|
on Heterodox Microeconomics |
|
Issue of 2026–07–13
twenty-one papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Guichardaz Remy; Pénin Julien |
| Abstract: | In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter famously predicts the likely replacement of capitalism by socialism and claims that a socialist economy could be perfectly workable. While most commentators have interpreted the book as a neutral or even favorable assessment of socialism’s feasibility, a few of them have noted the ironic tone that pervades parts of the book. Yet, the implications of this irony for Schumpeter’s assessment of socialism remain largely unexplored. This article argues that Schumpeter’s apparent defense of socialism is best understood as a sustained ironic demonstration designed to expose the limits of socialist planning rather than to endorse its superiority over capitalism. Drawing on concepts that lie at the heart of Schumpeter’s theoretical framework, notably the distinction between growth and development, the opposition between perfect competition and plausible capitalism, and the central role of the entrepreneur in the emergence of novelty, we show that Schumpeter could not consistently maintain that a socialist economy would be capable of reproducing the developmental performance of capitalism. Behind an explicit but mostly ironic claim asserting the viability of socialism, CSD provides in fact a demonstration that socialism cannot match capitalism’s ability to generate the stream of discontinuous innovations that constitute economic development. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter, entrepreneur, capitalism, socialism, development, growth |
| JEL: | B15 B25 O3 P3 P5 P41 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-19 |
| By: | Akcay, Ümit; Hein, Eckhard |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews and systematizes the expanding literature on demand and growth regimes (DGRs) or growth models (GMs) in post-Keynesian economics (PKE), comparative (CPE) and international political economy (IPE) by organizing it across four analytically distinct but interconnected levels. The first level employs a national income and financial accounting (NIFA) approach, providing information on the sources and financing of demand and growth. The second level uses the Sraffian supermultiplier (SSM) as an example of theory-based growth de-composition to identify autonomous and induced components of long-run demand-led growth. The third level analyses growth drivers, including distributional dynamics, financial and commodity cycles, fiscal and monetary governance, and macroeconomic policy regimes. The fourth level addresses the political economy of DGRs and GMs by linking dominant social blocs (DSBs), growth coalitions and developmental alliances to the formulation of growth strategies. The paper argues that these four levels of analysis form a coherent framework: NIFA and SSM approaches provide the macroeconomic foundations of DGRs or GMs; growth drivers explain their dynamics; and political economy analysis specifies how they are politically stabilized, contested and transformed. International embeddedness cuts across all four levels through monetary and financial hierarchies, countries' positions in the global division of labour, global value chains, trade structures and hence external constraints. |
| Keywords: | Demand and growth regimes, comparative political economy, policy space, international political economy |
| JEL: | B50 E12 E60 F50 O11 P10 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:341642 |
| By: | Zaffari, Gabriel |
| Abstract: | This paper incorporates land and rents into demand-led growth theory, examining how a tripartite class structure - workers, capitalists, and landlords - shapes income distribution and accumulation. Within a one-sector economy with normal-cost pricing, we derive income shares under two contractual rent forms, fixed costs and tithes, and show that their distributional consequences differ qualitatively. For the Kaleckian closure, the introduction of landlords dissolves the binary wage-led versus profit-led regime taxonomy: rent-led growth e!ects emerge as a genuine possibility; multiple distributional effects can coexist; and the economy may be purely rent-led when landlords are sufficiently less thrifty than capitalists. For the Sraffian supermultiplier, distributional changes are confined to level effects on fully adjusted output, the wage-led effect is unconditional, and profit-led and tithe-led effects are mutually exclusive, a contrast arising from the absence of autonomous investment sensitivity to profitability. Finally, we derive minimal conditions under which land conservation is compatible with demand-led growth, and show that the simultaneous achievement of ecological limits, full employment, and balanced external accounts cannot be expected to arise from the normal functioning of the economy under either closure. |
| Keywords: | land rent, demand-led growth, income distribution, Kaleckian model, Sraffian supermultiplier, rent-led growth, ecological macroeconomics, absolute rent |
| JEL: | E11 E12 O44 Q15 Q57 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:341637 |
| By: | Julia Eder (Manufacturing Trade Union PRO-GE, Austria; Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | Europe is confronted with multiple crises which also affect Austrian industry. This chapter analyses the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Austrian manufacturing sector in face of the new challenges. Against this backdrop, we scrutinise Austria’s industrial policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, the twin transition, and to reinforcing geoeconomic competition. We are interested in how it (re-)shaped the prevailing industrial structure and to which extent did Austrian corporatism shape the outcomes. Theoretically, we draw on the Varieties of Capitalism approach to facilitate comparison with other countries. It classifies Austria as a coordinated market economy. Of all non-market institutions, Social Partnership had the most significant influence on industrial policy making. Methodologically, we draw on empirical data from official statistics and secondary literature to substantiate our thesis that Austrian neo-corporatism has produced ambiguous effects: it is characterised by the persistence of relatively solid neo-corporatist structures, which recently resorted to ‘crisis corporatism’ to combat dwindling price competitiveness of Austrian exports and backed the development of a new national industrial strategy. At the same time, the search for a broad societal compromise and a certain 'stickiness' of institutions impede to timely adapt in a more radical way to the changed circumstances. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:182 |
| By: | Motonori Ishii (Waseda University, Graduate School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret F. A. Hayek's theory of prices within the context of British classical economics (hereinafter referred to as "the Classical School"). Although Hayek hailed from the Austrian School, which was founded on a critique of the Classical School, he viewed modern economics—from the Marginal Revolution onward—as an economics in which subjectivism had been grafted onto the Classical School. In fact, Hayek reinterpreted the concept of the "natural price" in the Classical School—a price determined in light of social and historical circumstances and converging toward that level through competition. Hayek interpreted this as a system of negative feedback and recognized Smith as its pioneer. Hayek's interest lay in elucidating why markets move toward equilibrium even though people possess only fragmentary and unsystematized knowledge; he identified conventions—which stabilize people's expectations—as the key factor. Hayek defended the natural price as a price supported by convention, and in that sense, his theory of prices owes much to Smith's theory of the natural price. |
| Keywords: | Hayek, Classical Economics, Austrian School, Marginal Revolution, Natural Price |
| JEL: | B12 B13 B31 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wap:wpaper:2608 |
| By: | Eric Kemp-Benedict |
| Abstract: | The post-growth literature challenges macroeconomists to devise analytical frameworks targeting human well-being and environmental sustainability, rather than growth. This paper meets this challenge by offering a sub-model for intentional communities – that is, groups of people living together and sharing resources who associate with each other based on their explicit, shared values. The sub-model consists of demographic, stockflow consistent input-output (SFC-IO), and behavioural components. The components are constructed after a selective review of the literature on intentional communities. Among the most important behavioural relationships are the specifications for consumption and investment. Both because of sharing and because of sufficiency-oriented values, consumption per person in communities can be well below that in the broader economy and may grow much more slowly. Investment is guided by the need to cover expenditures and the desire to allocate some time towards shared income-generating activities. While intentional communities are home to a negligibly small number of people today, in a counterfactual future in which they become significant, their very different motivations for consuming and producing can influence macroeconomic trajectories. |
| Keywords: | ecological macroeconomics, post-growth, degrowth, community, stock-flow consistent, input-output, SFC-IO |
| JEL: | E12 I31 P00 Q57 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2616 |
| By: | Lukasz, Jasmin; Nikolaidi, Maria; Onaran, Özlem |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a conceptual framework for an integrated global, sectoral and gendered analysis of the macroeconomic and social dimensions of the green transition with a focus on three critical aspects. The first concerns the uneven global effects of the green transition. Due to differentiated sectoral structures and positions in the global financial architecture, the transition has highly uneven effects across countries: interconnected global production and financial networks can result in the green transition in the Global North having important adverse macrofinancial effects on Global South countries, particularly those reliant on fossil fuel exports, raising climate justice concerns. The second refers to the environmental footprint of green structural change that extends well beyond direct emissions: resource-intensive green activities, such as electric vehicle production, drive ecological degradation through supply chains in Global South producer countries and reinforce green extractivism, making adaptation and the protection of water, land, and biodiversity central for a just green transition. The third is related to the gendered effects of the transition, which can either intensify or reduce existing inequalities through the impact of the green transition on women’s paid and unpaid work. These effects diverge between North and South due to differences in labour informality, exposure to environmental degradation, and the gender composition of ‘green’, ‘fossil’, and ‘purple’ sectors. Drawing on post-Keynesian, ecological, and feminist macroeconomics, as well as the physical and monetary input-output approaches, the paper develops a framework that emphasises international and sectoral spillover effects, macrofinancial channels and the local-specific gendered effects of green policies through paid and unpaid work. Based on this framework, the paper outlines how the combined use of green and purple policies can reduce global, sectoral and gender inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Green Transition; green investment; global supply chains; gender inequality; macrofinancial effects; green extractivism |
| Date: | 2026–06–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gpe:wpaper:53899 |
| By: | Naoki Yoshihara; Roberto Veneziani |
| Abstract: | We analyse a general, dynamic neoclassical production economy. We show that any sequence of competitive equilibrium prices converges to a vector of production prices. Thus, far from being a special case, classical prices of production are the attractor of neoclassical equilibrium prices. Indeed, and this is a second insight, prices of production turn out to be the (unique) supporting price vector of the turnpike capital accumulation path. Finally, our results have some implications for theories of exploitation and class, and distributive justice more generally |
| Date: | 2026–06–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:toh:tergaa:499 |
| By: | Turan Yay (Yeditepe University, Turkey) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship among economics, strategic management, organizational studies, and economic sociology-four interconnected fields concerned with firms and organizations-from an interdisciplinary perspective. The argument is advanced that a descriptive approach, rather than a prescriptive one, more effectively illuminates their interactions. Recent natural and spontaneous interactions are highlighted as valuable for evaluating the effectiveness of interdisciplinary engagement. This perspective is grounded in three observations about major developments in these disciplines over the past fifty years. First, while all four fields focus on firms and organizations, they frequently operate in isolation despite overlapping interests. Second, the interactions among these disciplines should be analyzed with reference to the philosophical foundations of interdisciplinarity, particularly the ways in which disciplinary boundaries, methodological assumptions, and epistemological traditions shape knowledge production. Third, the study investigates the extent to which these interdisciplinary interactions contribute to the accumulation of knowledge. Ultimately, it is argued that adopting the complexity perspective is the most effective means of fostering interdisciplinary relationships, as it balances autonomy and collaboration, promotes pluralism, and supports authentic interdisciplinary work. |
| Keywords: | interdisciplinarity, scientific imperialism, complexity, firm theory, organizational theory, strategic management, economic sociology., L223, L1 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05495211 |
| By: | Ewan McGaughey |
| Abstract: | Are democracy and socialism compatible? Does democratic socialism work? And what is its relation to the law? This paper shows that democratic socialism, by whatever name, is the dominant political model in wealthy democracies, popular among voters, and the chief driver of human progress. It explains how democratic socialism was built through the understanding of capitalism’s failures, especially the shape-shifting legal forms of private property in the means of production, freedom of contract, and competitive corporations. It identifies the 3 core features of 21st century democratic socialism: more public and common ownership, economic democracy on a floor of social rights, and fair taxes. These policies have been spreading, are the prevailing practice in most wealthy countries, and are highly popular among voters. It is a myth that the rules of capitalism lead to more innovation, productivity, less waste, or are good for democracy. The evidence suggests the reverse is true. Democratic socialism is humanity's greatest hope. |
| Keywords: | Democracy, socialism, law, labour, public ownership, economic democracy, fair taxes, innovation, productivity |
| JEL: | K31 K10 K11 K20 K22 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp550 |
| By: | Puga-Gonzalez, Ivan (Norwegian Research Center (NORCE)); Soares, Marta Bruno; Falck, Vanja; Van Wolleghem, Pierre; Lima, Larissa Lopes; Shults, F. LeRon |
| Abstract: | This study examines the conditions under which climate information becomes usable within institutional networks. Although substantial efforts have been devoted to improving the production and dissemination of climate information, a persistent gap remains between information availability and its practical use in adaptation decision-making. Existing research has identified numerous barriers and enabling conditions affecting climate information use, but less attention has been given to how these factors interact within institutional networks to shape usability outcomes. To address this gap, we develop an empirically grounded agent-based model of climate information flow and usability based on the network of ICLEI Europe and its member municipalities. The model integrates three complementary empirical sources: survey data on information creation, request, sharing, and exchange; qualitative interviews examining how climate information is translated into institutional action; and secondary datasets used as proxy indicators for institutional, political, and contextual conditions. Together, these data inform both the structure of the network and the behavioural mechanisms governing information use. The model simulates the creation, exchange, and evaluation of climate information between municipalities and explores how institutional capacity, peer support, co-creation, and political barriers influence usability. Results show that information availability within the network is consistently high, with most information requests being fulfilled. However, information use remains comparatively low, revealing a persistent access–use gap. Sensitivity analyses indicate that usability is primarily shaped by accumulated experience, peer support, and political and institutional barriers. Strong peer networks and collaborative experience can substantially improve usability. Methodologically, the study demonstrates how survey data, interview findings, and proxy indicators can be systematically integrated into an agent-based modelling framework. Substantively, it highlights that improving adaptation outcomes requires greater attention to the conditions that enable information use, rather than focusing exclusively on increasing information provision. |
| Date: | 2026–06–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wjx7v_v1 |
| By: | Vassy Pierre Sangaré (Université Alassane ouattara de, Université Alassane Ouattara [Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire]) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the relationship between economic growth and social well-being within the WAEMU area to assess the capacity of growth to generate genuine human and social progress. The study is based on a theoretical and conceptual approach, grounded in a constructivist epistemological stance and employing deductive reasoning through a critical review of economic and institutional literature. The findings reveal that growth in WAEMU remains essentially quantitative and unequal, despite certain improvements in social well-being. The analysis emphasizes the need to strengthen social and institutional policies, particularly through investment in human capital, the promotion of decent employment, the reduction of inequalities, and the inclusion of vulnerable groups. These measures are deemed essential to transform economic dynamics into genuine human and social progress, thereby contributing to more inclusive and sustainable growth. |
| Abstract: | Cet article examine la relation entre la croissance économique et le bien-être social dans l'espace de l'UEMOA, afin d'évaluer la capacité de la croissance à générer un véritable progrès humain et social. L'étude repose sur une approche théorique et conceptuelle, inscrite dans un positionnement épistémologique constructiviste et mobilisant un raisonnement déductif à partir d'une revue critique de la littérature économique et institutionnelle. Les résultats montrent que la croissance dans l'UEMOA demeure essentiellement quantitative et inégalitaire, malgré certaines avancées en matière de bien-être. L'analyse souligne la nécessité de renforcer les politiques sociales et institutionnelles, notamment par l'investissement dans le capital humain, la promotion d'emplois décents, la réduction des inégalités et l'inclusion des groupes vulnérables. Ces mesures apparaissent essentielles pour transformer la dynamique économique en un véritable progrès social et humain, contribuant ainsi à une croissance plus inclusive et durable. Déclaration de divulgation : L'auteur n'a pas connaissance de quelconque financement qui pourrait affecter l'objectivité de cette étude. |
| Keywords: | African Scientific Journal, WAEMU, Well-Being, Human and Social Dimensions, Inclusive Growth, UEMOA, bien-être, dimension humaine et sociale, Croissance inclusive |
| Date: | 2026–03–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05578415 |
| By: | Bougioukos, Giorgos; Papaevangelou, Charis; Siapera, Eugenia |
| Abstract: | The EU has called the ‘twin transition’ a win-win strategy for tackling climate change and strengthening its digital autonomy amid geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions. However, high-level policy discourse can hide the material frictions, extractive dynamics, and emerging dependencies associated with implementing this agenda. The paper examines Western Macedonia, a region historically defined by lignite extraction, now transforming into Greece’s post-lignite development hub. Drawing on critical data centre studies and critical political economy scholarship, we trace the emergence of a twin transition industrial complex (TTIC), that is a system of a parallel and interlinked development of renewables and large-scale, often AI-ready data centres. Methodologically, the study combines 12 semi-structured interviews with locals, on-site visits, as well as an analysis of relevant policy and corporate communication documents. We discern four key findings: A) Western Macedonia is transformed into a hub for renewable energy and data centres, which will help Greece integrate into the global AI value chain. B) However, this shift is causing the displacement of locals, especially young people, and creating a ‘limbo’ situation that will lead to social and ecological exhaustion. C) The green transition is also creating ‘green enclosures’ and transforming the landscape by converting land, including historically publicly funded PPC land, into assets for a more exclusionary and extractive digital transformation. D) Despite official narratives portraying Western Macedonia as a ‘Greek Silicon Valley’, locals are excluded from decision-making and governance processes, leading to disillusionment and a sense of hopelessness for the future. Our main contribution is the outlining of an emerging twin transition industrial complex, wherein the twin transition and digital transformation are planned and materialised by state and (Big Tech) capitalist actors according to the imperatives of the AI industry’s global value chains at the expense of local communities and ecosystems. |
| Date: | 2026–06–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:fwynt_v1 |
| By: | Alex Amiotte Suchet (IDHES - Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l'Économie et de la Société - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - ENS Paris Saclay - Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay) |
| Abstract: | Contemporary economic policies have become increasingly reliant on lending and guarantee instruments managed by public banks. Does this trend signal a return of the state, or rather the financialisation of public action? This article explores the long- term institutional transformations of public SME financing in France, analysing the evolving roles of finance, businesses and the state. Drawing on historical institutionalism and the political economy of financialisation, it examines both the creation and the gradual financialisation of the institutional arrangement governing public SME financing. Based on extensive sources – 108 archive boxes, additional historical materials, and ten semi-structured interviews – the study traces the emergence of a financialised institutional arrangement that has underpinned French economic policy since the late 1990s. Initially centred on public guarantees developed in the interwar period, the introduction of public loans in the 1980s produced a fragile arrangement that ultimately facilitated financialisation through the integration of financial devices and actors. This periodisation based on valuation powers helps to explain the recent conjunction of renewed public intervention and the consolidation of financialisation dynamics. |
| Abstract: | Les politiques économiques contemporaines s'appuient de plus en plus sur des instruments de crédit et de garantie gérés par les banques publiques. Cette tendance marque-t-elle un retour de l'État ou plutôt la financiarisation des politiques publiques ? Cet article explore le changement institutionnel de long terme du financement public des PME en France, en analysant l'évolution des rôles respectifs de la finance, des entreprises et de l'État. Avec l'institutionnalisme historique et l'économie politique de la financiarisation, il étudie à la fois la création et la financiarisation progressive de l'arrangement institutionnel régissant le financement public des PME. S'appuyant sur des sources historiques – 108 boîtes d'archives, des documents historiques supplémentaires et dix entretiens semi-structurés –, l'enquête retrace l'émergence d'un dispositif institutionnel financiarisé qui sous-tend la politique économique française depuis la fin des années 1990. Initialement centré sur les garanties publiques mises en place pendant l'entre-deux-guerres, l'introduction des prêts publics dans les années 1980 a donné naissance à un arrangement fragile qui a finalement facilité la financiarisation par l'intégration de dispositifs et d'acteurs financiers. Cette périodisation fondée sur les pouvoirs de valorisation permet d'expliquer la conjonction récente entre une intervention publique renouvelée et la consolidation des dynamiques de financiarisation. |
| Keywords: | financialisation, institutional change, institutional arrangement, public financing, public banks |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05330715 |
| By: | Steininger, L. E. |
| Abstract: | This article starts from the premise that IPE has, by and large, a blind spot for the contingency of public, monetary provisioning in support of full employment. Public employer-of-last-resort facilities are often treated as politically or economically unfeasible, or even dispensable. Yet, much like central banks’ lending of last resort facilities, they are among the most basic features of a well-functioning economy. The persistent failure to recognise and operationalise such labour-market public backstops thus constitutes one of the most consequential, if intangible, infrastructure failures of our time. To address the foundations of this blind spot, the article draws on critical infrastructure studies, which conceptualise infrastructural forms as lively, political, and contested. I argue that attention to infrastructural form foregrounds the individuated ontology structuring contemporary IPE. The article then draws a parallel between the historical hard-wiring of public backstops into financial markets and the contemporary hard-wiring of inequities into monetary infrastructure, sustained by epistemic assumptions about accounting, money, and price stability. The argument is developed through the case of public option employment. |
| Keywords: | infrastructural form; blind spots; epistemology; lending of last resort; public option employment; theory of money |
| JEL: | A12 E42 P51 B41 |
| Date: | 2026–06–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138943 |
| By: | Ban, Cornel; Hasselbalch, Jacob; Larsen, Mathias |
| Abstract: | Sustainability transformations depend on ambitious state action. We propose green economic planning as a framework for states to set ambitious climate plans and ensure policy coherence across three dimensions: inputs (sources of information, planning directors, and political regimes), processes (technical expertise and political negotiation), and outputs (monetary-financial, fiscal, and state ownership strategies). To capture how green economic planning works across democratic and authoritarian institutions, we conducted a comparative case study of three countries. France’s intersectoral non-green and Denmark’s sectoral green planning covers democratic institutions, while China’s intersectoral green planning covers authoritarian institutions. Through these cases, we show that 1) green economic planning is both feasible and adaptable across diverse political economies, 2) effective planning requires balancing decentralized information flow with strong central coordination, 3) successful planning depends on managing tensions between autonomous planning agencies, market discipline, and long-term political legitimacy. We term this ‘directed entanglement, ’ positioning it as a cornerstone for the emerging research agenda on green economic planning—a blueprint for navigating the use of the state to steer a green transition under capitalism.n analytical framework of elite and resistant imaginaries to trace how these actors construct competing futures of platform labour in EU regulation. These imaginaries transpire in response to the reorganisation of labour relations amidst the digital transformation of socioeconomic institutions. They reveal how platform infrastructures challenge institutional boundaries and reshape the governance of work in the EU. Through a qualitative methodology that combines critical thematic and discourse analysis of stakeholder submissions, the study investigates the frictions that transpire when elite and resistant imaginaries encounter one another. The inductive framework of ‘elite’ and ‘resistant’ imaginaries of platform work illuminates the strategic negotiation of categories and its evolution throughout the policymaking process. The research contributes to scholarship on digital labour and the governance of platforms and algorithmic systems within the EU by offering a critical communications account of how competing imaginaries interact within the regulatory infrastructures of the digital economy. The central empirical contribution of the project lies in re-situating regulatory arbitrage through the analytical lens of elite/resistant imaginaries and discursive friction. The analysis demonstrates how BusinessEurope takes advantage of longstanding techniques of regulatory escape, such as burden shifting and legal fragmentation, and combines them with the systemic structural asymmetries within the European single market to incentivise lenience for platform self-governance models and soft law (Scharpf, 1999). By analysing digital transformation and status classification, the thesis demonstrates how the future of the platform labour economy is co-constructed through frictions that culminate in a sophisticated arbitrage strategy, organised around the ontological construction of the platform as an ‘intermediary’ (Gillespie, 2010). The next chapter discusses the conceptual map of regulatory arbitrage in the PWD as a critical output of the research and considers the limitations of this project, and the future trajectory of trade union discourse on platform work. |
| Keywords: | green state; economic planning; directed entanglement; China; France; Denmark |
| JEL: | N0 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2026–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138455 |
| By: | Eric Tymoigne |
| Abstract: | Private debt and equity markets have been a funding source for nascent and credit constrained businesses for several decades. Following the 2008 financial crisis, an economic environment characterized by low interest rates, cautious banks, and tighter financial regulations--together with money managers on the hunt for higher yielding assets--provided a fertile ground for the rapid growth of the private debt market. The defaults of two major borrowers in 2025, the growing concerns about the sustainability of AI businesses, and the ongoing wave of redemption requests, have all led to worries that private markets may be a source of financial instability. The current dominant view has brushed these worries aside by arguing that the private debt market is small, that private debt deals have a lot of equity buffer (leverage is low), that covenants attached to private debt allow for the quick correction of problems in a way that promotes the long-term success of businesses, and that low default rates reflect the inherent soundness of private markets. This paper challenges such a narrative. Private markets are major contributors to the growth and spread of financial fragility. The financial practices that preceded the Great Recession are once again becoming more common: loose underwriting and credit rating; the growing use of interest refinancing; the growing use of opaque asset-pricing methods; the rise of financial engineering that hides leverage, embeds leverage, and generates ephemeral liquidity; and a policy environment that promotes deregulation, desupervision, and deenforcement. Together with the growing interdependence between private debt markets, private equity markets, banks, and money managers, these dangerous financial practices generate a financial environment in which fraud can grow quickly and financial instability can materialize. |
| Keywords: | Financial instability; money managers; Ponzi finance; private credit |
| JEL: | E42 G01 G23 G24 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1117 |
| By: | Wilp, Susanne Bleier |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a theoretical synthesis of the future of sex work in the Global South and argues for an inverted learning gradient. Where an earlier companion paper showed that in the Global North the future of sex work is decided in labour law and in digital and financial infrastructure that the state would have to provide, this paper shows that in the Global South the protective infrastructure exists where sex workers have built it themselves - as peer organisation, cooperative banking, and community health networks, often before and without the state. Drawing on peer-reviewed research and movement scholarship - including Mgbako's fieldwork on African sex worker activism, the literature on the Sonagachi project and the Durbar collective in India, research on the Latin American network RedTraSex, and Agustin's analysis of the 'rescue industry' - the paper makes three claims. First, the degree of self-organisation, not the legal framework, is the strongest predictor of protective capacity in the South. Second, the same extraterritorial US power that regulates the North through platform law operates in the South through funding and visa policy, exemplified by the PEPFAR anti-prostitution pledge, the 2012 visa denials that forced an alternative AIDS conference to Kolkata, and the 2025 dismantling of PEPFAR itself - which strikes hardest at precisely those structures that had made themselves dependent on it. Third, the learning gradient between North and South runs in both directions: the South can learn institutional permanence from the North, the North can learn self-built infrastructure and peer efficiency from the South. South Africa's ongoing decriminalisation process serves as the Southern counterpart to the Belgian experiment. Related work https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/df43j_v1 |
| Date: | 2026–06–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ckru6_v1 |
| By: | Laura Angresius; Milena B\"uchs; Daniel W. O'Neill |
| Abstract: | Current societies face interconnected environmental and social crises. Post-growth research argues that addressing these challenges requires a reorganization of society around the priorities of environmental sustainability, social equity, and human wellbeing over economic growth. While scholars highlight the state's potential role in enabling post-growth transformations through changes from within government institutions, post-growth-minded public officials face tensions between aspiring for radical changes of established structures while working within these structures. To understand how public officials across contexts navigate this tension, we ask: How do post-growth-minded public officials promote post-growth approaches in their work? How do the strategies differ between civil servants and elected officials? What do these strategies reveal about the capacity of the state to advance post-growth transformations? To answer these questions, we interviewed 41 post-growth-minded civil servants and elected officials. Interviews covered seven European countries and local to supranational governance scales. We find that public officials aim to influence thinking and discourses as well as decision-making processes and the implementation of policies. Overall, elected officials tend to feel that they can be more outspoken in their activities whereas civil servants are more inclined to promote post-growth approaches indirectly. Both groups pursue coalitions with various actors within and beyond their institutions. Public officials strategies underscore the limited capacity of the state to advance post-growth approaches under the current growth paradigm. We suggest that cooperation with civil society actors is central to build a sense of collective agency and to foster the interactions between symbiotic and interstitial strategies for post-growth transformations. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2606.24439 |
| By: | Oehmke, Martin; Zawadowski, Adam |
| Abstract: | Complexity can create value. At the same time, understanding more complex goods requires more of an agent’s attention. We show that equilibrium complexity is generally inefficient when agents face competing demands on their limited attention. Because attention allocation is hump-shaped in complexity, equilibrium complexity is distorted toward intermediate levels: well-understood goods are inefficiently complex, whereas less well-understood goods are oversimplified. We apply our model to financial institutions facing regulatory bodies and CEOs interacting with corporate divisions. |
| Keywords: | complexity; limited attention; attention externality; financial regulation; communication in firms |
| JEL: | J50 F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2026–06–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138144 |
| By: | Parinov, Sergey |
| Abstract: | Firms, regions, and countries with a similar set of resources often demonstrate different performance outcomes, and a substantial part of this variation is related not to a deficit of participants' capabilities but to the non-optimal use of their productive complementarity. The paper introduces the concept of joint activity potential (JAPot) as the maximum surplus achievable through the optimal combination of participants' complementary capabilities and intentions, together with a realisation coefficient φ reflecting the degree to which this potential is actually used. A three-level conceptual model is proposed, linking the structure of complementarity, institutional mechanisms, and the cognitive-communicative infrastructure (as a shared mental model, SMM) that both constrains and enables the realisation of JAPot. It is argued that large language models provide technological means for purposefully working with the SMM, opening up the possibility of governing JAPot as a new type of development resources. On this basis, an updated version of the "technology demand signal" for the AI industry, originally proposed in other works, is presented. Assuming that the required AI solutions can be created, principles are formulated, oriented toward intensive rather than extensive growth: a) through the fuller disclosure of already existing complementarity rather than the accumulation of resources; b) by the expansion of JAPot itself. One of the results discusses the risk of cognitive homogenization, including as a result of the improper use of AI, as a threat to intergenerational cognitive heritage. This paper is considered a vision concept, laying out a conceptual framework and problem statement for a long-term research program, as well as defining landmarks for the development of AI technologies. |
| Keywords: | joint activity potential; realisation coefficient; shared cognitive infrastructure; large language models; intensive socio-economic development |
| JEL: | D02 D23 D83 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–07–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129919 |