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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Virgile Chassagnon (UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes); Bernard Baudry (TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne - Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Lyon - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon) |
| Abstract: | Despite the numerous economic works on the nature of the firm, only a few studies have clearly taken into account the legal and institutional contexts of the employer-employee relationship. This paper aims at comparing the regulation rules of the employment relationship advocated by contract economic theories to the American and French labor laws in both a positive and normative perspective. From a positive perspective, the contract approaches to the firm – transaction cost economics, the nexus of contracts theory and the modern theory of property rights – are similar to the tradition of American labor law. However, from a normative point of view, it appears that if contract economic theories seem to be partially in line with certain principles of the French labor law, there is a strong inconsistency between these approaches and the role that the French legal system gives to the State and to the law courts (and judges). |
| Keywords: | Contract economic theories,employment relationship,American labor law,French labor law,contractual freedom,employers' powers,collective negotiation,disputes settlement |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01371870&r=hpe |
| By: | Laurent Bibard (ESSEC Business School - Essec Business School) |
| Abstract: | Alexandre Kojève thought suffers from the provocative way the philosopher initially insisted on the notion of End of History. Alexandre Kojève philosophical enquiry fairly overcomes this notion, towards a comprehensive understanding of the whole human life. This understanding particularly involves a breakthrough concerning the understanding of the most advanced sciences of our time. Understanding Kojeve thought consequently demands not only to understand his thought on the final historical Law (see An Outline of a Phenomenology of Right), but what Kojève called the “objective reality” as well. |
| Abstract: | La pensée d’Alexandre Kojève souffre du malentendu initial que provoqua l’insistance du philosophe sur la Fin de l’Histoire. L’interrogation philosophique de Kojève déborde plus que largement cette question, en direction d’une compréhension totale de l’homme et du « monde où l’on vit », compréhension impliquant une épistémologie fondamentale propre à éclairer le devenir des sciences les plus avancées de notre temps. C’est donc à la fois comme pensée du Droit ultime de l’Histoire (cf Esquisse d’une phénoménologie du Droit) et de ce que Kojève appelle la « Réalité objective », que la pensée du philosophe qui se disait sage gagne à être abordée pour être comprise. |
| Keywords: | Kojeve,History,Law,Objective reality,Time,Droit,Histoire,Réalité objective,Temps |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01373047&r=hpe |
| By: | Alain Alcouffe (LIRHE - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de recherche sur les Ressources Humaines et l'Emploi - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | The author presents an account of the liberal economic thought in Germany from the dawn of the 20th century to the sixties. She describes in sufficient detail the conceptions of economic thought and economic policies of W. Eucken, W. Röpke, L. Erhard and A. Müller-Armack who are generally considered as the fathers of the social market economy. Meanwhile, the author provides keys to understand German current economic policy that is heavily discussed while its intellectual roots are poorly understood. The book fills in a very large gap in the history of economics. |
| Abstract: | l'auteur rend compte des avatars de la pensée économique libérale en Allemagne de l’aube du 20e siècle aux années 60. Elle expose de façon détaillée les conceptions de quatre économistes, W. Eucken, W. Röpke, L. Erhard et A. Müller-Armack à qui on attribue couramment l’origine de l’économie sociale de marché. Chemin faisant, l’auteur offre des clés pour comprendre la politique économique allemande contemporaine dont les racines sont méconnues alors qu’elle fait l’objet de de tant de débats. Le livre vient combler un vide dans la littérature économique. |
| Keywords: | German economic thought, W. Eucken, W. Röpke, L. Erhard , A. Müller-Armack, Social market economy |
| Date: | 2016–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01380176&r=hpe |
| By: | Marc-Arthur Diaye (EPEE - Centre d'Etudes des Politiques Economiques - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne); André Lapidus (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Economiques - UNIVERSITE PARIS 1 PANTHEON-SORBONNE - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Until recently, little attention has been paid to the consequences of Hume's theory of action upon intertemporal decision. Nonetheless, some of their specicities have been emphasized by G. Davis 2003, A. Lapidus 2000, 2010, and I. Palacios-Huerta 2003. Through recurring discussions, concerning situations of conicting choice between a close and a remote objective, which run from the Treatise, Book 2 (Hume 1739-40), to the second Enquiry (Hume 1751) to the Dissertation (Hume 1757), intertemporal decision appears, at least for a part of it, as an outcome of the role of the natural relation of contiguity in the formation of a structure of desires, dierent from the structure of pleasure. This paper shows, and expresses formally, that Hume's approach provides alternative conditions explaining on the one hand time-consistency and, on the other hand, time-inconsistency when the link between contiguity and the violence of the passions is taken into account. The possibility of time-inconsistency is acknowledged by Hume as giving rise to general aversion, therefore constituting a key argument for explaining the origin of government. |
| Keywords: | Hume,intertemporal decision,pleasure,belief,passion,desire,government |
| Date: | 2016–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01372527&r=hpe |
| By: | Antonio José Heras Martínez (Departamento de Economía Financiera y Contabilidad 1 - Universidad Complutense de Madrid [Madrid]); David Teira (Departamento de Lógica, Historia y Filosofía de la ciencia - UNED - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia); Pierre-Charles Pradier (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Labex ReFi - Université Paris1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | The concept of acturial fairness stems from an Aristotelian tradition in which fairness requires equality between the goods exchanged. When dealing with aleatory contracts, this principle evolved, among medieval scholars, into equality in risk: benefits and losses should be proportional to the risks undertaken. The formalization of this principle gave rise to the concept of mathematical expectation, first implemented in the calculation of the fair price of gambles. The concept of an actuarial fair price was first theoretically articulated in the 17th century as an implementation of this same Aristotelian principle in the field of life insurance. For a practical estimation of fair actuarial prices it was necessary to build mortality tables, assuming that the major risk factor was age. Yet, in the 18th and 19th centuries, we find no agreement among proto-actuaries about the proper construction of these tables. Among the obstacles they found, we want to highlight their early awareness of the possibility of adverse selection: buyers and sellers could manipulate the risk assessment for their own private interests, in a way that would either make fair companies collapse or fair customers be cheated. The paradox in the concept of actuarial fairness is that as soon as it was formally articulated, markets made clear it could never be implemented in actual pricing. |
| Abstract: | Le concept de justice actuarielle dérive de la tradition aristotélicienne d'après lequel la justice requiert l'égalité entre les biens échangés. Dans le cas de contrats aléatoires, ce principe a évolué, chez les scolastiques médiévaux, vers l'égalité en termes de risque : les gains et les pertes doivent être proportionnels aux risques encourus. La formalisation de ce principe a donné naissance au concept d'espérance mathématique, qui est apparu dans le calcul des chances aux jeux de hasard sous la forme de juste prix. Le concept de prix actuariellement juste découle alors de la mise en œuvre du principe aristotélicien dans le domaine de l'assurance, et notamment de l'assurance-vie. pour l'estimation concrète des primes actuariellement justes, il fallait mettre au point des tables de mortalité et considérer que l'âge constituait le principal facteur de risque. Pourtant, pendant le siècle et demi qui s'achève vers 1830, les proto-actuaires ne s'accordent pas sur les méthodes de construction des tables. Parmi les obstacles à la formulation d'une méthode commune, nous avons voulu souligner l'attention portée très tôt aux problèmes d'antisélection : les acheteurs comme les vendeurs pouvaient manipuler la perception des risques de l'autre partie, de sorte que des compagnies pratiquant des prix justes puissent faire faillite, ou que des clients honnêtes puissent être volés. Le paradoxe du concept de justice actuarielle est donc que les marchés ont montré, dès qu'il a été formulé et calculé, qu'il ne constituerait jamais un prix viable. |
| Keywords: | actuarial fairness,mathematical expectation,life insurance,annuity,risk,justice actuarielle,espérance mathématique,assurance-vie,rente,risque |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01400213&r=hpe |
| By: | Mechtenberg, Lydia; Tyran, Jean-Robert |
| Abstract: | The quality of democratic choice critically depends on voter motivation, i.e. on voters' willingness to cast an informed vote. If voters are motivated, voting may result in smart choices because of information aggregation but if voters remain ignorant, delegating decision making to an expert may yield better outcomes. We experimentally study a common interest situation in which we vary voters' information cost and the competence of the expert. We find that voters are more motivated to collect information than predicted by standard theory and that voter motivation is higher when subjects demand to make choices by voting than when voting is imposed on subjects. |
| Keywords: | Experiment; Information Acquisition; information aggregation; voting |
| JEL: | C91 D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11622&r=hpe |
| By: | Alice Hsiaw (Brandeis University); Ing-Haw Cheng (Brandeis University) |
| Abstract: | Disagreements about substance and expert credibility often go hand-in-hand and are hard to resolve, even when people share common information, on a wide range of issues ranging from economics, climate change, to medicine. We argue that a learning bias helps explain disagreement in environments such as these where both the state of the world and the credibility of information sources (experts) are uncertain. Individuals with our learning bias overinterpret how much they can learn about two sources of uncertainty from one signal, leading them to over-infer expert quality. People who encounter information or experts in different order disagree about substance because they endogenously disagree about the credibility of each others' experts. Disagreement persists because first impressions about experts have long-lived influences on beliefs about the state. These effects arise even though agents share common priors, information, and biases, providing a theory for the origins of disagreement. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brd:wpaper:110r&r=hpe |
| By: | Stéphane Cordier (MAPMO - Mathématiques - Analyse, Probabilités, Modélisation - Orléans - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UO - Université d'Orléans, UO - Université d'Orléans); Nicolas Debarsy (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orléans - LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UO - Université d'Orléans); Cem Ertur (Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orléans - LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UO - Université d'Orléans, UO - Université d'Orléans); François Nemo (LLL - Laboratoire Ligérien de Linguistique - BNF - Bibliothèque Nationale de France - UO - Université d'Orléans - Université François Rabelais - Tours - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UO - Université d'Orléans); Déborah Nourrit (EPSYLON - Dynamique des capacités humaines et des conduites de santé - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne - Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III); Gérard Poisson (PRISME - Laboratoire Pluridisciplinaire de Recherche en Ingénierie des Systèmes, Mécanique et Energétique - UO - Université d'Orléans - ENSI Bourges); Christel Vrain (LIFO - Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale d'Orléans - UO - Université d'Orléans - INSA - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, UO - Université d'Orléans) |
| Abstract: | This manuscript is composed of 18 contributions studying interactions in complex systems. These contributions were presented at the international conference on Interactions in Complex Systems, organized at University of Orléans in June 2013. This multidisciplinary manuscript aims at presenting how different disciplines may see their research topic from the complex system perspective and how interactions are accounted for in these complex systems. In this manuscript, we find contributions in mathematics, physics, computer sciences, robotics, life sciences, economics, linguistic, humanities or science of education The book is split into 4 parts, each one approaching interactions in complex systems from a particular perspective. We have gathered contributions by approach rather than by studied topic, the latter way being, to our viewpoint, less relevant to this type of book. The first part of the book contains papers dealing with interactions at the system level. The included contributions address territory planning, the traveling of population in the Neolithic era or interactions in neuron populations.The second part collects articles studying \textbf{networks} and proposing different methods for their analysis. This part contains contributions on link prediction, on interaction analysis in communities learning, on the influence of the type of strategies updates (parallel or sequential) on the evolution of cooperation among humans, opinion dynamics or the social function of gossip. Articles included in the third part focus on the analysis of interactions in social communications. As such, this part gathers papers studying teacher-student relations, the modeling of the teacher's evaluative speech to study students' interactions and the effects on learning or the modeling of human communications. Finally, the last part of this book is devoted to the analysis of interactions between economic agents in different fields. Thereby, a contribution develops a methodology to forecast employability of students in Earth Sciences; another article studies the importance of language and interactions between individuals as determinants of market equilibria; a mathematical model is derived to model money asset exchanges in the framework of a complex socioeconomic model in the third article and the last contribution of this part examines the study choice in an evolutionary game and show under which conditions the population of students splits into two classes of strategies in equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Interactions,Complex System,Hyperbolic travelling waves,Territory Development,Neuron population,Game theory,Learning communities,Link prediction,Multiplex networks,Gossip,Opinion dynamics,Communication,Social-sport educators,Evaluative speech,Employability in Earth Science,Market interactions,Kinetic models,Evolutionary games |
| Date: | 2016–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01377409&r=hpe |
| By: | Daniel L. Bennett (Florida State University); Hugo J. Faria (University of Miami); James D. Gwartney (Florida State University); Daniel R. Morales (Florida State University) |
| Abstract: | Existing literature suggests that either colonial settlement conditions or the identity of colonizer were influential in shaping the post-colonial institutional environment, which in turn has impacted long-run economic development, but has treated the two potential identification strategies as substitutes. We argue that the two factors should instead be treated as complementary and develop a novel identification strategy that simultaneously accounts for both settlement conditions and colonizer identity to estimate the potential causal impact of a broad cluster of economic institutions on log real GDP per capita for a sample of former colonies. Using population density in 1500 as a proxy for settlement conditions, we find that the impact of settlement conditions on institutional development is much stronger among former British colonies than colonies of the other major European colonizers. Conditioning on several geographic factors and ethno-linguistic fractionalization, our baseline 2SLS estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in economic institutions is associated with a three-fourths standard deviations increase in economic development. Our results are robust to a number of additional control variables, country subsample exclusions, and alternative measures of institutions, GDP, and colonizer classifications. We also find evidence that geography exerts both an indirect and direct effect on economic development. |
| Keywords: | Colonization, Comparative Economic Development, Growth, Geography, Institutions Publication Status: Working Paper |
| JEL: | F54 O1 O4 P5 |
| Date: | 2016–11–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mia:wpaper:2016-07&r=hpe |
| By: | Bernard Baudry (TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne - Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Lyon - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon); Virgile Chassagnon (UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes) |
| Abstract: | This research article proposes to undertake a critical review of Oliver Williamson's law and economic theory from the analysis of collective labour relationships in the United States. From a positive point of view, the 2009 Nobel Prize laureate explains that law determines the rules of play (public ordering), and then individuals freely negotiate the rules that constitute the institutions of governance (private ordering). From a normative perspective, Williamson argues that this partition is efficient with respect to the economizing logic of individuals. However, we show that, actually, the American law of labour relationships is based on legal pluralism and that the model of private ordering, which has been less and less used since the 1980s, has strong limitations. In this context, the analysis of the public ordering/private ordering framework that Williamson proposes is of little interest. |
| Keywords: | Private ordering,public ordering,labour relationships,law and economics,Williamson's transaction cost economics |
| Date: | 2016–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01371848&r=hpe |
| By: | Merkel, Anna; Lohse, Johannes |
| Abstract: | Economists are increasingly interested in the cognitive basis of pro-social behavior. Using response time data, several authors have claimed that "fairness is intuitive". In light of conflicting empirical evidence, we provide theoretical arguments showing under which circumstances an increase in "fair" behavior due to time pressure provides unambiguous evidence in favor of the "fairness is intuitive" hypothesis. Drawing on recent applications of the Drift Diffusion Model (Krajbich et al., 2015a), we demonstrate how the subjective difficulty of making a choice affects choices under time pressure and time delay, thereby making an unambiguous interpretation of time pressure effects contingent on the choice situation. To explore our theoretical considerations and to retest the "fairness is intuitive" hypothesis, we analyze choices in two-person prisoner’s dilemma and binary dictator games. As in previous experiments, we exogenously manipulate response times by placing subjects under time pressure or forcing them to delay their decisions. In addition, we manipulate the subjective difficulty of choosing the fair relative to the selfish option across all choice situations. Our main finding is that time pressure does not increase the fraction of fair choices relative to time delay irrespective of the subjective difficulty of choosing the fair option. Hence, our results cast doubt on the hypothesis that "fairness is intuitive". |
| Keywords: | distributional preferences; cooperation; response times; time pressure; cognitive processes; drift diffusion models |
| Date: | 2016–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0627&r=hpe |
| By: | Joseph Abdou (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Nikolaos Pnevmatikos (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We study the asymptotic value of a frequency-dependent zero-sum game following a differential approach. In such a game the stage payoffs depend on the current action and on the frequency of actions played so far. We associate in a natural way a differential game to the original game and although it presents an irregularity at the origin, we prove existence of the value on the time interval [0,1]. We conclude, using appropriate approximations, that the limit of Vn as n tends to infinity, exists and that it coincides with the value of the associated continuous time game. |
| Keywords: | stochastic game, frequency dependent payoffs, continuous-time game,Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs equation |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01400267&r=hpe |
| By: | Laurent Bibard (ESSEC Business School - Essec Business School) |
| Abstract: | La complexité de la notion d’éthique s’impose dès que l’on considère attentivement l’intention simpliste d’épuiser la question au travers de règles censées garantir la fiabilité éthique des organisations. Ceci, en particulier du fait de l’importance primordiale des routines pour comprendre dans quelle mesure l’éthique résulte prioritairement des pratiques vécues et répétées des acteurs au quotidien et non de la seule et le plus souvent impuissante, si ce n’est délétère incantation concernant les principes. |
| Abstract: | The complexity of ethics looms ahead as soon as one considers the simplistic attitude which consists in aiming at imposing rules and procedures in order to secure that an organization “is ethical”. Routines play a particularly important role in the daily work of organizations, and represent the most fundamental basis for ethics understood on the basis of practices and uses – thus, contrasting with the generally taken for granted understanding of ethics on the basis of norms and formal “commandments”. Far from helping people in “behaving ethically”, rules and norms provoke many deleterious effects on real organizational ethics. |
| Keywords: | Complexity,Ethics,Morals,Rules,Education,Routines,Complexité,Ethique,Morale,Règles |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01373040&r=hpe |
| By: | Hein, Eckhard |
| Abstract: | In this paper the main developments in post-Keynesian macroeconomics since the mid- 1990s will be reviewed. For this purpose the main differences between heterodox economics in general, including post-Keynesian economics, and orthodox economics will be reiterated and an overview over the strands of post-Keynesian economics, their commonalities and developments since the 1930s will be outlined. This will provide the grounds for touching upon three important areas of development and progress of post- Keynesian macroeconomics since the mid-1990s: first, the integration of distribution issues and distributional conflict into short- and long-run macroeconomics, both in theoretical and in empirical/applied works; second, the integrated analysis of money, finance and macroeconomics and its application to changing institutional and historical circumstances, like the process of financialisation; and third, the development of full-blown macroeconomic models, providing alternatives to the mainstream 'New Consensus Model' (NCM), and allowing to derive a full macroeconomic policy mix as a more convincing alternative to the one implied and proposed by the mainstream NCM, which has desperately failed in the face of the recent crises. |
| Keywords: | post-Keynesian macroeconomics,heterodox vs. orthodox economics,pluralism in economics,distribution,money,finance,macroeconomics,macroeconomic policies |
| JEL: | B22 E12 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:752016&r=hpe |
| By: | Aner Sela (BGU); Noam Cohen (BGU); Maor Guy (BGU) |
| Keywords: | Multi-stage contests, Tullock contests, head starts |
| JEL: | C70 D44 L12 O32 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bgu:wpaper:1611&r=hpe |
| By: | Darío Indalecio Restrepo |
| Abstract: | Nadie escapa a su tiempo y el tiempo todo lo transforma, las condiciones de existencia, los valores y las posturas subjetivas, así como las teóricas a partir de las cuales se vive y se interpreta la realidad. Los cambios de apreciación son desechados por algunos, por disolutos, confusos y faltos de referentes certeros; mientras que otros acogen la novedad por su apertura a otros mundos, vivencias y posibilidades. El debate sobre la posmodernidad no escapa a tal polémica, así como no es posible estar por fuera de la condición posmoderna. A partir de dos pares de conceptos se revisan grandes cambios paradigmáticos en las maneras de vivir, concebir y valorar la historia. De lo estructural a las particularidades y de lo singular a las pluralidades. |
| Keywords: | Posmodernidad, historia, epistemología. |
| JEL: | N01 B40 E10 O11 P10 |
| Date: | 2016–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000178:015233&r=hpe |