modelo de Crecimiento; Demanda; Modelo de Flujos y Stocks Consistentes; Dinamarca; |
| Date: | 2024–06–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:4307 |
| By: | Graña Colella, Santiago; Vernengo, Matías |
| Abstract: | Currency substitution defined as the use of foreign currency in the domestic economy is a relatively common phenomenon in developing countries. While mainstream economics has analyzed it in some detail, the same is not the case in heterodox economics. This paper proposes an analytical approach to evaluate the effects of currency substitution and its relationship with exchange rate dynamics; it provides an empirical investigation of orthodox and alternative views for the case of Argentina. The orthodox view emphasizes the role of fiscal deficits financed by monetary emissions, while alternative views emphasize the importance of external vulnerabilities, both associated with current and financial account deficits as the source of currency substitution. We find some support in favor of the alternative or heterodox perspective on currency substitution or dollarization. |
| Keywords: | Cambio de Monedas; Desarrollo Económico; Economía Heterodoxa; Argentina; 2003-2019; |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:4309 |
| By: | Islam, Asiya; Philip, Shannon |
| Abstract: | This article proposes the concept of ‘embodied acting’ to understand workers’ transformations of their appearances (clothes, makeup) and related behaviours (English speaking, eating out, dating) to create belonging in new service work in Global South contexts characterised by continuing social inequalities amid rapid socio-economic change. The concepts aesthetic labour, emotion work and acting at work, theorised from the Global North, do not account for the aspirational and contested nature of these transformations. Through ethnographic research with young women and men in Delhi, India, the article highlights the role of peer disciplining in translating embodied acting into belonging. While men have patriarchal peer support to realise body rules of service work, women’s embodied acting is intensely scrutinised, rendered hyper visible and delegitimised. This peer disciplining reproduces gender inequalities, negatively impacting women’s belonging at work. Through ethnographic insights into service work in the Global South, the article advances global sociologies of work. |
| Keywords: | acting; embodiment; gender; India; inequalities; service work |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–05–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127425 |
| By: | Nick Byrd |
| Abstract: | By late 20th century, the rationality wars had launched debates about the nature and norms of intuitive and reflective thinking. Those debates drew from mid-20th century ideas such as bounded rationality, which challenged more idealized notions of rationality observed since the 19th century. Now that 21st century cognitive scientists are applying the resulting dual process theories to artificial intelligence, it is time to dust off some lessons from this history. So this paper synthesizes old ideas with recent results from experiments on humans and machines. The result is Strategic Reflectivism, which takes the position that one key to intelligent systems (human or artificial) is pragmatic switching between intuitive and reflective inference to optimally fulfill competing goals. Strategic Reflectivism builds on American Pragmatism, transcends superficial indicators of reflective thinking such as model size or chains of thought, and becomes increasingly actionable as we learn more about the value of intuition and reflection. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2505.22987 |
| By: | Christian Callaghan |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces Experiential Matrix Theory (EMT), a general theory of growth, employment, and technological change for the age of artificial intelligence (AI). EMT redefines utility as the alignment between production and an evolving, infinite-dimensional matrix of human experiential needs, thereby extending classical utility frameworks and integrating ideas from the capabilities approach of Sen and Nussbaum into formal economic optimisation modelling. We model the economy as a dynamic control system in which AI collapses ideation and coordination costs, transforming production into a real-time vector of experience-aligned outputs. Under this structure, the production function becomes a continuously learning map from goods to experiential utility, and economic success is redefined as convergence toward an asymptotic utility frontier. Using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle in an infinite-dimensional setting, we derive conditions under which AI-aligned output paths are asymptotically optimal, and prove that unemployment is Pareto-inefficient wherever unmet needs and idle human capacities persist. On this foundation, we establish Alignment Economics as a new research field dedicated to understanding and designing economic systems in which technological, institutional, and ethical architectures co-evolve. EMT thereby reframes policy, welfare, and coordination as problems of dynamic alignment, not static allocation, and provides a mathematically defensible framework for realigning economic production with human flourishing. As ideation costs collapse and new experiential needs become addressable, EMT shows that economic growth can evolve into an inclusive, meaning-centred process -- formally grounded, ethically structured, and AI-enabled. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2505.19045 |
| By: | Halkos, George; Aslanidis, Panagiotis-Stavros |
| Abstract: | The present review aims to strengthen both the theoretical foundation and real-world relevance of environmental valuation methods, especially in regions marked by cultural diversity or spiritual significance. Its goal is to explore how embracing sociocultural pluralism can support more inclusive, meaningful, and accepted environmental decisions, encouraging deeper public engagement, emotional connection, and long-term care for nature. The novelty lies in integrating these qualitative dimensions into environmental valuation by monitoring 103 studies from Scopus and Web of Science databases in the period 2010-2025. The paper follows a structured path, it surveys key literature, outlines the chosen methodology, presents context-specific findings with the comparison of two distinct frameworks (sociocultural and economic), and reflects on implications for both policy and academic frameworks. It offers three main contributions: (i) it highlights the importance of integrating psychological and sociocultural elements into sustainable development framework; (ii) advocates the spiritual capital as a valuable assets through which ecosystems can be understood and supported based on services to ecosystems; and (iii) it demonstrates how values, norms, and perceptions can shape pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) and policy pathways for sustainable development. |
| Keywords: | environmental psychology; environmental sociology; environmental economics; sustainable consumer behaviour; sustainable development; ethics. |
| JEL: | D64 M14 Q01 Q50 Q51 Q58 Z1 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–06–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124961 |
| By: | Javdani, Mohsen (Simon Fraser University); Chang, Ha-Joon (SOAS University of London) |
| Abstract: | This study contributes to the growing debate over the narrow ideological discourse in economics education and calls for greater pluralism. Using a randomized controlled experiment with 2, 735 economics students from 10 countries, we examine how authority and ideological biases—shaped by mainstream training—affect students’ evaluations of economic statements. When source attributions are randomly switched from mainstream to non-mainstream or removed, agreement levels drop significantly, suggesting that students rely more on the perceived authority and ideological alignment of sources than on the content itself. These biases intensify with academic progression: PhD students show the strongest effects, despite being the most likely to claim they judge arguments on substance alone. Political orientation further amplifies these patterns, particularly among right-leaning students, and significant gender differences emerge, with male students showing stronger bias toward mainstream sources. Our findings highlight how ideology and authority shape economic training, limiting students' critical engagement and reinforcing a narrow intellectual framework. |
| Keywords: | economics education, economics students, authority bias, ideological bias, ideology, plurality in economics |
| JEL: | A11 A12 A13 C93 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17891 |
| By: | Castellacci, Fulvio |
| Abstract: | Innovation fosters economic growth and the long-run dynamics of national economies. However, recent literature shows that innovation is also a source of increasing income inequalities. Public policies face thus an important trade-off between efficiency and equity effects of innovation. What are the possible policy strategies to address this trade-off? The paper presents a model in which innovations can be developed by both private firms and public companies. Technological change increases the profit share in the long-run, exacerbating income inequalities between firms’ owners, employed workers, and the unemployed. I empirically calibrate the model for the US economy and carry out a simulation analysis to investigate the effects of different policies aimed at reducing the inequality effects of innovation. Specifically, the analysis compares two distinct policy strategies: one is based on a standard economic policy approach that increases taxes to finance welfare spending; the other is based on a new approach – the Entrepreneurial State – in which the profits of innovations developed by public R&D companies are used to finance welfare programs. The results point out the advantages and drawbacks of different strategies and show that the optimal policy strategy largely depends on the policy maker’s preferences regarding the income distribution. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; income inequalities; labor share; public policies; Entrepreneurial State; public R&D. |
| JEL: | O1 O30 O4 O40 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124900 |
| By: | Wallace P. Marcelino (UFPA); Adilson Giovanini (UDESC); Fabrício Missio (Cedeplar/UFMG); Frederico G. Jayme Jr (Cedeplar/UFMG) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to analyze the foreign trade of biodiversity products (BioTrade) from a Latin American structuralist perspective and propose economic policy recommendations. Latin America (LA) is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, which grants it a competitive advantage. Indicators reveal that the Center-Periphery relationship persists in manufacturing activities, modern services, and biodiversity-related trade. The primary reason for this is the historical lack of endogenous technological progress in LA countries, which limits the ability to harness economic opportunities. The principal economic policy recommendation is the formulation and implementation of an industrial policy that strategically leverages the region's biodiversity. |
| Keywords: | Economic Development; Structuralist Economics; Biodiversity |
| JEL: | O1 O4 L80 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td682 |