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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Michaël Assous (GREDEG CNRS; University of Paris 1) |
| Abstract: | Solow has repeatedly called for the development of models that combine equilibrium and out-of equilibrium outcomes or what he called a macroeconomics of the medium-run. This paper recounts the history of Solow’s different attempts to address this issue. It starts in early 1950s when Solow developed his long-run growth model and it ends in the mid-1990s with the publication of A Critical Essay on Modern Macroeconomic Theory co-written with Frank Hahn. This narrative involves different economists associated with various research traditions, going from the neo-classical synthesis in the 1960s, the New Classical Economics in the 1970s and the New Keynesianism in the 1980s. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, Robert Solow, Medium-Run macroeconomics, dynamics, multiple equilibria |
| JEL: | B22 O4 E12 E13 N1 B31 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2013-41&r=hpe |
| By: | Pedro Garcia Duarte |
| Abstract: | Although economists have recognized long ago that “time enters into all economic questions”, the ways they treated and modeled time has varied substantially in the last century. While in the 1930s there was a distinctive Cambridge tradition against discounting utilities of future generations, to which Frank Ramsey subscribed, postwar neoclassical growth economists (of the “Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model”) applied the discount factor either to individual’s or to social planner’s decision-making as a technical requirement of dynamic general equilibrium models. My goal in this article is to shed some historical light on how a practice that was condemned as ethically indefensible when applied to intergenerational comparisons became a technical requirement in dynamic models of either a consumer or a planner deciding the intertemporal allocation of resources. |
| Keywords: | time discount; growth models; Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model; economic dynamics |
| JEL: | B22 B23 E32 |
| Date: | 2013–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2013wpecon18&r=hpe |
| By: | Siegfried Berninghaus (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Economics); Stephan Schosser (University of Magdeburg, Department of Economics); Bodo Vogt (University of Magdeburg, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | For games of simultaneous action selection and network formation, game-theoretic behavior and experimental observations are not in line: While theory typically predicts inefficient outcomes for (anti-)coordination games, experiments show that subjects tend to play efficient (non Nash) strategy profiles. A reason for this discrepancy is the tendency to model corresponding games as one-shot and derive predictions. In this paper, we calculate the equilibria for a finitely repeated version of the Hawk-Dove game with endogenous network formation and show that the repetition leads to additional equilibria, namely the efficient ones played by human subjects. We confirm our results by an experimental study. In addition, we show both theoretically and experimentally that the equilibria reached crucially depend on the order in which subjects adjust their strategy. Subjects only reach efficient outcomes if they first adapt their action and then their network. If they choose their network first, they do not reach efficient outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Network games, Hawk/Dove games, finitely repeated game |
| JEL: | D85 C72 C73 C92 |
| Date: | 2013–11–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2013-048&r=hpe |
| By: | Dimant, Eugen |
| Abstract: | Corruption has fierce impacts on economic and societal development and is subject to a vast range of institutional, jurisdictional, societal and economic conditions. Research indicates that corruption's predominantly negative effects have arisen to a massive trans-border threat while creating high obstacles to sustainable and prospective development, ultimately impairing everybody's life. This paper provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of existing literature on corruption and its antecedents and effects. Consequently, we bridge the gap between existing theories of different fields of research including economics, psychology, and criminology in order to draw a conclusive picture of corruption on the micro-, meso- and macro-level. -- |
| Keywords: | Bribery,corruption,development,interdisciplinarity,public economics,survey |
| JEL: | D73 H1 O17 K42 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201359&r=hpe |
| By: | Meyer, M.; Libaers, D.; Thijs, Bart; Grant, K.; Glänzel, Wolfgang; Debackere, Koenraad |
| Abstract: | This paper seeks to map out the emergence and evolution of entrepreneurship as an independent field in the social science literature from the early 1990’s to 2009. Our analysis indicates that entrepreneurship has grown steadily during the 1990’s but has truly emerged as a legitimate academic discipline in the latter part of the 00’s. The field has been dominated by researchers from Anglo-Saxon countries over the past twenty years, with particularly strong representations from the US, UK, and Canada. The results from our structural analysis, which is based on a core document approach, point to five large knowledge clusters and further 16 sub-clusters. We characterize the clusters from their cognitive structure and assess the strength of the relationships between these clusters. In addition, a list of most cited articles is presented and discussed. |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:leuven:urn:hdl:123456789/397032&r=hpe |
| By: | Rebecca Henderson (Harvard Business School, Strategy Unit); Karthik Ramanna (Harvard Business School, Accounting and Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | In a capitalist system based on free markets, do managers have responsibilities to the system itself? If they do, should these responsibilities shape their behavior when they are engaging in the political process in an attempt to structure the institutions of capitalism? The prevailing view-perhaps most eloquently argued by Milton Friedman-is that the first duty of managers is to maximize shareholder value, and thus that they should take every opportunity (within the bounds of the law) to structure market institutions so as to increase profitability. We maintain here that this shareholder-return view of political engagement applies in cases where the political process is sufficiently 'thick,' in that diverse views are well-represented and sufficiently detailed information about the issues is widely available. However, we draw on a series of detailed examples in the context of the determination of corporate accounting standards to argue that when the political process of determining institutions of capitalism is 'thin,' in that managers find themselves with specialized technical knowledge unavailable to outsiders and with little political resistance from the general interest, then managers have a responsibility to market institutions themselves, even if this entails acting at the expense of corporate profits. We make this argument on grounds that this behavior is both in managers' long-run self-interest and, expanding on Friedman's core contention, that it is managers' moral duty. We provide a framework for future research to explore and develop these arguments. |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:13-075&r=hpe |
| By: | Zhaomin Zou (CREG - Centre de recherche en économie de Grenoble - Université Pierre-Mendès-France - Grenoble II : EA4625) |
| Abstract: | Du fait que la transition financière chinoise représente un contre-exemple de libéralisation financière, il est intéressant d'étudier certaines spécialités de son modèle de financement et ses implications qui nous permettent de comprendre ce phénomène paradoxal dans lequel l'excellente performance économique chinoise s'accompagne de la fragilité de son système bancaire. A cette fin, nous cherchons d'abord à comprendre l'origine de fragilité financière chinoise. Selon notre analyse, le problème des créances douteuses est directement lié au transfert du financement des entreprises publiques aux banques commerciales chinoises. C'est pourquoi ces créances doivent être interprétées comme le quasi déficit budgétaire au lieu des pertes des banques. Ensuite, la deuxième partie consiste à expliquer pourquoi la Chine a mis en oeuvre une politique d'ouverture financière restrictive au lieu d'accepter une libéralisation financière totale comme dans la majorité des pays en développement et en transition. Nous envisageons de montrer l'effet pervers du mouvement des capitaux étrangers et l'importance de dépendance financière d'un pays en développement vis-à-vis des pays développé afin de justifier l'opposition des autorités monétaires chinoises contre le dogme de la libéralisation financière. Enfin, la troisième section consiste à proposer un modèle de financement alternatif mieux adapté aux besoins de croissance des pays en développement. |
| Keywords: | libéralisation ; banque ; financement ; système bancaire ; système financier ; finances publiques ; transition économique ; Chine |
| Date: | 2013–04–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00904296&r=hpe |
| By: | Toms, Steven; Shepherd, Alice |
| Abstract: | The paper examines an early case of creative accounting, and how, during British industrialization, accounting was enlisted by the manufacturers’ interest to resist demands, led by the ‘Ten hours’ movement, for limiting the working day. In contrast to much of the prior literature, which argues that entrepreneurs made poor use of accounting techniques in the British industrial revolution, the paper shows that there was considerable sophistication in their application to specific purposes, including political lobbying and accounting for the accumulation of capital. To illustrate lobbying behaviour, the paper examines entrepreneurs’ use of accounting to resist the threat of regulation of working time in textile mills. It explains why accounting information became so important in the debate over factory legislation. In doing so, it shows that a significant element was the accounting evidence of one manufacturer in particular, Robert Hyde Greg, which had a strong impact on the outcome of the parliamentary process. The paper uses archival evidence to illustrate how accounting was used in Greg’s enterprise and the reality of its economic performance. The archival evidence of actual performance is then contrasted with the figures presented by Greg to the Factories Inquiry Commission, convened by the House of Commons in 1833-1834 to hear witnesses from the manufacturing interest. These sets of figures are compared and contrasted and discrepancies noted. Conclusions show that the discrepancies were substantial, motivated by Greg’s incentives to present a particular view of low profits, high fixed costs, and the threat of cheaper overseas competition. The figures appeared to lend some credibility to the apparent plight of manufacturers and to Nassau Senior’s flawed argument about all profit being earned in the ‘last hour’ of the working day. The consequence was a setback for the Ten Hours movement, leading to a further intensification of political struggles over working conditions in the 1840s. |
| Keywords: | Key words: British Industrial Revolution, Accounting, Child labour, Factory Reform, Lancashire cotton textiles, Greg, Quarry Bank Mill |
| JEL: | J21 J31 K31 L50 L67 M4 N13 O14 O15 O38 |
| Date: | 2013–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:51478&r=hpe |
| By: | Bögenhold, Dieter |
| Abstract: | Today, social networks analysis has become a cross-disciplinary subject with applications in diverse fields of social and economic life. Different network designs provide different opportunities to communicate, to receive information and to create different structures of cultural capital. Network analysis explores modes and contents of exchanges between different agents when symbols, emotions or goods and services are exchanged. The message of the article is that social network analysis provides a tool to foster the understanding of social dynamics, which enhances recent debate on a micro-macro gap and on limitations of the cognitive and explanatory potential of economics. |
| Keywords: | Social Network Analysis, social dynamics, micro-macro gap |
| JEL: | A1 A12 A14 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:51461&r=hpe |
| By: | Emmanuel Carré (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris XIII - Paris Nord - CNRS : UMR7234); Jézabel Couppey-Soubeyran (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne); Dominique Plihon (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - Université Paris XIII - Paris Nord - CNRS : UMR7234); Marc Pourroy (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a snapshot of the current state of central banking doctrine in the aftermath of the crisis, using data from a questionnaire produced in 2011 and sent to central bankers (from 13 countries plus the euro zone) and economists (31) for a report by the French Council of Economic Analysis to the Prime Minister. The results of our analysis of the replies to the questionnaire are twofold. First, we show that the financial crisis has led to some amendments of pre-crisis central banking. We highlight that respondents to the questionnaire agree on the general principle of a 'broader' view of central banking extended to financial stability. Nevertheless, central bankers and economists diverge or give inconsistent answers about the details of implementation of this 'broader' view. Therefore, the devil is once again in the details. We point out that because of central bankers' conservatism, a return to the status quo cannot be excluded. |
| Keywords: | Central banking; macroprudential policy; financial stability |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00881344&r=hpe |
| By: | Amelia Sharman |
| Abstract: | While mainstream scientific knowledge production has been extensively examined in the academic literature, comparatively little is known about alternative networks of scientific knowledge production. Online sources such as blogs are an especially under-investigated site of knowledge contestation. Using degree centrality and node betweenness tests from social network analysis, and thematic content analysis of individual posts, this research identifies and critically examines the climate sceptical blogosphere and investigates whether a focus on particular themes contributes to the positioning of the most central blogs. A network of 171 individual blogs is identified, with three blogs in particular found to be the most central: Climate Audit, JoNova and Watts Up With That. These blogs predominantly focus on the scientific element of the climate debate, providing either a direct scientifically-based challenge to mainstream climate science, or a critique of the conduct of the climate science system, and appear to be less preoccupied with other types of scepticism that are prevalent in the wider public debate such as ideologically or values-motivated scepticism. It is possible that these central blogs in particular are not only acting as translators between scientific research and lay audiences, but, in their reinterpretation of existing climate science knowledge claims, are filling a void by opening up climate science to those who may have been previously unengaged by the mainstream knowledge process and, importantly, acting themselves as public sites of alternative expertise for a climate sceptical audience. |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsg:lsgwps:wp124&r=hpe |
| By: | Navon, David; Cohen, Yoav |
| Abstract: | It is often presumed that Gini coefficient values taken to reflect high income inequality are largely due to some combination of socioeconomic factors that gives rise to inequality of opportunities. We demonstrate, using computer simulations, that practically every Gini value within the entire range observed in state economies can be approximated by at least one of a set of possible models of an economy in which earning is totally due to random factors. Although that clearly does not prove that opportunities are in reality fairly equal, it does suggest that inequality of opportunities is not necessary for high income inequality. At the least, it relegates the burden of proof to whoever ascribes the latter largely to the former. |
| Keywords: | Gini, Lorenz, income inequality, inequality of opportunities |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I3 I32 P1 Y1 |
| Date: | 2013–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:51408&r=hpe |