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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2026–02–09
thirteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Gyun Cheol Gu |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes neoclassical reactions to Gardiner Means's administered price thesis during 1980-2000. It shows that his original idea has been continuously denied by mainstream economists. At the same time, it has been transformed through a multiplicity of rationalization processes into one or another bastardized form. However, their attempts to deny and/or rationalize the thesis are unsuccessful as their sanitized versions of Means’s theory turn out to be self-contradictory in the neoclassical framework. |
| Keywords: | Gardiner Means, Price rigidity, Administered price |
| JEL: | B21 B50 D43 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2603 |
| By: | Costas Lapavitsas (Department of Economics, SOAS University of London. Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK) |
| Abstract: | Contemporary imperialism is a hierarchical regime of global accumulation enforcing exploitation and subordination without colonial territories. It rests on the structural pairing of internationalised productive capital (multinational-enterprise-led production chains) with globalised financial capital, articulated through the dollar as world money. The article shows that the decisive hinge of domination lies in the monetary hierarchy itself, which became unmistakable after the Great Crisis of 2007–09 as the financialisation of capitalism shifted into a new phase – Financialisation Mark II. Balance-sheet discipline, hierarchical liquidity allocation by the Federal Reserve, payment system control, sanctions, and collateral exactions now function alongside territorial coercion as mechanisms of surplus transfer and crisis adjustment, with monetary instruments predominating at critical moments. Absent a rival world money, productive ascent by peripheral challengers cannot dislodge US hegemony prolonging a coercive interregnum and raising the risk of world war. |
| Keywords: | Contemporary imperialism, Financialisation Mark II, Dollar hegemony, Surplus transfer coercion |
| JEL: | E42 F02 F51 F65 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:soa:wpaper:272 |
| By: | Jose Luis Oreiro |
| Abstract: | This article presents a dynamic model for determining the level of output, employment, capital stock, real wage, investment, marginal capital efficiency and the capital-output/capacity utilization relationship. Thus, initially, the article develops the short-period solution of the model, in which the capital stock is kept constant. In short-period equilibrium, the endogenous variables are the level of production, the level of employment, the real wage rate, and the general price level. In short-period equilibrium there is no mechanism that can ensure that all workers who wish to work at market wages will be able to find employment. Subsequently, the model is extended to consider the effects of the investment made in each short-period on the capital stock of the subsequent period and, therefore, on the initial conditions of the subsequent short-period. After presenting the structure of the extended model, it is calculated its steady-state solution. It is show that both employment and capacity utilization are below the full employment levels in the steady state. Finally, a new extension of the model it is presented in which monetary wages are not constant, but react to prevailing conditions in the labour market, being flexible. It will be shown that wage flexibility is incapable of creating a convergence to an equilibrium position with full employment because of the negligible effect such flexibility has on firms planned investment. |
| Keywords: | John Maynard Keynes, General Theory, Monetary Production Economies, Macroeconomic Dynamics |
| JEL: | B31 E10 E12 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2602 |
| By: | Ezgi B. Unsal (Department of Economics, SOAS University of London. Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK) |
| Abstract: | This paper is an exploration of housing financialisation by drawing upon the productive dynamics of the housebuilding industry. Housing financialisation literature has two distinct branches, one focusing on the macroeconomic mechanisms through which the imbalances in the housing market could reflect deeper macroeconomic fragilities. The other branch puts the emphasis on the commodification of housing as a commodity, mostly due to the withdrawal of the state as a provisioner. This study bridges the gap between these two literatures on housing financialisation by introducing the productive dynamics of the housebuilding industry itself as an explanatory factor, which has not been addressed by either of those literatures. It has two distinct but interrelated contributions. First, it provides a case that can demonstrate the various ways in which the commodification of housing can take place without necessarily the withdrawal of the state by using Turkey as an example. Second, by showing how this development took place in the context of public land availability to accommodate increasing supply and the sectoral interlinkages with the more “productive†energy sector, it explains why the disruptive macroeconomic effects of that strategy could be delayed for a prolonged period. |
| Keywords: | Financialisation in emerging economies, Political economy of Turkey, Asset price inflation, Housing sector, Energy sector |
| JEL: | R31 P25 B50 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:soa:wpaper:271 |
| By: | Patel, Krish Chetan |
| Abstract: | Problems such as persistent inequality, institutional decay, performative governance, and large scale economic costs from global conflicts suggest a deeper structural flaw within the economic reasoning itself, one that cannot be adequately explained by technical inefficiencies or policy errors alone. This paper conceptualizes miseconomics as the practice of conducting economic activity that generates cumulative social harm through normalized societal losses, and misaligned incentives that erode moral responsibility while remaining internally consistent within an institutional framework. Drawing on classical moral philosophy, normative economic critiques, and cases from governance failures across multiple political systems, the study analyses moral entropy to describe a pattern of progressive institutional disorder. Governmental failure is examined through the conceptual framework of Lazeez Fair governance, wherein symbolic, performative, and indulgent interventions substitute substantive reform, allowing dysfunction to persist despite visible action. The paper further illustrates these dynamics though global patterns of corruption, institutional capture, and the selected cases of proxy warfare, showing patterns through which costs appear externalized onto vulnerable populations while benefits accrue narrowly. It concludes that without a structural realignment of incentives and a reintegration of moral responsibility into mainstream economic thought and governance- stability, sustainability, and development- risk remaining structurally unattainable. The central claim is that economic failure is not primarily a shortage of analytical tools and normative ideologies, but a failure of moral alignment embedded within decision making systems. Recognizing and correcting miseconomics is therefore presented as a necessary condition for restoring coherence between economic theory, development of society, and human wellbeing. |
| Date: | 2026–02–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sdpn2_v1 |
| By: | Severin Hornung (University of Innsbruck, Department of Psychology, Innsbruck, Austria) |
| Abstract: | This brief narrative review traces the evolution of labor process analysis from its industrial inception to its current reinvigorated application to algorithmic management and platform work in the gig economy. Core assumptions and postulates of Labor Process Theory (LPT) as a long-standing critical framework to analyze work and employment are reviewed. A previously introduced taxonomy of distinct waves of LPT research is extended with regard to the growing number of studies on algorithmic management. Exemplary contributions to this emerging body of literature are reviewed. Relevant theoretical frameworks and approaches are suggested to complement the perspective of LPT. Declared outdated or obsolete at various points, LPT has proven resilient, reconstituting itself as a central framework to analyze new regimes of work in terms of hybridized techno-economic despotism and hegemonic biopolitical governance. In a reflexive socio-historical perspective, LPT reveals a dialectic process with fractals of labor control and valorization reappearing in different configurations. Transcending other approaches, the immanent critique of LPT provides a comprehensive picture of the dynamics and dysfunctions of the capitalist mode of production over time and possibly in the future. |
| Keywords: | labor process theory, critical structuralism, algorithmic management, platform work, techno-economic despotism, biopolitical governance, resistance |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:raiswp:0551 |
| By: | Kitamura, Kazuhito |
| Abstract: | This paper deepens the "Equilibrium Theory Endogenizing Imbalances" based on asset dynamics, as presented in the previous study (Kitamura, 2025), by incorporating concepts from thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. While the previous work proposed a model where imbalances are perpetuated through asset preference and capital diffusion, this study extends the framework into a model where "effective asset potential"—defined as the asset level divided by the rate of return on assets—acts as the driving force behind capital flows. It demonstrates a mechanism in which the capital efficiency of each nation significantly determines its economic trajectory. Through observations using multilateral data, this paper reveals that individual economies exist under a tension between "subjective equilibrium, " aimed at utility maximization, and the "pressure of entropy increase" inherent in asset dynamics. Consequently, the global economy has polarized into "self-organizing economies" that concentrate and accumulate capital, and "diffusive economies" that primarily disperse and dissipate capital. This paper presents a novel perspective that views the global economy as a "dissipative structure" maintained through the interdependence of these distinct phases. Based on this analysis, the paper argues that for an economic system to remain sustainable, it is essential to involve maintaining the gradient of asset potential within the system by promoting innovation and eliminating "stagnation" through redistribution policies. Ultimately, this paper proposes that what economics terms "equilibrium" is equivalent to "thermal death" in physics; therefore, the goal of economics should be the avoidance rather than the realization of such a state, making the perspective of "entropy management" indispensable. |
| Date: | 2026–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:zah6e_v1 |
| By: | Li Tuobang |
| Abstract: | This paper constructs a multilayer recursive game model to demonstrate that in a rule vacuum environment, hierarchical predatory structures inevitably collapse into a monolithic political strongman system due to the conflict between exponentially growing rent dissipation and the rigidity of bottom-level survival constraints. We propose that the rise of a monolithic political strongman is essentially an "algorithmic entropy reduction" achieved through forceful means by the system to counteract the "informational entropy increase" generated by multilayer agency. However, the order gained at the expense of social complexity results in the stagnation of social evolutionary functions. |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2601.13544 |
| By: | Lacchè, Alessio |
| Abstract: | This dissertation investigates how capitalist globalisation undermines traditional local knowledge systems, focusing on the Indian ghani, an ancient artisanal method of producing edible oil. The decline of this practice is analysed within the broader context of Western-driven development, agri-food industrialisation, and liberalisation of the edible oil sector. The study examines epistemological tensions between traditional and modern knowledge, the sociocultural and economic significance of the ghani, and the extent to which artisanal practices can coexist with industrial production in contemporary India. A hybrid deductive–inductive approach was employed, combining a literature review with fieldwork conducted in India. This comprised two surveys allowing both quantitative and qualitative analysis of contributions from a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society, ghani workers, NGOs, industry representatives, and academics. Findings reveal declining visibility and practical knowledge of the ghani, yet also a strong sociocultural resonance. This paradox reveals a fading practice that continues to embody memory, identity, and resistance to the homogenisation of global models. Economically, small producers face severe disadvantages in competing with industrial plants and cheap imports, while niche markets provide only limited opportunities for survival. The analysis shows how industrial and policy frameworks structurally marginalise artisans, relegating them to peripheral or subordinated roles, while simultaneously rebranding elements of their cultural value for urban elite markets. This process of “eliticisation” risks detaching artisanal production from its community base, transforming a once accessible tradition into a niche commodity. The study concludes that the decline of the ghani is emblematic of wider processes of epistemic injustice, whereby capitalist globalisation privileges industrial efficiency and consumerist appropriation over cultural continuity, social equity, and ecological sustainability. It calls for a reimagined food system in which artisanal and industrial modes of production are integrated on more equitable terms. Such an approach would recognise the cultural and ecological contributions of traditional practices while harnessing the capacities of modern industry, generating hybrid models that are both more socially just and environmentally resilient. Safeguarding institutions like the ghani is thus not a nostalgic exercise but a vital step towards building plural, inclusive, and sustainable futures. |
| Date: | 2026–02–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:th65d_v1 |
| By: | Marcus Vinicius de Freitas |
| Abstract: | This Policy Paper analyses the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) through the critical lens of technological colonialism. It argues that the fusion of physical, digital, and biological technologies is not merely a technical phenomenon but a civilizational shift reshaping the foundations of global power. The article traces a historical continuum from previous industrial revolutions, demonstrating how patterns of inequality and extraction persist, now transposed into the digital realm. In this new paradigm, the “haves” of capital, data, and algorithms consolidate an invisible dominion, whilst the “have-nots”—particularly in the Global South—are relegated to the role of data producers, subjected to an algorithmic dependence that threatens their sovereignty. The Paper proposes an architecture for a new digital social contract grounded in equity, ethics, and empowerment. Urging immediate action, it advocates a “Digital Bretton Woods”—a new multilateral pact to govern data and artificial intelligence (AI) as global public goods, drawing inspiration from the Chinese model of technological sovereignty while critiquing outdated global governance structures. The conclusion underscores that the ultimate challenge of the 4IR is not technological but philosophical: to redefine progress in terms of human dignity and to reassert humanity's moral authority over its own creations. The true landmark of this revolution will not be the intelligence of machines, but the wisdom of society in guiding them. This redefinition is not merely a suggestion, but an ethical imperative in the face of the 4IR. |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pp41_25 |
| By: | Brandão, Tiago |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the historical and institutional evolution of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policies in Portugal, focusing on their continuities, ruptures, and especially their transition into the 21st century. It analyses the current characteristics of these policies —priorities, goals, instruments, and investments— in light of their historical trajectories. The central hypothesis is that technocratic management logics continue to shape public STI policies, expressed through the consolidation of a technocratic bureaucracy and the growing dominance of the innovation agenda as the main organizing principle of the system. Using a qualitative methodology, the paper combines historiographical review, documentary analysis (laws, programmes, and national plans), and statistical data on science and technology. Through a rigorous political-institutional reconstruction, it aims to understand the consolidation process of the Portuguese STI system in a country located on the periphery of the EU and the semi-periphery of the world system. The paper argues that the technocratic hegemony and the pro-innovation orientation are key to understanding both the advances and the structural limitations of the Portuguese case. |
| Date: | 2026–02–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:unrt3_v1 |
| By: | Marcus Vinicius de Freitas |
| Abstract: | This policy paper examines digital colonialism as a defining structural challenge of the twenty-first century and argues for the urgent pursuit of digital sovereignty in the Global South. While digitalization holds immense potential to foster inclusion and bridge development gaps, current dynamics reproduce historical patterns of dependency: data is extracted from Southern populations, routed through infrastructures owned by Northern corporations, processed by algorithms trained on foreign datasets, and monetized abroad. These asymmetries in infrastructure, knowledge, and economic power entrench global hierarchies, undermining sovereignty and perpetuating inequality. The analysis situates digital dependency within broader theoretical frameworks, including dependency theory and surveillance capitalism, showing how informational empires now shape behavior, politics, and markets in ways that compromise autonomy. Case studies from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East illustrate both vulnerabilities and opportunities—from Kenya’s M-Pesa and Brazil’s PIX to India’s UPI and South Africa’s POPIA. The paper concludes by advancing a normative agenda for a just digital order, centered on regional cooperation and investment in indigenous infrastructures. It highlights the need to safeguard community data rights and proposes the convening of a Digital Bandung as crucial steps in the journey of the Global South from digital consumer to digital co-author. Taken together, they will help ensure dignity, autonomy, and multipolarity in the digital age. |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ocp:rpaeco:pp38_25 |
| By: | Constance Frohly; Roberto Galbiati; Emeric Henry; Nicolas Jacquemet (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Moral reminders, also referred to as moral appeals or moral nudges, are widely used by governments, companies, and NGOs to promote pro-social behavior. These appeals function by either increasing the salience of moral concerns or the cost of diverting attention away from relevant information on payoffs or social norms. Drawing on over 400 studies across psychology, sociology, management and economics, we present a meta-analysis of their effects. Our findings reveal that, on average, moral reminders are effective, with an effect size (Hedge's g) of 0.24 in a random-effects model, but with significant backfiring occurring in 12% of studies. We identify sources of heterogeneity based on disciplinary focus and design choices. Crucially, we introduce a taxonomy of moral reminders: we distinguish those that provide information on consequences, those that highlight descriptive or injunctive norms, and those that prime moral awareness. Our analysis shows that all of these instruments are effective, particularly those providing information on consequences, whereas information on injunctive norms is more likely to backfire. |
| Keywords: | Meta-analysis, Behavioral ethics, Moral reminders, Pro-social behavior |
| Date: | 2026–01–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-05456784 |