|
on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Heckman, James J. (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This paper celebrates the life and contributions of Gary Becker (1930-2014). |
| Keywords: | human capital, human behavior, lifetime contributions, tribute |
| JEL: | B31 J24 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8200&r=hpe |
| By: | Brunt, Liam |
| Abstract: | Giffen reported that, in the late nineteenth century, English wheat consumption rose when its price increased – the first recorded “Giffen good”. Using Giffen’s data, I explain how he reached his conclusion. I then show that his analysis was faulty: price elasticity of demand appears positive when the demand curve is incorrectly identified, but is significantly negative – like any normal good – when it is correctly identified. Since the pathological Giffen good case was actually just mistaken identification, it is no surprise that Giffen goods are impossible to find elsewhere. Popularization of the Giffen good stemmed from Marshall’s and Samuelson’s influential textbooks. |
| Keywords: | endogeneity; Giffen good; identification; stationarity |
| JEL: | B13 B16 D12 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9737&r=hpe |
| By: | Quaas, Friedrun |
| Abstract: | Die moderne Volkswirtschaftslehre als wissenschaftliche Disziplin ist einerseits durch große Uneinheitlichkeit geprägt, die andererseits selbst in Zeiten der Krise der Theorie anscheinend nicht nachhaltig in ein öffentliches Bewusstsein vordringen konnte. Nach wie vor wird die Ökonomik unterstellt und auf diese Weise werden Unterschiede ökonomischer Denkweisen entweder nivelliert oder für irrelevant erachtet, wenn es um die Erklärung der großen Zusammenhänge geht. Doch neben dem orthodox-neoklassischen Mainstream, der seit langem den institutionalisierten akademischen Forschungs- und Lehrbetrieb dominiert, existieren vielfältige alternative Ansätze. Diese Tatsache an sich könnte der Ökonomik insgesamt den Schein eines monolithischen Theoriengebäudes eigentlich nehmen und stattdessen ihre Pluralität belegen. Als Phänomen ist Ökonomik zwar durchaus im Plural denkbar, aber die Existenzweise von Pluralität ist kümmerlich und bestenfalls durch hegemonialen Diskurs geprägt. Warum es nach wie vor schwierig ist, die Emanzipation vom Streamlining der Wirtschaftswissenschaften konsequent und erfolgreich zu betreiben, wird aus verschiedenen Perspektiven beleuchtet. Jenseits vertrauter Standarderklärungen unterstützen ideengeschichtliche, wissenschaftstheoretische und wissenschaftspolitische Argumente das Plädoyer für eine kritisch-pluralistische Ökonomik als Bestandteil eines funktionierenden modernen Wissenschaftsgebäudes. -- Economics as a branch of social science is marked by considerable inconsistency, but this fact is largely beyond public awareness. It seems that even in times of theoretical crisis the differences in economic thought are ignored, at least they are believed to be irrelevant for explaining the economic reality. However, in addition to the dominant neoclassic mainstream, many alternative approaches exist, and one might think, there is not such a thing as a monolithic economic tradition. But the phenomenon of pluralism is only rudimentarily developed and the discourse between the different approaches is proceeding as hegemonic as ever. The question, why it is so difficult to emancipate economics from streamlining in a consequent and successful manner, makes up the subject matter of this paper. Beside well-known standard arguments, some reflections on the history of economic thought, on the philosophy of social science and on science policy shore up a passionate plea for theoretical and methodological pluralism in modern economics. |
| Keywords: | Orthodoxie,Heterodoxie,Pluralismus,Mainstream,neoklassischer Kern,Ideengeschichte,Methodenkritik,Wissenschaftspolitik,orthodoxy,heterodoxy,pluralism,mainstream,neoclassical core,history of economic thought,criticism of methods,science policy |
| JEL: | B12 B13 B41 B50 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:leiwps:129&r=hpe |
| By: | Blanchet, Adrien; Carlier, Guillaume |
| Abstract: | The notion of Nash equilibria plays a key role in the analysis of strategic interactions in the framework of N player games. Analysis of Nash equilibria is however a complex issue when the number of players is large. In this article we emphasize the role of optimal transport theory in: 1) the passage from Nash to Cournot-Nash equilibria as the number of players tends to infinity, 2) the analysis of Cournot-Nash equilibria. |
| Keywords: | Nash equilibria, games with a continuum of players, Cournot-Nash equilibria, Monge-Kantorovich optimal transportation problem |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:28213&r=hpe |
| By: | Blanchet, Adrien; Carlier, Guillaume |
| Abstract: | This article is devoted to various methods (optimal transport, fixed-point, ordi- nary differential equations) to obtain existence and/or uniqueness of Cournot-Nash equilibria for games with a continuum of players with both attractive and repulsive effects. We mainly address separable situations but for which the game does not have a potential, contrary to the variational framework of [3]. We also present several nu- merical simulations which illustrate the applicability of our approach to compute Cournot-Nash equilibria. |
| Keywords: | Continuum of players, Cournot-Nash equilibria, optimal transport, best-reply iteration, congestion, non-symmetric interactions. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:28214&r=hpe |
| By: | AndreaSalvatore Antonio Barbieri |
| Abstract: | (English) This article questions the increasing use of “happiness” or “subjective well-being” in order to evaluate public policies and social conditions. In more scientific words, can the blossoming economics of happiness revive the economics of welfare, which is said to be dying? The first section puts economics of happiness in the history of economic thought. The second part presents the methodological arguments and proofs of happiness data relevance, as well the results that open on welfare economics renewal and unusual political recommendations. The last part concludes that happiness is a useful criterion to evaluate society’s state, but should not be the only one: happiness data can allow avoiding paternalism and ethnocentrism, for example, but happiness economics face several and serious challenges that should prevent researchers from transforming satisfaction scores into the only barometer of public action. (Italiano) Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di esaminare le questioni che solleva l’utilizzo di dati sul “benessere soggettivo” per valutare le politiche pubbliche. In termini più accademici, si tratta di determinare in quale misura l’economia della felicità, in piena espansione, può contribuire a rinnovare l’economia del benessere, che secondo alcuni autori sarebbe in una fase di stallo. Per capire meglio le implicazioni di questa questione, la prima parte dell’articolo situa l’economia della felicità e l’economia del benessere nella storia del pensiero economico. La seconda parte presenta le argomentazioni metodologiche dell’economia della felicità e il suo contributo al rinnovamento delle raccomandazioni delle politiche economiche e dell’economia del benessere. L’ultima parte sottolinea che la felicità è un criterio utile, ma non può essere l’unico criterio per giudicare lo stato della società: se l’economia della felicità vuole evitare una forma di paternalismo o di etnocentrismo, le incertezze metodologiche che ancora la circondano, e le obiezioni in linea di principio ci invita a non fare della felicità il solo barometro dell’azione pubblica. |
| Keywords: | (English) Happiness; Subjective well-being; Welfare economics; Utilitarianism; “Welfarism” (Italiano) Economia della felicità; Economia del benessere; Benessere soggettivo; Utilitarismo; “Welferismo” |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnz:wpaper:60:2014&r=hpe |
| By: | Obstfeld, Maurice |
| Abstract: | Stanley Fischer is a rarity among economic policymakers. He came to the policy world as an internationally recognized intellectual leader on macroeconomic theory and policy. He confronted numerous emerging market crises, including the globally systemic Asian crisis, as the IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director from September 1994 to August 2001. And then, as governor of an emerging economy’s central bank starting in May 2005, he decided the monetary responses to the worldwide crisis of 2008-09 and its aftershocks. Fischer’s unpublished Robbins Lectures, delivered at the LSE late in 2001, drew lessons from his service at the IMF. Did emerging markets follow up on those lessons, and did their preparations help them weather the storm of 2008-09? How have economists’ views, and Fischer’s, changed as a result of the global financial crisis? In this paper I propose answers to these questions, focusing on the experiences of three Asian crisis countries, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand. |
| Keywords: | Asian crisis; capital controls; exchange rate regime; financial crises; foreign exchange intervention; macro-prudential regulation; Stanley Fischer; transparency |
| JEL: | E44 E63 F32 F34 F36 G01 G15 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9802&r=hpe |
| By: | Ronald Degen (ISM - International School of Management Paris) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses how graduate business school professors can assist in reducing todayÂ’s lack of ethics in business by orienting future corporate leaders on how to behave and decide properly when confronted with the myriad ethical dilemmas of the corporate world. To accomplish this, graduate business school professors have to be able to make future leaders understand what is right and what is wrong from the ethical point of view. This requires that they engage these future leaders in philosophical discussions on ethics in business, particularly to deconstruct the misconceptions that justify todayÂ’s unethical behavior. To help them in these discussions this paper presents three explanations for todayÂ’s unethical behavior, the most important misconceptions built on five half-truths, and the fundamental ethical principles and the requisites of skilled ethical reasoning. |
| Keywords: | ethics in business, misconceptions that justify todayÂ’s unethical behavior, critical ethical reasoning |
| JEL: | M0 M1 |
| Date: | 2014–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pil:wpaper:109&r=hpe |
| By: | Soldatos, Gerasimos T. |
| Abstract: | Aristotle’s economics of exchange: (a) Ideally, reciprocal justice in bilateral bargaining to minimize expenditure given utility levels results in Pareto-efficient, envy-free, equitable outcomes. (b) Practically, bargaining under the threat or actual recontracting may act as a surrogate of reciprocal justice, leading to an N-person (N-dimensional) contract topology. (c) But, recontracting is subject to practical limitations too, in which case near-reciprocal justice/general equilibrium outcomes may be fostered if, as a surrogate of recontracting, modesty in interaction is exhibited in an evolutionarily-stable-strategy fashion. (d) That is, incomplete recontracting amounts to asymmetric agent-type information, which in turn lays the ground for injustices; the same lack of information prevents rectificatory justice from being efficient and hence, modesty can be efficient only if it operates as a social norm and hence, only in a modest polity, which can be no other than democracy. The modern-day terminology used in connection with Aristotle sounds bizarre, but by this is meant that his thinking and answers on issues preoccupying social science for centuries, do not differ much from modern-day approaches to the same issues. |
| Keywords: | reciprocal justice, reciprocal figures, general equilibrium, modesty |
| JEL: | B11 D5 D6 D7 P0 |
| Date: | 2014–05–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56264&r=hpe |
| By: | Prados de la Escosura, Leandro |
| Abstract: | This paper presents historical indices for the main dimensions of economic freedom and an aggregate index for nowadays developed countries -(pre-1994) OECD, for short-. Economic liberty expanded over the last one-and-a-half centuries, reaching two thirds of its maximum possible. Its evolution has been, however, far from linear. After a substantial improvement since mid-nineteenth century, World War I brought a major setback. The post-war recovery up to 1929 was followed by a dramatic decline in the 1930s and significant progress took place during the Golden Age but fell short from the pre-World War I peak. A steady expansion since the early 1980s has resulted in the highest levels of economic liberty of the last two centuries. Each main dimension of economic freedom exhibited a distinctive trend and its contribution to the aggregate index varied over time. Nonetheless, improved property rights provided the main contribution to the long-run advancement of economic liberty. |
| Keywords: | economic liberty; negative freedom; OECD |
| JEL: | N10 O17 P10 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9918&r=hpe |
| By: | Mario Amendola (Università degli studi di Roma la Sapienza); Jean Luc Gaffard (OFCE sciences-po, Skema Busioness School, Univercity of Nice Sophie Antipolis) |
| Abstract: | Novelty and hysteresis are the main engines of economic evolution. However, they are also at the origin of co-ordination issues, as the consequences of any innovative choice can never be fully expected. Thus, there is no sense in analysing economic change as an intertemporal equilibrium with rational expectations. Not only growth and fluctuations cannot be dissociated, but there is no long-term trend that would be independent from what happens in the short- term. The explicit consideration of essential evolutionary phenomena like novelty and hysteresis help a clearer understanding of some important episodes of contemporaneous economic history. The periods considered are characterized by crises and structural changes, and it is exactly when important disturbances affect the functioning of the economies that the relevant features of their behaviour come to the surface and hence the right interpretations of the phenomena taking place, with the adequate policy implications, can be formulated |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:1412&r=hpe |
| By: | Guillaume Allègre (Ofce,Sciences-po); Xavier Timbeau (Ofce, Sciences-po) |
| Abstract: | Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century proposes a critical analysis of the dynamics of capital accumulation. The book has several objectives: to present the historical dynamics of capital and its distribution up to the early twenty-first century; to offer a prospective analysis of these dynamics up to the end of this century; and, finally, to discuss policy measures that would make it possible to avoid the future it lays out. This book is undoubtedly the key treatise on political economy from the first part of this century. The author revives an obsolete format, as academic economists generally prefer publications in scholarly journals while reserving the book format for popularization. He reveals the mechanisms pushing towards convergence or divergence in the distribution of wealth, and emphasizes the widely underestimated power of divergence: if the return on capital (??) exceeds economic growth (??), which has almost always been the case historically, then it is virtually inevitable that inherited wealth will dominate built-up wealth and the concentration of capital will reach extremely high levels. Thomas Piketty thus seeks the foundations of inequality (??>??) in macroeconomics, whereas the usual suspects are found at the micro-economic level. As we shall see, this macro-foundation of the micro-economy is not entirely convincing, and the facts described by Thomas Piketty can be interpreted with a different causality in which it is extra-economic constraints and scarcity rent that explain the dynamics of inequality, and hence the relationship ??>??. This different interpretation of the same phenomena has consequences for public policy. According to our interpretation, an ex post capital tax, if necessary, can only be a second-order choice: first the constraints of scarcity have to be removed and property rights and the respective rights of owners and non-owners must be redefined. |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:1410&r=hpe |
| By: | Christian Ewerhart |
| Abstract: | It is shown that rent-seeking contests with continuous and independent type distributions possess a unique pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Rent-seeking, private information, pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, existence, uniqueness |
| JEL: | C7 D7 D8 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:159&r=hpe |
| By: | Wolfgang Drechsler; Tiina Randma-Liiv |
| Abstract: | The most important reform movement of the last quarter of a century within public administration has been the New Public Management (NPM). In defining NPM, it has proven useful (such as in Pollitt and Dan 2013) to view it as a two-level phenomenon. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tth:wpaper:57&r=hpe |
| By: | Hien, Josef |
| Abstract: | For centuries, churches were the main institutional providers of welfare in Europe before the state took over this role in the late 19th century. The influence of modernization theory meant that modern welfare state theorists increasingly regarded religion and its impact on welfare as a relic from the distant past. It was anticipated that modern, differentiated, and industrialized societies would see the decline and inevitable disappearance of religious welfare provision along with religiosity. Surprisingly, however, at the beginning of the 21st century in many modern industrialized societies, religious institutions are increasingly becoming involved in welfare provision again. The religion blind classic welfare state literature offers no explanation for this phenomenon. This present paper argues that the resurgence of faith-based welfare providers is the reversal of a phenomenon that occurred in the late 19th century when modern states started to strip religious providers of their prerogatives in welfare provision. The result was the ascendance of the modern state and the demise of religion in the late 19th century. The return of welfare to religious providers can therefore be interpreted as the beginning of the demise of the modern state. -- Jahrhundertelang war die Kirche der Hauptwohlfahrtsträger in Europa, bevor der Staat im späten 19. Jahrhundert diese Aufgabe übernahm. Der Einfluss der Modernisierungstheorie bedeutete, dass Theoretiker des modernen Wohlfahrtsstaates Religion und ihre Auswirkung auf Sozialhilfe zunehmend als ein Relikt der Vergangenheit ansahen. Man erwartete, dass in modernen, differenzierten und industrialisierten Gesellschaften der Rückgang und das unausweichliche Verschwinden kirchlicher Wohlfahrtsleistungen mit einem Zerfall an Religiosität einhergingen. Allerdings engagieren sich seit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts in vielen Industrienationen überraschenderweise wieder kirchliche Einrichtungen vermehrt in der Sozialfürsorge. Die klassische Literatur zum Wohlfahrtsstaat blendet die Kirche aus und liefert daher keinerlei Erklärung für dieses Phänomen. Der vorliegende Beitrag argumentiert, dass das Neuaufleben konfessioneller Wohlfahrtsanbieter das Phänomen des späten 19. Jahrhunderts wieder umkehrt, als moderne Staaten begannen, den kirchlichen Wohlfahrtsträgern die Privilegien der Sozialhilfe zu entziehen. Das Ergebnis war der Aufstieg des modernen Wohlfahrtsstaates und der Niedergang der Religion im späten 19. Jahrhundert. Das Wiedererstarken kirchlicher Wohlfahrtspflege kann daher als der Beginn des Zerfalls des modernen Staates erachtet werden. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:149&r=hpe |
| By: | Jeste, Dilip V (University of California, San Diego); Oswald, Andrew J (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Objective - Although human aging is characterized by loss of fertility and progressive decline in physical abilities, later life is associated with better psychological health and well-being. Furthermore, there has been an unprecedented increase in average lifespan over the past century without corresponding extensions of fertile and healthy age spans. We propose a possible explanation for these paradoxical phenomena. Method - We reviewed the relevant literature on aging, well-being, and wisdom. Results - An increase in specific components of individual wisdom in later life may make up for the loss of fertility as well as declining physical health. However, current data on the relationship between aging and individual wisdom are not consistent, and do not explain increased longevity in the general population during the past century. We propose that greater societal wisdom (including compassion) may account for the notable increase in average lifespan over the last century. Data in older adults with serious mental illnesses are limited, but suggest that many of them too experience improved psychosocial functioning, although their longevity has not yet increased, suggesting persistent stigma against mental illness and inadequate societal compassion. Conclusions - Research should focus on the reasons for discrepant findings related to age-associated changes in different components of individual wisdom; also, more work is needed on the construct of societal wisdom. Studies of wisdom and well-being are warranted in older people with serious mental illnesses, along with campaigns to enhance societal compassion for these disenfranchised individuals. Finally, effective interventions to enhance wisdom need to be developed and tested. Key words: Life-cycle happiness ; subjective well-being ; wisdom ; psychiatry ; U shape JEL classification: I31 ; D01 ; C18 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1046&r=hpe |
| By: | Sidartha Gordon (Département d'économie); Alessandro Riboni |
| Abstract: | Conflicts are likely less violent if individuals entertain the possibility that the opponent may be right. Why is it so difficult to observe this attitude? In this paper, we consider a game of conflict where two opponents fight in order to impose their preferred policy. Before entering the conflict, one opponent (the agent) trusts the information received by his principal. The principal wants to a↵ect the agent’s e↵ort, but he also cares that the agent selects the correct policy and that he has the right incentives to acquire information.We find conditions under which the principal induces hawkish attitudes in the agent. As a result, the agent has no doubts about the optimality of his preferred policy, conflicts are violent and bad decisions are sometimes made. Under some other conditions, the agent adopts dovish attitudes of systematic doubt and conflicts are less violent. |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/1pol0t9ish8aibtfnljt1dn7he&r=hpe |
| By: | Natsuka Tokumaru |
| Abstract: | Economic experiments have shown that human incentives are not only limited to the profit-maximizing principle but also motivated by fairness. Those studies presuppose that individuals commit to fixed value systems and that experimental institutions invoke fairness ideals. This paper shows that participants strategically select fairness ideals advantageous for self-distribution. Participants whose relative earnings are higher than those of their pairs adhere to a liberalist fairness ideal, whereas those with lower relative earnings prefer an egalitarian distribution of money. This reflects that individuals commit opportunistic behavior as a result of resolving a cognitive dissonance between material utility and fairness. |
| Keywords: | Economic Experiment, Fairness Ideals, Cognitive Dissonance, Hidden Selfishness, Opportunistic Behavior |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kue:dpaper:e-14-004&r=hpe |
| By: | Schütte, Miriam; Thoma, Carmen |
| Abstract: | According to several psychological and economic studies, non-binding communication can be an effective tool to increase trust and enhance cooperation. This paper focuses on reasons why people stick to a given promise and analyzes to what extent image concerns of being perceived as a promise breaker play a role. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we vary the ex post observability of the promising party's action in order to test for social image concerns. We observe that slightly more promises are kept if the action is revealed than if it is not, yet the difference is not significant. However, a variation in the selection of pre-defined messages across treatments delivers another interesting finding. While most of the promises are kept, statements of intent tend to be broken. |
| Keywords: | Promises; communication; social image concerns; guilt; shame; behavioral economics; experiment |
| JEL: | C70 C91 D03 D82 |
| Date: | 2014–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:muenec:20861&r=hpe |
| By: | Zingales, Luigi |
| Abstract: | The very same forces that induce economists to conclude that regulators are captured should lead us to conclude that the economic profession is captured as well. As evidence of this capture, I show that papers whose conclusions are pro-management are more likely to be published in economic journals and more likely to be cited. I also show that business schools’ faculty write papers that are more pro management. I highlight possible remedies to reduce the extent of this capture: from a reform of the publication process, to an enhanced data disclosure, from a stronger theoretical foundation to a mechanism of peer pressure. Ultimately, the most important remedy, however, is awareness, an awareness most economists still do not have. |
| Keywords: | Capture; Economics profession; Regulation |
| JEL: | D72 P16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9867&r=hpe |
| By: | Saskia Vossenberg (Consultant Gender and Women's Political Empowerment, NIMD | Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy; External Research fellow 'Women and Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries', Maastricht School of Management; Program manager 'Women's Entrepreneurship Promotion', Maastricht School of Management) |
| Abstract: | How can we move the debate beyond feminist critique and present policy-makers and development practitioners with premises for entrepreneurship promotion in its attempt to overcome issues of gender inequality in economic growth and development? Feminist epistemologies can offer a set of conceptual advances and tools of analysis to define goals, problems and solutions for entrepreneurship promotion. By means of a literature review it is argued that a critical realist approach, as found in standpoint feminism, provides a strong basis for thinking through feminist concerns about entrepreneurship promotion. Consequently, four premises for feminist driven entrepreneurship promotion are presented. |
| Keywords: | feminist theory, female entrepreneurship, developing countries, entrepreneurship promotion, policy. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msm:wpaper:2014/14&r=hpe |
| By: | Rafael Di Tella (Harvard Business School); Robert MacCulloch (University of Auckland) |
| Abstract: | Beliefs are one component of culture. Data from the World Values Survey is available on a subset of beliefs concerning (broadly) meritocracy and poverty that appear relevant for economics. We document how they vary as well as their distribution across countries. We then correlate these measures of beliefs with economic growth and compare them with institutional and geographical determinants of income. A strong negative relationship is found between leftist economic beliefs and growth but little evidence is found of a relationship with respect to non-economic beliefs. Finally, we briefly discuss some causal effects on beliefs. The evidence suggests that higher country risk and more dependence on natural resources shifts nations to a more leftist set of economic beliefs. Overall the evidence supports the view that cultural specificities may explain why certain institutions cannot be transplanted between nations with different cultural histories and underlines the limit to policy activism. |
| Keywords: | Beliefs, institutions, causality |
| JEL: | P16 E62 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:14_06&r=hpe |
| By: | Rosalia Azzaro Pulvirenti (Ceris - Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth,Rome,Italy) |
| Abstract: | “Corporate Family Responsibility” means that Households and Stakeholders can help each other, supported by institutions, to increase their growth. Our aim is to explain the main result of it: a higher level of social benefits can be effective for achieving economic goals. The first part of the paper illustrates the status of the art and some theories on business ethics; the final part some practical perspectives about it in Italy. |
| JEL: | A13 D1 M14 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csc:cerisp:201309&r=hpe |
| By: | Gibson, Rajna; Tanner, Carmen; Wagner, Alexander F |
| Abstract: | We conduct a laboratory experiment in which we expose participants to situational social norms of approval or disapproval of lying. Participants conform to the situational pressure, but there are important differences in individual reactions. We collect data on a number of individual characteristics, including proxies for intrinsic costs of lying (ICOL). Because different ICOL proxies tap into different motives for honesty, the extent of the interaction of these proxies with situational norms and with economic incentives sheds new light on why people act more truthfully than predicted by standard economic models. This analysis also helps to determine which characteristics explain individuals’ resistance to situational norms. |
| Keywords: | Conformity; Honesty; Pro-social concern; Protected values; Self-signaling; Situational social norms |
| JEL: | C91 G02 G30 M14 |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9880&r=hpe |
| By: | Olivier Giovannoni |
| Abstract: | This series of working papers explores a theme enjoying a tremendous resurgence: the functional distribution of income--the division of aggregate income by factor share. This first installment surveys some landmark theories of income distribution. Some provide a technology-based account of the relative shares while others provide a demand-driven explanation (Keynes, Kalecki, Kaldor, Goodwin). Two questions lead to a better understanding of the literature: is income distribution assumed constant?, and is income distribution endogenous or exogenous? However, and despite their insights, these theories alone fail to fully explain the current deterioration of income distribution. Subsequent installments are dedicated to analyzing the empirical literature (part II), to the measurement and composition of the relative shares (part III), and to a study of the role of economic policy (part IV). |
| Keywords: | Wage Share; Labor Share; Profit Share; Ergodicity; Technology |
| JEL: | D33 E24 E25 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_803&r=hpe |
| By: | Juan Camilo Cárdenas; Andrés Casas-Casas; Nathalie Méndez Méndez |
| Abstract: | This article contributes to the literature on the impact of transitional justice measures using microfoundational evidence from experiments. We argue that there is a distributional dilemma at the heart of transitional justice programs, given that the State must allocate goods and services both to victims and ex-combatants. Individual and social preferences over these processes matter, given that they are likely to scale up to undermine or increase public support for transitional justice programs. We offer evidence from the Colombian case, to show what we call the hidden face of justice effect, which occurs when in the transition from war to peace distributional dilemmas arise and generate a social sanction function that creates negative incentives that can affect the achievement of reintegration of ex-combatants and jeopardizes the maintenance of peace. In order to explore the microfoundations that underlie the differences between allocations to victims and ex-combatants, we use a database built by Cárdenas et. al (2008) and find that ex-combatants expect lower transfers from public officers and indeed receive lower transfers, if compared to the victims and the control groups included in the study, despite the fact that third-party observers have the power to punish senders when making offers seen by the third-party as unfair. Keywords: Transitional justice, fairness, field experiments, third-party punishment game |
| Keywords: | Transitional justice, fairness, field experiments, third-party punishment game |
| JEL: | C93 D03 D63 D64 D74 H56 |
| Date: | 2013–08–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:011470&r=hpe |