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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Douglass C North; John Joseph Wallis; Barry R. Weingast |
| Abstract: | Neither economics nor political science can explain the process of modern social development. The fact that developed societies always have developed economies and developed polities suggests that the connection between economics and politics must be a fundamental part of the development process. This paper develops an integrated theory of economics and politics. We show how, beginning 10,000 years ago, limited access social orders developed that were able to control violence, provide order, and allow greater production through specialization and exchange. Limited access orders provide order by using the political system to limit economic entry to create rents, and then using the rents to stabilize the political system and limit violence. We call this type of political economy arrangement a natural state. It appears to be the natural way that human societies are organized, even in most of the contemporary world. In contrast, a handful of developed societies have developed open access social orders. In these societies, open access and entry into economic and political organizations sustains economic and political competition. Social order is sustained by competition rather than rent-creation. The key to understanding modern social development is understanding the transition from limited to open access social orders, which only a handful of countries have managed since WWII. |
| JEL: | A0 K0 K22 N0 N4 N40 O1 O4 P0 P1 P16 P2 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12795&r=hpe |
| By: | André Tiran |
| Abstract: | J.A. Schumpeter dans son Histoire de l'Analyse Economique présente Say comme le continuateur de Turgot et de Cantillon. Il ajoute que Turgot et Cantillon sont ceux qui ont probablement le plus marqué l'analyse de J.B. Say . Si cette appréciation ne nous paraît pas discutable en termes de filiation, l'influence que Schumpeter attribue à Turgot et à Cantillon doit être nuancée au profit du Comte Pietro Verri qui est sans doute celui qui a le plus influencé la vision de J.B. Say . Pour être tout à fait juste, il faut préciser que Schumpeter cite Verri dans la chaîne qui conduit de Galiani à Walras en passant par Say |
| Keywords: | Valeur, utilité, Jean-baptiste Say, Pietro Verri, F. Galiani |
| Date: | 2006–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00120726_v1&r=hpe |
| By: | André Tiran |
| Abstract: | L'objet de ce texte est de donner les éléments qui attestent de l'influence des économistes italiens sur J.-B. Say et de l'intérêt soutenu qu'il a manifesté jusque à la fin de sa vie pour leurs écrits. Cette relation, entre J.-B. Say et l'Italie, mérite d'être soulignée car il est sans doute un des derniers économistes français qui se soit intéressé de très près à ce qui s'écrivait de l'autre côté des Alpes. J. A. Schumpeter, dans son Histoire de l'Analyse Economique, présente J.-B. Say comme le continuateur de Turgot et de Cantillon, il ajoute que Turgot et Cantillon sont ceux qui ont probablement le plus marqué l'analyse de J.-B. Say . Si cette appréciation ne paraît pas discutable en terme de filiation, l'influence que Schumpeter attribue à Turgot et à Cantillon doit être fortement nuancée au profit du Comte Pietro Verri qui est un de ceux qui ont le plus marqué la vision de J.-B. Say . Il faut préciser toutefois que J. A. Schumpeter cite Pietro Verri dans la chaîne qui conduit de F. Galiani à Walras en passant par Say . Si l'influence des économistes italiens n'a pas été relevée jusqu'ici, cela tient à une indifférence à l'égard d'auteurs qui, exception faite de quelques uns comme C. Beccaria et F. Galiani, sont rarement cités par les économistes spécialistes de l'histoire de la pensée économique . La plupart des ouvrages en français qui traitent de J.-B. Say font remonter l'origine de sa théorie de la valeur utilité à l'influence de E. Bonnot de Condillac (1715-1780), ou bien encore à Turgot (1766). Tout autant que ces filiations, la véritable origine de sa position sur la théorie de la valeur se trouve chez l'auteur qu'il cite au tout début de la première édition du Traité et qu'il continuera de citer tout au long des rééditions et des ajouts: le comte Pietro Verri. Cela ne contredit en rien le fait que J.-B. Say assume un triple héritage: celui des mercantilistes, des physiocrates et d'Adam Smith [SAY (1972), p. vi]. |
| Keywords: | économistes italiens, Jean-Baptiste Say, Pietro Verri, Galiani, théorie de la valeur |
| Date: | 2006–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00120717_v1&r=hpe |
| By: | André Tiran |
| Abstract: | Les questions abordées dans ce texte concernent la doctrine monétaire classique. J.-B. Say occupe une place originale dans les formulations théoriques de cette époque sur trois questions fondamentales de la théorie économique : 1) la nature de la monnaie, 2) la théorie quantitative, 3) le rôle de la monnaie dans l'inflation et les crises. <br />1) La première thèse présentée est que la valeur de la monnaie chez J.-B. Say n'est pas fondée sur le coût de production mais sur l'offre et la demande de cette marchandise particulière. <br />2) La deuxième porte sur sa formulation de la théorie quantitative.<br />3) La troisième traite du rôle de la monnaie dans les crises.<br />Ces trois points avaient déjà fait l'objet de développements et d'analyses détaillées dans notre thèse soutenue en 1994 . Nous tentons ici une synthèse de l'ensemble de l'approche théorique de J.-B. Say. La totalité des matériaux utilisés dan les citations des éditions du Traité ou du Cours Complet est tirée de notre thèse. Les manuscrits accessibles n'ont pas modifié ce point de vue. Toutefois lorsque la correspondance aura été rassemblée et l'édition du Traité variorum réalisée, certains points pourront et devront sans doute être rediscutés. |
| Keywords: | monnaie, théorie quantitative, loi des débouchés, crises, valeur |
| Date: | 2006–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00120728_v1&r=hpe |
| By: | Marc Fleurbaey |
| Abstract: | It has become accepted that social choice is impossible in absence of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. This view is challenged here. Arrow obtained an impossibility theorem only by making unreasonable demands on social choice functions. With reasonable requirements, one can get very attractive possibilities and derive social preferences on the basis of non-comparable individual preferences. This new approach makes it possible to design optimal second-best institutions inspired by principles of fairness, while traditionally the analysis of optimal second-best institutions was thought to require interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In particular, this approach turns out to be especially suitable for the application of recent philosophical theories of justice formulated in terms of fairness, such as equality of resources. |
| Keywords: | social choice, theories of justice |
| Date: | 2006–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00121378_v1&r=hpe |
| By: | Galor, Oded; Michalopoulos, Stelios |
| Abstract: | This research suggests that the evolution of entrepreneurial spirit played a significant role in the process of economic development and the evolution of inequality within and across societies. The study argues that entrepreneurial spirit evolved non-monotonically in the course of human history. In early stages of development, the rise in income generated an evolutionary advantage to entrepreneurial, growth promoting traits and their increased representation accelerated the pace of technological advancements and the process of economic development. Natural selection therefore had magnified growth promoting activities in relatively wealthier economies as well as within the upper segments of societies, enlarging the income gap within as well as across societies. In mature stages of development, however, non-entrepreneurial individuals gained an evolutionary advantage, diminishing the growth potential of advanced economies and contributing to the convergence of the intermediate level economies to the advanced ones. |
| Keywords: | evolution; growth; natural Selection; risk Aversion; technological progress |
| JEL: | J11 J13 O11 O14 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6022&r=hpe |
| By: | Marc Fleurbaey |
| Abstract: | This paper distinguishes an index ordering and a social ordering function as a simple way to formalize the indexing problem in the social choice framework. Two main conclusions are derived. First, the alleged dilemma between welfarism and perfectionnism is shown to involve a third possibility, exemplified by the fairness approach to social choice. Second, the idea that an individual is better off than another whenever he has more (goods, functionings...) in all dimensions, which is known to enter in conflict with the Pareto principle, can be partly salvaged by adopting the fairness approach. |
| Keywords: | social choice, indexing, Pareto, well-being |
| Date: | 2006–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00121371_v1&r=hpe |
| By: | John Geweke; Joel Horowitz; M. Hashem Pesaran |
| Abstract: | As a unified discipline, econometrics is still relatively young and has been transforming and expanding very rapidly over the past few decades. Major advances have taken place in the analysis of cross sectional data by means of semi-parametric and non-parametric techniques. Heterogeneity of economic relations across individuals, firms and industries is increasingly acknowledged and attempts have been made to take them into account either by integrating out their effects or by modeling the sources of heterogeneity when suitable panel data exists. The counterfactual considerations that underlie policy analysis and treatment evaluation have been given a more satisfactory foundation. New time series econometric techniques have been developed and employed extensively in the areas of macroeconometrics and finance. Non-linear econometric techniques are used increasingly in the analysis of cross section and time series observations. Applications of Bayesian techniques to econometric problems have been given new impetus largely thanks to advances in computer power and computational techniques. The use of Bayesian techniques have in turn provided the investigators with a unifying framework where the tasks of forecasting, decision making, model evaluation and learning can be considered as parts of the same interactive and iterative process; thus paving the way for establishing the foundation of “real time econometrics”. This paper attempts to provide an overview of some of these developments. |
| Keywords: | history of econometrics, microeconometrics, macroeconometrics, Bayesian econometrics, nonparametric and semi-parametric analysis |
| JEL: | C10 C20 C30 C40 C50 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1870&r=hpe |
| By: | Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi |
| Abstract: | From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high individual and community cost of educating children in subsistence farming economies (2nd to 7th centuries) prompted voluntary conversions, which account for a large share of the reduction in the size of the Jewish population from 4.5 million to 1.2 million. Second, the Jewish farmers who invested in education, gained the comparative advantage and incentive to enter skilled occupations during the vast urbanization in the newly developed Muslim Empire (8th and 9th centuries) and they actually did select themselves into these occupations. Third, as merchants the Jews invested even more in education---a pre-condition for the extensive mailing network and common court system that endowed them with trading skills demanded all over the world. Fourth, the Jews generated a voluntary diaspora by migrating within the Muslim Empire, and later to western Europe where they were invited to settle as high skill intermediaries by local rulers. By 1200, the Jews were living in hundreds of towns from England and Spain in the West to China and India in the East. Fifth, the majority of world Jewry (about one million) lived in the Near East when the Mongol invasions in the 1250s brought this region back to a subsistence farming and pastoral economy in which many Jews found it difficult to enforce the religious norm regarding education, and hence, voluntarily converted, exactly as it had happened centuries earlier. |
| Keywords: | human capital; Jewish economic and demographic history; migration; occupational choice; religion; social norms |
| JEL: | J1 J2 N3 O1 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6006&r=hpe |