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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Tsoulfidis, Lefteris |
| Abstract: | Smith's theory of value and distribution, which emphasizes labor time as the determinant of prices, has been widely misunderstood. Ricardo misinterpreted it as relevant only to primitive societies, while Marx mistakenly aligned it with his own labor theory of value. In reality, Smith’s perspective oscillates between a labor-based and a labor-commanded approach to relative prices, intended for modern economies. Neoclassical economists further distorted Smith’s views by incorporating utility theory. Moreover, while Smith is often linked to the theory of a falling rate of profit due to competition, he actually attributed it to rising capital intensity. Contrary to the belief that Smith was a staunch advocate of free markets, he supported reasonable government intervention. |
| Keywords: | Labor theory of value, falling rate of profit, labor commanded, capital intensity |
| JEL: | B00 B31 B51 N00 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124796 |
| By: | Tymoigne, Eric |
| Abstract: | A monetary approach that combines Chartalism, Nominalism, and Command origins of monetary systems is often deemed to have emerged only recently, while the Aristotelian approach (Commodity, Metallism, and Market origins of monetary systems) is the only one that existed until the end of the eighteenth/early-nineteenth century. In the major studies of the history of monetary thought, the Chartalism-Nominalism-Command approach is mostly left unmentioned, or at best reduced to an incoherent banality. The paper shows that this approach has a long and rich intellectual history among uropean monetary thinkers. In Europe, Plato was its first exponent, albeit in a very rudimentary way, and so one may call it the “Platonic approach.” It is developed by Roman legists (such as Javolenus, Paulus, and Ulpian) and Medieval legists (such as Du Moulin, Hotman, and Butigella) who note that coins are similar to securities and that debts are serviced when nominal sums are paid rather than specific coins tendered. During the Renaissance and early modern period, a series of scholars and financial practitioners (such as Law, Dutot, Thomas Smith, and James Taylor) emphasize the financial logic behind monetary mechanics and the similarity of coins and notes. In the twentieth century, authors such as Innes, Knapp, Keynes, and Commons build onto the groundwork provided by these past scholars. In China, the Chartalism-Nominalism-Command approach develops independently and dominates from the beginning under Confucian and Legist thoughts. They emphasize the statecraft origins of monetary systems, the role of tax redemption, and the irrelevance of the material used to make monetary instruments. Clay, lead, paper, iron, copper, and tin are normal and convenient means to make monetary instruments, they are not special/emergency materials. The essence of a monetary instrument is not defined by its materiality but rather by its chartality, that is, by the promise it embeds. The Platonic approach rejects the categories and conceptualizations used by the Aristotelian approach and develops new ones, which leads to a different set of inquiries and understanding of monetary phenomena, problems, and history. |
| Keywords: | History of monetary thoughts, monetary theory, Chartalism, Nominalism, asset pricing, redemption |
| JEL: | B10 B11 B20 B26 E42 E62 G12 H30 K12 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:124797 |
| By: | W. Robert Reed (University of Canterbury); Lukas Röseler; Marianne Saam; Lukas Wallrich |
| Abstract: | Replications are widely recognized as essential to the self-correcting nature of science. Interest in replication studies has grown markedly in both economics and psychology over the past decade. Nevertheless, they still represent a very small share of total publications. We discuss why most journals in economics and psychology do not regularly publish replications and which role replication journals can play in creating a home for replications that is sustainable, credible, and visible. |
| Keywords: | Replications; Reproductions; Economics; Psychology; Publishing |
| JEL: | A11 B41 C80 |
| Date: | 2025–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbt:econwp:25/10 |
| By: | Abel Brodeur; Seung Yong Sung; Edward Miguel; Lars Vilhuber; Fernando Hoces de la Guardia |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a framework to standardize crowd-sourced computational reproductions in economics through the Social Science Reproduction Platform (SSRP). The approach address four main challenges for computational reproductions: a lack of standardization, aggregation issues, existing incentives for “adversarial” interactions, and the loss of knowledge from analyses that are never published. We then summarize the first 487 reproductions uploaded on the SSRP. The results show substantial heterogeneity in the ability to successfully reproduce empirical results in economics research, with approximately 30% of recent studies meeting at least a basic definition of being computationally reproducible. |
| JEL: | A14 C10 C81 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33753 |
| By: | Basile Clerc |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relevance of the incomes policy advocated by Claude Gruson in the 1960s to address the inflationary pressures characteristic of the crisis of the "Fordist regime" in France. To this end, we draw on the unprecedented study of the Gruson report submitted to Georges Pompidou in 1964. Despite its theoretical coherence, this policy was rejected by Pompidou, who ordered the physical destruction of the report copies due to its "sensitive" nature. Rooted in the perspective of the regulation theory and enriched by neo-realist political economy, this study demonstrates how Gruson’s proposal, based on a “proto-regulationist” analysis of inflation, could have acted as an institutional stabilizer by limiting distributive conflicts at the heart of the crisis. Pompidou’s decision, emblematic of the realignments taking place in the 1960s, marks a step towards a neoliberal regulatory framework. The article thus highlights the interactions between structural transformations and political decisions, underscoring how the abandonment of incomes policy reflects the shifts within the "dominant social bloc" in 1960s France. |
| Keywords: | incomes policy; crisis of Fordism; regulation theory |
| JEL: | E64 N00 E31 M48 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2025-26 |
| By: | Andini, Corrado |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a theory of the mark-up that is embedded in a circuit model of the capitalist mode of production. The model and the theory are built on Keynes's principle of effective demand, Graziani's monetary theory of production and Pivetti's monetary theory of distribution. The price- setting mechanism is conceived as driven by a Kaleckian rule. The rate of interest on bank loans and the propensities to save of different macro-players are shown to affect the level of the mark-up, thus contributing to explain "labour exploitation" as measured by the average gap between worker's pay and productivity. In other words, "labour exploitation" is seen as being in part originated by monetary phenomena, such as the rentability of bank credit and the macro-players' propensities to accumulate money in a bank account. |
| Keywords: | Profit, Wage, Money, Finance, Capitalism |
| JEL: | B22 E11 E12 E40 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1610 |
| By: | Karsten Heinz Schönbach (Free University of Berlin) |
| Abstract: | Ever since the publication of Henry Turner's German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, most histo-rians in both Germany and the United States have dismissed the idea that support from German major industry played a key role in bringing Hitler to power. This consensus is wrong, as I have shown in a series of works that began with my doctoral dissertation at the Free University of Berlin and now extends to more than ten different works, including two books. These works rely extensively on ar-chival resources that were either inaccessible or only selectively open to earlier researchers. This paper analyzes in detail one of the most crucial episodes in Hitler's rise to power – one that pre-vious historians, particularly Turner, have profoundly misjudged thanks in part at least to the short-comings in the documentary sources available to them. This is the history of the political relations be-tween Hitler, the NSDAP leadership, and the German "coal industrialists" in the period from 1926 to 1933 and the key role these firms played in supporting and financing the eventual Nazi triumph. |
| Keywords: | German Coal Industry; Great Depression, Rise of Nazis, Germany Economic History |
| JEL: | D72 J52 N14 N34 N54 N64 P12 |
| Date: | 2024–10–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:thk:wpaper:inetwp230 |
| By: | Qianqian Yang (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University, JAPAN); Nobuaki Hamaguchi (Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers an integrated perspective that bridges labor economics and spatial economics to shed light on the broader implications of minimum wage policies. Traditional labor economics, grounded in neoclassical and partial equilibrium models, yields ambiguous theoretical predictions regarding the employment effects of minimum wages, making empirical analysis essential. Yet empirical findings from both developed and developing countries remain mixed, shaped by differences in data, methods, and variable definitions. Spatial economics, particularly through general equilibrium frameworks, provides insight into how agglomeration forces, transport costs, increasing returns, and factor mobility influence regional economic outcomes. These models suggest that core regions benefiting from agglomeration rents may be better positioned to sustain generous public policies, including higher minimum wages. We also review evidence on how minimum wages affect migration and firm location decisions, though results remain inconclusive. Through a comprehensive review of the extant literature, this paper underscores the value of incorporating spatial perspectives in understanding minimum wage effects and identifies directions for future research. |
| Keywords: | Minimum wage; Labor economics; Regional labor markets; Agglomeration rent; Spatial economics |
| JEL: | J38 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2025-08 |
| By: | Daniel S. Hamermesh |
| Abstract: | This study examines publications in three leading general economics journals from the 1960s through the 2020s, considering levels and trends in the demographics of authors, methodologies of the studies, and patterns of co-authorship. The average age of authors has increased nearly steadily; there has been a sharp increase in the fraction of female authors; the number of authors per paper has risen steadily; and there has been a pronounced shift to articles using newly generated data. All but the first of these trends have been most pronounced in the most recent decade. The study also examines the relationships among these trends. |
| JEL: | A14 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33731 |
| By: | Daniel J. Benjamin; Kristen B. Cooper; Ori Heffetz; Miles S. Kimball; Tushar Kundu |
| Abstract: | We elicited over a million stated preference choices over 126 dimensions or “aspects” of well-being from a sample of 3, 358 respondents on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Our surveys also collected self-reported well-being (SWB) questions about respondents’ current levels of the aspects of well-being. From the stated preference data, we estimate relative log marginal utilities per point on our 0-100 response scale for each aspect. We validate these estimates by comparing them to alternative methods for estimating preferences. Our findings provide empirical evidence that both complements and challenges philosophical perspectives on human desires and values. Our results support Aristotelian notions of eudaimonia through family relationships and Maslow’s emphasis on basic security needs, yet also suggest that contemporary theories of well-being may overemphasize abstract concepts such as happiness and life satisfaction, while undervaluing concrete aspects such as family well-being, financial security, and health, that respondents place the highest marginal utilities on. We document substantial heterogeneity in preferences across respondents within (but not between) demographic groups, with current SWB levels explaining a significant portion of the variation. |
| JEL: | D12 D90 I31 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33846 |