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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
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Issue of 2026–01–26
fourteen papers chosen by Carlo D’Ippoliti, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Essakkat, Kaouter; Wu, Linghui; Atallah, Shady S.; Khanna, Madhu |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea25:361092 |
| By: | Eric Sabourin (UMR ART-Dev - Acteurs, Ressources et Territoires dans le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UM - Université de Montpellier - UMPV - Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry) |
| Abstract: | Several socio-economic and socio-anthropological approaches associate peasant agricultures to production and redistribution systems based on other conceptions of value than this of capitalistic market exchange and on other relations than competition for the accumulation of private profit. This article examines three proposals from diverse backgrounds but sharing a common analysis of peasant farming around the notions of ethics, affection, autonomy and resistance. There are the moral economy of Scott (1976), the economy of affection of Hyden (1980) and the peasant principle of Ploeg (2008). These three authors also refer to the principle of reciprocity; thus, I propose first to analyze their contribution regarding the theory of reciprocity in anthropology (Scubla, 1985; Temple, 1997 and 2003, Sabourin, 2012) and, secondly, I will examine how these approaches could dialogue. The article is divided in three parts. The first proposes a reading of the three contributions; the second presents briefly the main points of the theory of reciprocity and the third one discusses commons lessons and perspectives of these approaches. |
| Keywords: | Economy of reciprocity, Reciprocity, Peasant principle, Economy of the affection, Moral economy, Peasant societies, Principe paysan, économie agricole, Economie rurale, Réciprocité, Economie morale, Economie de l'affection, éthique, sociologie, anthropologie sociale, petit agriculteur, système de valeurs, exploitation agricole familiale, théorie économique, Amérique latine, Asie du Sud-Est, Brésil, Pérou, Viet Nam, marché, communauté rurale |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05457232 |
| By: | Fabio Petri |
| Abstract: | This is a rejoinder to professor Schefold’s 2022 reply to my 2021–2022 criticism of his views on what is left of the Cambridge critique of neoclassical capital theory. I concentrate on the main disagreements. I find Schefold’s reply unconvincing on the usefulness of aggregate production functions, and also on the empirical evidence of a rarity of reswitching. I clarify better than in 2022 my reasons for rejecting his a priori approach to the probability of double switching. I insist that the impossibility to determine the endowment of capital destroys the neoclassical labour demand curve and the neoclassical investment function, leaving real wages and employment in need of a different theory, which renders a turn to a classical-Keynesian approach inevitable. |
| Keywords: | capital theory; Cambridge controversy; reswitching; aggregate production function |
| JEL: | B51 D24 D50 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:022047 |
| By: | Guido Ianni |
| Abstract: | This paper extends the classical surplus approach to value and distribution to an open economy framework with an arbitrary number of commodities and explicitly allowing for persistent profit rate differentials across countries. The analysis builds upon Sraffa’s price equations, incorporating inter-industry linkages between two trading nations. We derive the wage curve for an open economy, demonstrating that while the closed-economy wage-profit relation is a one-dimensional curve, its open-economy counterpart forms a higher dimensional surface with additional degrees of freedom. This structural difference implies that distributive closures play a more significant role in open economies, as profit and wage rates in one country are no longer uniquely tied together. Our results highlight the geopolitical dimension of class struggle, showing that domestic wage and profit rate adjustments can have significant spillover effects on the global distribution of surplus. |
| Keywords: | open economy; income distribution; wage curve |
| JEL: | B51 C67 F10 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:022046 |
| By: | Gianfranco Giulioni; Edmondo Di Giuseppe; Arianna Di Paola |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a modeling framework for simulating the decision-making processes of artificial farms populating an agent-based model for the Italian wheat production system. The decision process is based on a mathematical programming model with which farms (i.e., agents) decide the target yield (production per hectare) and the mix of inputs needed to obtain such production, namely 1) fertilizers, 2) herbicides, and 3) insecticides. The environmental impacts of conventional production practices are assessed through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), using the ReCiPe 2016 methodology at the Endpoint level. Agents are made aware of the environmental consequences of their choices through two indicators: Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), which capture human health impacts, and the number of species lost per year, reflecting impacts on ecosystems. By internalizing this information, agents can make more balanced and sustainable production decisions. |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2601.05912 |
| By: | Rémy Herrera (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: | We would like to show here how capitalism was fundamental in the structuring of the Cuban economy and society, but also how violent this influence was during the pre-revolutionary history of this country. Destruction of Amerindian societies and annihilation of the native populations, massive deportations and overexploitation of African slaves in sugar cultivation, misery of small farmers of Spanish origin and rural exodus, harsh living and working conditions of sugar proletarians, waves of emigration, bloody wars of independence, U.S. military occupations, ferocious repressions of popular revolts and succession of dictatorships, confinement in economic underdevelopment, political submission, social inequalities and cultural alienation, such was the fate that capitalism reserved for the people of Cuba before the victory of their Socialist Revolution. |
| Keywords: | pre-revolutionary period, neocolonialism, high finance, U.S. imperialism, mono-export specialization, sugar production, slavery, capitalism, Cuba |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05432509 |
| By: | Philippe Légé (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, ISST - Institut des Sciences Sociales du Travail - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this chapter is to explain how the evolutionary philosophies of Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and Friedrich A. Hayek (1899–1992) justify economic competition. By studying the analogies between biology and society, as well as Hayek's use of the concept of "selection", we will show that his thinking contains echoes of Spencer's "social Darwinism". This will lead us to question the plight of the losers in the "market order" under Hayekian liberalism. |
| Abstract: | L'objet de ce chapitre est d'exposer la façon dont les philosophies évolutionnistes de Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) et de Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) justifient la concurrence économique. En étudiant les analogies entre le biologique et le social, ainsi que l'usage du concept de « sélection » dans la pensée de Hayek, nous montrerons que celle-ci contient des résurgences du « darwinisme social » spencérien. Cela nous conduira à nous interroger sur le sort que le libéralisme hayékien réserve aux perdants de « l'ordre de marché ». |
| Keywords: | Spencer, Hayek, Selection, Evolutionism, competition, sélection, évolutionnisme, concurrence |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05414504 |
| By: | Benyounes Rahouti (Université Mohammed Premier [Oujda] = Université Mohammed Ier = University of Mohammed First) |
| Abstract: | Uncertainty, as defined by Knight and Keynes in the 1920s, is now an essential key to understanding large-scale unpredictable events, such as 2020's pandemic. The inability of predictive models to anticipate the scope and impact of this unprecedented crisis has highlighted the relevance of a century-old theory that has long been marginalized in favor of predictive mathematical formalism. Beyond the economic field, this study offers an extensive and in-depth bibliometric analysis of literature to assess whether Knightian and Keynesian uncertainty remains overshadowed or whether, on the contrary, it is attracting renewed interest considering contemporary context. Using a corpus of 455 multidisciplinary articles from Scopus database from 1977 to 2024, this research uses R-Biblioshiny and VOSviewer software to provide a detailed overview of publication dynamics, key players and collaborative interactions. Through performance and scientific mapping analysis, the results reveal that the subprime crisis and the Covid shock acted as catalysts for a renewed awareness of the risk/uncertainty dichotomy, while highlighting the existence of two paradigms. The first, emerging and with a strong academic impact, tends to reintegrate this uncertainty into operational modelling frameworks, while the second, derived from heterodox economics, remains attached to its irreducible conception. |
| Keywords: | Bibliometrics, Risk, Uncertainty, Keynes, Knight, Knight Keynes Uncertainty Risk Bibliometrics |
| Date: | 2025–10–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05363875 |
| By: | Benjamin Jungmann; Eckhard Hein; Juan Manuel Campana |
| Abstract: | Post-Keynesian conflict inflation models have received renewed attention in the course of the recent inflationary processes related to the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 and the hike of energy prices in the context of the start of the Russian war on Ukraine in 2022. Although the basic principles of conflict inflation can be presented in a closed economy framework (e.g. Hein 2023, chap. 5), examining current sources and triggers of inflation requires open economy models. Post-Keynesian economics has presented several of these models (e.g. Blecker 2011, Vera 2014, Bastian and Setterfield 2020), which differ in the role assigned to the nominal and the real exchange rate (RER), on the one hand, and the stability of the wage and price Phillips curves, on the other hand. This paper first provides a systematic overview of post-Keynesian open economy conflict inflation models using the treatment of the RER and the stability of the Phillips curve as the main clustering criteria. Second, it provides a model including an unstable Phillips curve and a policy rule targeting a certain RER in response towards trade imbalances. The model distinguishes three equilibrium rates of employment: the goods market equilibrium rate of employment, the distribution claims equilibrium and hence stable inflation rate of employment, and finally the external balance equilibrium rate of employment. The interaction of these three rates drives the system. Finally, the model examines the conditions for an overall equilibrium and its stability. |
| Keywords: | conflict inflation, open economy, exchange rate policy, post-Keynesian model |
| JEL: | E12 E31 E61 F41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:fmmpap:120-2025 |
| By: | Robert L. Vienneau |
| Abstract: | With triple-switching, each of two techniques are cost-minimizing in two disjoint intervals of the wage or rate of profits. Technology that supports multiple switch points between two techniques can only be a temporary phenomenon, as one technique supplants another with technical progress. A perturbation analysis of a triple-switching example in the corn-tractor model illustrates this claim. A parameter space, defined by two selected coefficients of production, is partitioned by loci corresponding to fluke switch points. The analysis of the choice of technique does not qualitatively vary within each of the resulting regions. Technical progress corresponds to specific trajectories through this parameter space. |
| Keywords: | Cambridge Capital Controversy; Fixed Capital; Reswitching of techniques |
| JEL: | B51 C67 D24 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sraffa:022045 |
| By: | boughabi, houssam |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the interplay between distributive conflict, investment dynamics, and persistent unemployment within a Kaleckian framework, emphasizing the long-memory properties of wages. We develop a stochastic model in which wages adjust adaptively to historical discrepancies between prices and wages, while investment is driven by expected profitability rather than market clearing. Applying this model to Germany over the period 1990–2024, we provide evidence that cumulative divergences between prices and wages generate persistent effects on real wages, aggregate demand, and employment. Our findings highlight that long-memory wage dynamics amplify the unemployment consequences of investment-driven accumulation, demonstrating a structural mechanism through which distributive conflict and inflation interact. The results underscore the importance of historical wage inertia and profit-led investment in shaping macroeconomic outcomes, offering new insights into the sources of persistent unemployment in advanced economies. |
| Keywords: | Kaleckian economics, wage–price dynamics, long-memory, distributive conflict, persistent unemployment |
| JEL: | C22 E12 E24 E32 J30 |
| Date: | 2026–01–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127571 |
| By: | Ali Hosseinzadeh |
| Abstract: | Speculative bubbles exhibit common statistical signatures across many financial markets, suggesting the presence of universal underlying mechanisms. We test this hypothesis in the Iranian stock market, an economy that is highly isolated, subject to capital controls, and largely inaccessible to foreign investors. Using the Log-Periodic Power Law Singularity (LPPLS) model, we analyze two major bubble episodes in 2020 and 2023. The estimated critical exponents beta around 0.46 and 0.20 fall within the empirical ranges documented for canonical historical bubbles such as the 1929 DJIA crash and the 2000 Nasdaq episode. The Tehran Stock Exchange displays clear LPPLS hallmarks, including faster-than-exponential price acceleration, log-periodic corrections, and stable estimates of the critical time horizon. These results indicate that endogenous herding, imitation, and positive-feedback dynamics, rather than exogenous shocks, play a dominant role even in politically and economically isolated markets. By showing that an emerging and semi-closed financial system conforms to the same dynamical patterns observed in global markets, this paper provides new empirical support for the universality of bubble dynamics. To the best of our knowledge, it also presents the first systematic LPPLS analysis of bubbles in the Tehran Stock Exchange. The findings highlight the usefulness of LPPLS-based diagnostic tools for monitoring systemic risk in emerging or restricted economies. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.12054 |
| By: | Alexis Anagnostakis; David Criens; Mikhail Urusov |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate a financial market model consisting of a risky asset, modeled as a general diffusion parameterized by a scale function and a speed measure, and a bank account process with a constant interest rate. This flexible class of financial market models allows for features such as reflecting boundaries, skewness effects, sticky points, and slowdowns on fractal sets. For this market model, we study the structure of a strong form of arbitrage opportunity called increasing profits. Our main contributions are threefold. First, we characterize the existence of increasing profits in terms of an auxiliary deterministic signed measure $\nu$ and a canonical trading strategy $\theta$, both of which depend only on the deterministic parametric characteristics of our model, namely the scale function, the speed measure, and the interest rate. More precisely, we show that an increasing profit exists if and only if $\nu$ is nontrivial, and that this is equivalent to $\theta$ itself generating an increasing profit. Second, we provide a precise characterization of the entire set of increasing profits in terms of $\nu$ and $\theta$, and moreover characterize the value processes associated with increasing profits. Finally, we establish novel connections between no-arbitrage theory and the general theory of stochastic processes. Specifically, we relate the failure of the representation property for general diffusions to the existence of certain types of increasing profits whose value processes are dominated by the quadratic variation measure of a space-transformed version of the asset price process. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.07555 |
| By: | Neil Wilson; Richard Tye; Andrew Berkeley |
| Abstract: | This paper challenges the widespread public and institutional misconception that legal tender laws in English law compel creditors to accept payment in a specific form. We argue that legal tender is a narrow, procedural artefact with diminishing practical relevance. Through an analysis of statutory provisions, common law, and the Civil Procedure Rules, we demonstrate that legal tender serves not as a substantive right to discharge debts but as a limited procedural defense concerning liability for costs in litigation. By examining the institutional mechanisms for settling private contractual debts and public statutory obligations, such as taxes, we show that settlement occurs almost exclusively through electronic, bank-mediated systems. The paper concludes that the operational currency of the modern state is not physical legal tender but central bank reserves and commercial bank money, rendering legal tender a concept of largely historical and symbolic significance. |
| Keywords: | Legal tender; Monetary law; Tax obligations; Payment systems |
| JEL: | B50 E42 K12 K34 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1103 |