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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Rohini Pande; Helena Roy |
| Abstract: | Alfred Marshall and Mary Paley Marshall are often described as the first academic economist couple. Both studied at Cambridge University, where Paley became one of the first women to take the Tripos exam and the first female lecturer in economics, with Marshall’s encouragement. But in later life, Marshall opposed granting Cambridge degrees to women and their participation in academic economics. This paper recounts Alfred Marshall’s use of gender norms, born out of a separate spheres ideology, to promote and ingrain women’s exclusion in academic economics and beyond. We demonstrate the persistence of this ideology and resultant norms, drawing parallels between gendered inequities in labor market outcomes for Cambridge graduates in the UK post-Industrial Revolution and those apparent in cross-country data today. We argue that the persistence of the norms produced by separate spheres ideologies is likely to reflect, at least in part, the rents associated with preferential access to better paid, high-skilled labor market opportunities. In doing so, we ask who benefits from gender norms, who enforces them, and suggest relevant policy work and areas for future research. |
| JEL: | B3 J16 J7 O43 |
| Date: | 2021–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29481&r= |
| By: | Cécile Edlinger (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Maxime Merli (UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg); Antoine Parent (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we propose an original analysis of advice given by financial analysts prior to WW1. Our article focuses on the writings of A. Neymarck, one of the most popular French analysts in the early 20th Century. The creation of portfolios from a new database composed of the monthly returns of all the security types listed on the official Paris Stock Exchange from 1903 to 1912 has provided results demonstrating that Neymarck correctly identified the risk in a number of sectors. The performances of these portfolios, which were built according to Neymarck's guidelines, confirm Neymarck's ranking in terms of both risk and return: the richer the investor, the riskier and the more profitable his portfolio was seen to be. Finally, the Modern Portfolio Theory enables us to pinpoint the few imperfections in Neymarck's advice, which globally appears to be driven by reliable financial analysis. |
| Keywords: | Portfolio advice,Diversification before WW1,Financial markets prior WW1 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03403339&r= |
| By: | Alexandre Chirat |
| Abstract: | Baumol’s impact on the development of managerial theories of the firm is investigated here through material found in Galbraith’s archives. In 1957 Galbraith published a paper claiming that the impact of macroeconomic policies varies with market structures (competitive versus oligopolistic). That publication prompted Baumol (1958b) to send Galbraith a manuscript dealing extensively with a crucial question of managerial theories of the firm, namely, the trade-off between sales and profits. I argue that Baumol’s critiques and Galbraith’s answers largely explain the way Baumol (1958a, 1959) framed his alternative model of the behavior of corporations. He reasoned in terms of maximization of sales with a profit constraint as their main objective. In return, Business Behavior, Value and Growth fostered the development of Marris’ (1964) and Galbraith’s (1967) theories of the corporation. While Tullock (1978) provides a narrative in which the sales maximization hypothesis has two main branches – Baumol for the one and Galbraith-Marris for the other – the paper demonstrates that these branches are intimately connected. |
| Keywords: | Baumol – Galbraith – Theory of the firm – Managerialism – Marginalisme |
| JEL: | B21 B22 D43 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2021-35&r= |
| By: | Peter Galbács (Budapest Business School) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03414823&r= |
| By: | Peter Galbács (Budapest Business School) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415992&r= |
| By: | Mihail-Valentin Cernea (Bucharest University of Economic Studies) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03416022&r= |
| By: | Jon Mulberg (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University (UK)) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses Beck's concept of reflexive modernity, and a Foucauldian approach, to critique the positivist philosophy associated with contemporary conventional economics, and to show its inadequacy for the environmental emergency. The paper suggests economics is not neutral but performs an ideological function in justifying the political and social order. Economics can be deconstructed by tracing its history, thereby laying bare its philosophical and political roots. The environmental debate repeats past debates of the 1920s and 30s. By employing the 'subjugated' institutional economics approaches economics can be redefined, and the path to a truly Green New Deal can be unearthed. |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415964&r= |
| By: | Ceyhun Gürkan (Ankara Üniversitesi) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03414839&r= |
| By: | Marc Fleurbaey (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Ravi Kanbur (Cornell University [New York]); Brody Viney (World Bank Group) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers and assesses the concept of social externalities through human interdependence, in relation to the economic analysis of externalities in the tradition of Pigou and Arrow, including the analysis of the commons. It argues that there are limits to economic analysis. Our proposal is to enlarge the perspective and start thinking about a broader framework in which can be attached the "externality" label and be scrutinized for the likely negative consequences that result from the divergence. A tentative and probably incomplete list of possible internalizing mechanisms includes: pricing and monetary incentives; altruism and solidarity; moral norms; reciprocity and mutual monitoring; centralized cooperative decision-making; and merger. There are clear reasons why the pricing mechanism is not appropriate in some cases. A more difficult question to answer is what factors determine which of the mechanisms is the appropriate one to rely on in a given sphere of relations and activities. The object of the paper is to encourage research and contributions from all the relevant disciplines of social sciences about the pervasive human interdependence that the notion of social externalities tries to capture. |
| Keywords: | Externalities,Commons,Human Interdpendence,Social Externalities,InternalizingMechanisms,Ethical Principles JEL Codes |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-03426166&r= |
| By: | Tiago Cardão-Pito (ULisboa - University of Lisbon = Universidade de Lisboa) |
| Abstract: | Contemporary mainstream economics cannot be seen as disconnected from philosophical concerns. On the contrary, it should be understood as a defence for a specific philosophy, namely, crude quantitative hedonism where money would measure pleasure and pain. Disguised among a great mathematical apparatus involving utility functions, supply, and demand, lies a specific hedonist philosophy that every year is lectured to thousands of economic and business students around the world. This hedonist philosophy is much less sophisticated than that in ancient hedonist philosophers as Epicurus or Lucretius. Furthermore, it does not solve any of the systematic difficulties regularly faced by hedonist philosophy. However, the argument that economics is detached from philosophy works as a rhetorical artifice to protect its dominant underlying philosophy: Philosophical disputes would have to be addressed within the biased mathematical apparatus of quantitative hedonism. Economists and business students must learn to identify the underlying philosophy in mainstream economics and alternative philosophical systems. |
| Keywords: | quantitative hedonism,hedonism,qualitative hedonism,rhetorical artifice,hedonist economic theory,utilitarianism,labour based economic theory |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03414847&r= |
| By: | Michael Kurschilgen (Technical University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | How does moral awareness affect people's fairness judgments? Models of identity utility predict that if individuals differ in their personal fairness ideals (equality versus effciency), higher moral awareness should not only make people's choices less selfish but also more polarized. On the other hand, people's desire for conforming with the behavior of their peers should help mitigate polarization. I test these conjectures in a laboratory experiment, in which participants can pursue different fairness ideals. I exogenously vary (i) whether participants are prompted to state their moral opinions behind the veil of ignorance, and (ii) whether they are informed about the behavior of their peers. I find that moral introspection makes choices more polarized, reflecting even more divergent moral opinions. The increase in polarization coincides largely with a widening of revealed gender differences as introspection makes men's choices more welfarist and women's more egalitarian. Disclosing the descriptive norm of the situation is not capable of mitigating the polarization. |
| Keywords: | Moral Introspection; Social Information; Identity; Normative Ambivalence; Equality; Efficiency; Polarization; Experiment. |
| JEL: | C91 D63 |
| Date: | 2021–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:17&r= |
| By: | Dragoș Bîgu (Bucharest University of Economic Studies) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03416013&r= |
| By: | Henrieta Şerban (Institute of Philosophy and Psychology “Constantin Rădulescu-Motru”) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415974&r= |
| By: | Ricardo Crespo (Universidad Austral) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03415956&r= |
| By: | Frederic Jennings Jr. (J Phil Econ - Journal of Philosophical Economics) |
| Date: | 2021–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03414864&r= |